Help with search syntax on Win7 ...

[Plasma Man]

Hi,

Here is what I need to do:

There are x number of sub-folders in a dir named "_process".
Some of these "_process" folders contain a HD mp4 file (output from video editor).

What would be the search syntax for Explorer Win7 to produce a list of folders (not files!) that contain *.mp4 files that also have "timelapse" as part of file name?

I simply need to drag / move all these folders (that contain these specific mp4 files) into a new folder.

If no go there, can someone suggest a easy to use portable search / file management tool for the job?

Thanks!

[Curt]

You didn't tell a) if there is anything else that you must move together with the video "..timelapse.mp4" file. Nor did you tell b) if the new folder name must be same as the old.

If a=nothing, and b=unimportant, then just type timelapse in the search box, mark all the search results, and right-click one, and click send to FileNanny. It will not move the folders, but the files. But a new folder will be created.

If you need is more advanced, I cannot help you.

[skwire]

If this is something you plan to do on a regular basis, I could write you a bit of AutoHotkey code that would accomplish what you want.

[MilesAhead]

I don't use it this way often, but I believe Everything search you can start the search at a certain folder by using FolderName\searchstring

It's worth a try to see if it does enough to suit your needs as it's generally useful anyway. You can drag and drop folders/files from the results window.

For some reason the latest release only seems to be available from this forum page:
http://forum.voidtoo...c.php?f=2&t=1052

At least I haven't seen a newer release anywhere and it's the one I've been using for quite some time.

[Plasma Man]

You didn't tell a) if there is anything else that you must move together with the video "..timelapse.mp4" file. Nor did you tell b) if the new folder name must be same as the old.

If a=nothing, and b=unimportant, then just type timelapse in the search box, mark all the search results, and right-click one, and click send to FileNanny. It will not move the folders, but the files. But a new folder will be created.

If you need is more advanced, I cannot help you.

-Curt (June 20, 2012, 11:36 AM)

Curt, get these questions all the time ...

Some clarification:

We need to find the folders that contain a file type with a certain file name.

We need to move that group of folders (that contain our search terms) and all their contents to a new parent folder.

In this case, FileNanny is not quite right for the job since it's moving selected files *out* of the existing the folders, where we need the existing folder and all it's contents.

Everyone here can name excellent search / file management tools that can do nearly anything with files ... But the options for working with folders and folder contents - like I've described - seem pretty limited. Btw, I'm no genius with regex but surely it would be possible to cook up something.

If this can be done in Explorer in Win7 - via advanced syntax mojo - then it's just a case of selecting the folders produced in the search results and manually dropping them into a new folder. That would be my preference - no need to call up another tool for the job.

Otherwise, yes, an AHK thingy could automate the entire the process, including creating and naming a new destination folder.

Hope everyone is clear about the process now ...

[MilesAhead]

I think you could do it in Explorer using the search. But you'd need to use a hack, like a drop target that chops off the filename part.

For example if you dropped a bunch of files like c:\temp\readme.txt  c:\tmp\readme.txt onto the target, it should copy the folders c:\temp and c:\tmp.

It's a simple matter of getting the dir part of the path and using FolderCopy or CopyFolder, whatever it's called. The proviso is the code would have to check that a folder for copying is not already in the list. But that's not that difficult.