Can I import an entire folder and sub-folders at once?

I am fairly new to LR and have TONS of files in a main Photo folder on Vista. Some of these files have duplicate names, some were taken with very early gen digital camera as well as newer files with my 40D. But importing each folder and sub folder 1 at a time is going to take a million years. Here is basically what I want to do.
1) Import ALL pics (probably about 6-8 thousand) at once
2) Go through these photos and tag them as well as get rid of the obviously crappy pics that i will never do anything with, kill the dupes
3) Meta tag as many as i can
4) export to a new foler
All files are jpg. Nice memorial day project eh?

I would make some suggestions to your proposed workflow.
Instead of "3) Meta tag as many as i can", I would say assign keywords and captions on all of your photos. Keywords and captions are a very powerful way of organizing, and when well done, they make finding your photos extremely easy. I understand that this takes time and effort, but you will find that the time and effort you put into this pays off well.
If you leave some photos without keywords and captions, how will you find them? I know how ... you will search for 30 minutes and probably say some four-letter words in the process.
Instead of "4) export to a new foler[sic]", don't bother exporting as a regular part of your workflow. Just don't do it! Only export when you need the photos outside of Lightroom, such as for e-mail or uploading or printing at a commercial printer. Otherwise, there is no need for you to take up the disk space with thousands of exported .jpgs.

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How to find out how many items within folder (and sub folders)?

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I cant seem to do it using the info panel. And the standard view tells you how many file items are within the folder you are looking at, but not in the sub and sub sub folders etc.
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I want to automatically import into iPhotos all the new pictures that are added to a given folder and/or its sub-folders.
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Hi gregbul,
I see... hummm I'm sure there is a way, unfortunatly I don't know anything about Script Editing so I have to limit myself to the options provided through Automator, and there doesn't seem to be any way to do what you want in Automator.
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Maybe you can try posting in the AppleScript Forum here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=724
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Hi All,
Being a photographer, I recently jumped from my Dell XPS to the latest MacBook Pro and am still new on the use of Aperture.
Working on PC before then, I used to work a lot on Adobe Bridge to organise my pictures. I now work with Aperture that I find it amazing so far for fast treatment but I have an issue with uploading my photos to the library.
I have set up my full library on my windows explorer following a certain organisation (Folders and subfolders) and would like to upload all these photos on my Aperture library following the same structure. When I try to do so, Aperture just propose me to upload the photos on the folder but not on the subfolders.
Can anyone help about that? I basically need to load all the photos in one shot to my library and can't find out how to do it!
Thanks for your help,
Olivier

Hi, I am also fairly new to Aperture, but I think I got this one right... when I opened Aperture for the first time it did not have a library, and asked me to create one. I selected create new library, and then told it to leave my originals where they were. I selected the option to import folders as projects, and viola, the Aperture library resembled my Windows folder layout. If you delete the library (careful it is not the original files) and then open aperture you also get to start fresh in this way.
This is great until you import new photos into your master folders. To get them to show in Aperture in their folders/projects, you seem to have to download a new project, dash off to the source folders using Finder, reorganise the images and then recreate the library again using the same steps. Works, but long. Also I am not sure then how to manage all the changes I have made using the Vault. Lie I said, I am a beginner also... and seem to be stuck in transition between Windows workflows and Mac workflows...

I was re-naming a folder with many sub folders suddenly Thunderbird did not respond and the folder and sub folders I was re-naming disappeared.

I was re-naming a folder with many sub folders attached, suddenly, Thunderbird did not respond and the folder I was re-naming disappeared along with all the sub folders attached to it. How can I get them back? I am not a computer savvy person. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
[email protected]

Turned out that my anti-virus was doing a scheduled scan and had found a virus in an email attachment in my deleted items folder, thus nothing being able to do during the scan.

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Hmm.... I would have thought that this was a reasonably common problem. If no-one here can help directly, can someone point me to a forum or similar which may be able to help me?
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see above

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I have over 10,000 photos nicely organised in folders and sub folders in Bridge CS3 and want to migrate over to photoshop elements and use their organiser so I have everything in one place. However, when I try to import the photos, it brings them in as individual photos and not in their folders. It seems like I need to recreate a load of albums and then drag and drop the photos into them. I don't have time to recreate hundreds of album names to replicate my system as it is. Is there any way round this or should I be looking at a different system altogether?
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... should I be looking at a different system altogether?
If your entire organizational goals are to continue to use your "nicely organised" folders, then why bother with the PSE Organizer in the first place? You have extra work (must import the photos) and more limitations (must do all photo management inside of the PSE Organizer), and its hard to see any benefit from using the PSE Organizer. You won't achieve any "better organization" than what you have now.
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Coping folder contents and sub folders

