How Do I Combine The Contents Of Folders That Contain Files With The Same Filenames?
Hello, I'd like to combine the contents of a few folders; however, some file names are the same, therefore, I can't add them all together. Is there a way to "automatically" rename the files so that they can all share the same folder space? I don't want to go inside each folder and change the name of files one by one!
There is a way to do this automatically, and surprisingly the tool that can do it is Aperture. The files do have to be image files that Aperture can read.
Here is a folder structure with two folders that contain different images with the same name, Mud.jpg:
I'll move these two images into a single folder in such a way that the names don't clash.
The first step is to import my two folders, Monday and Tuesday, one at a time, into the same Aperture project.
First I create a new project called Temp, then select it and press command I to bring up the Import pane. At the top of the import window I select the first image folder:
And make sure that the import is going to the right place:
Then I select a referenced import that leaves the files in their current location. This is an important step -- I don't want to move the files yet:
After performing the import, my Temp project has the images from the Monday folder, just one in this case, but it could be thousands. Here is the image in the project with the badge that tells me it is referenced:
Next I do another import into Temp using the Tuesday folder, making sure that I import referenced again. I could repeat this with many more folders of images if I wanted, all with clashing image names.
To combine the folders, I relocate the images in the Temp project to another part of the disk, in this case a folder called All Mud. I control-click on the Temp project and select Relocate masters for Project...:
And provide the destination folder in the dialog. I don't need any subfolders and I don't want to rename the files in any special way, so I select None and Master Filename from the pop-ups:
The relocation of the files is fast because they don't have to be copied if they are being moved into a folder on the same disk, as is the case here.
Once the relocation is complete, I see that the original Mud folder is now empty:
And the All Mud folder has the images:
Aperture renames with numbers in brackets; there is no choice about that. Not only are the masters in the same folder, but they are already imported into Aperture. I am done. If at any time I want to store then as managed masters in the Aperture library I can use the consolidate function of Aperture to do this.
There is a way to do this automatically, and surprisingly the tool that can do it is Aperture. The files do have to be image files that Aperture can read.
Here is a folder structure with two folders that contain different images with the same name, Mud.jpg:
I'll move these two images into a single folder in such a way that the names don't clash.
The first step is to import my two folders, Monday and Tuesday, one at a time, into the same Aperture project.
First I create a new project called Temp, then select it and press command I to bring up the Import pane. At the top of the import window I select the first image folder:
And make sure that the import is going to the right place:
Then I select a referenced import that leaves the files in their current location. This is an important step -- I don't want to move the files yet:
After performing the import, my Temp project has the images from the Monday folder, just one in this case, but it could be thousands. Here is the image in the project with the badge that tells me it is referenced:
Next I do another import into Temp using the Tuesday folder, making sure that I import referenced again. I could repeat this with many more folders of images if I wanted, all with clashing image names.
To combine the folders, I relocate the images in the Temp project to another part of the disk, in this case a folder called All Mud. I control-click on the Temp project and select Relocate masters for Project...:
And provide the destination folder in the dialog. I don't need any subfolders and I don't want to rename the files in any special way, so I select None and Master Filename from the pop-ups:
The relocation of the files is fast because they don't have to be copied if they are being moved into a folder on the same disk, as is the case here.
Once the relocation is complete, I see that the original Mud folder is now empty:
And the All Mud folder has the images:
Aperture renames with numbers in brackets; there is no choice about that. Not only are the masters in the same folder, but they are already imported into Aperture. I am done. If at any time I want to store then as managed masters in the Aperture library I can use the consolidate function of Aperture to do this.
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