Personal Media File Management

My digital photography and video files are saved in multiple devices, What can I do, how to organize in one location and manage! Let us see how I got there.

Files are stored in different folders, same file name is used in different location.

Step-1: Rename files and move them in <yyyy> and under subfolder <yyyy_mm> by month

Challenge: Duplicate media file names.

Written a VBScript to rename files in current folder based on date and timestamp <yyyymmdd_hhmmss>. If wants to execute the script in multiple folders, used an input file with folder names to execute (didn't want to execute the logic in every folder).

For duplicate filenames, additional suffix is added like <space>(n) in file name.

Executed the batch in all media file devices (USB drive, Laptop, etc..)

Step-2: Consolidation.

Used "Beyond compare" (http://www.scootersoftware.com/) tool to analyze folders in different devices and to ensure all files are copied in one place, to my Laptop. For e.g. photos consolidated to C:\photos\<yyyy>\<yyyy_mm> and videos under C:\videos\<yyyy>\<yyyy_mm>.

If you don't want to buy licensed software you can use Robocopy command line tool.

Step-3: Remove duplicates

Challenge: Eliminate duplicates files in a folder based on filesize and binary comparison.

SearchMyFile Utility: http://www.nirsoft.net/articles/find_duplicate_files.html
Freeware like "searchMyFiles" can scan for duplicate files by filesize and automatically carry out binary comparison on duplicate files. The duplicate file information can then be copied into Excel and generate your own script to move duplicate files into a temp folder or delete.

Easy Duplicate Finder: http://www.easyduplicatefinder.com/
Free version of the tool, scans for duplicate files and review the contents as you scroll. Just to spot check!  

Wow.. Too many steps. I know, I know.. I don't have time to write everything in a program.

This article is meant for techies. If you want any of my VBS codes, reach out to me. Love to hear from you!

by செ.குமார்