So, I'm working on a little practice folder sync project (fun with my mac)...
...and I'v gotten hung up a bit because my little copying app doesn't seem to count folders and sub folders (which I suppose makes sense).
My initial idea was to take just the date of modification and compare it to the last date that the app was run, inorder to only copy changed files. But this seems problematic on a few levels, so...
So, my two part question is:
1. Is there a simple command to copy folder contents and sub-folder contents, or do I need to tell the script to do each sub-folder individually?
2. I imagine that a better way to manage which files/folders need to be updated is to create a file with a list of the contents, and dates of modification, and compare the new folder list and the old folder list to each-other... ok.. so, um. yeah. that sounds tricky.

>1. Is there a simple command to copy folder contents and sub-folder contents, or do I need to tell the script to do each sub-folder individually?
There are two common solutions to this.
The first is to use the Finder's 'entire contents of...' command to get a list of everything in the folder, including sub-folders, the second is to make your script recursive - that is, it calls itself several times over.
In the first case it's as simple as:
tell application "Finder"
set allItems to entire contents of folder "path:to:source:folder:"
-- rest of code goes here
end tell
This can have problems, though, especially on very large directories since the Finder is not very efficient at building a list of hundreds or thousands of files.
The recursive path is a little trickier, but you write a handler to process a folder then repeatedly call that handler, like:
<pre class=command>on run
set sourceFolder to (choose folder)
processAFolder(sourceFolder)
end run
on processAFolder(theFolder)
tell application "Finder"
set allItems to items of folder theFolder as alias list
repeat with eachItem in allItems
if class of eachItem is folder then -- we have a subfolder
processAFolder (eachItem)
else
-- code here to compare the file and back it up
end if
end repeat
end tell
end processAFolder</pre>
So here you walk through the folder, each time you find a new folder, you walk through that until you're done. The code takes care of keeping track of where you are in the folder hierarchy.
>2. I imagine that a better way to manage which files/folders need to be updated is to create a file with a list of the contents, and dates of modification, and compare the new folder list and the old folder list to each-other... ok.. so, um. yeah. that sounds tricky.
There's no need to keep a file. Assuming you have two folders you can just walk through one of them checking to see if each item exists in the other, then copy the newer file to the other directory, like:
<pre class=command>on processAFile(fileName, sourceDir, destDir)
tell application "Finder"
-- check if the files exist
set sourceFileExists to (file fileName of folder sourceDir exists)
set destFileExists to (file fileName of folder destDir exists)
-- now comes the logic
if sourceFileExists and not destFileExsits then
duplicate file fileName of folder sourceDir to folder destDir
else if destFileExists and not sourceFileExists then
-- assuming you want a two-way synch
duplicate file fileName of folder destDir to folder sourceDir
else -- both files exist, so check mod dates
if (modification date of file fileName of folder sourceDir) > (modification date of file fileName of folder destDir) then
duplicate file fileName of folder sourceDir to folder destDir
else if (modification date of file fileName of folder destDir) > (modification date of file fileName of folder sourceDir) then
duplicate file fileName of folder sourceDir to folder destDir
end if
end if
end tell
end processAFile</pre>
If you're not planning a two-way synch an even simpler option is to just keep track of the last time the synch was run. Then all you need to do on subsequent runs is ask the Finder for 'every file of folder sourceFolder whose modification date is greater than lastRunDate'.

Folder and Sub-Folder Batch load Script

What I'm looking for I'm not ever sure is possible, but what I need is a script that will search for predefined sub-folder names within a specific "root" folder and run a script I have to load those images into a Photoshop document found within the root folder. When loading these images, it will also need to place the images into a specific group within the Photoshop document, depending on the sub-folder that contained them. So images in the sub-folder "A" need to be loaded into the group "A" in the Photoshop document, images in sub-folder "B" into group "B" and so-on. The number and name of images within the sub-folders are, however, random; so this would also need to be accounted for. Additionally, if possible, I would like the script to ask the user to locate this root folder each time before proceeding; otherwise, if not possible, a static folder location can also be used. Thanks for any help!
dgolberg

Profile-mismatches as in: When the container document and the image to be placed are of different Color Spaces (different ICC-profiles).
Could you give this a try (on a copy of your files naturally); it places as Smart Objects (depending on your Photoshop > Preferences > General settings), but you could always rasterize after the import or chenge the preference in the Scripts and reset it at the end:
// place png-files from a folder and its contained folders with groups to represent those in jpg-files;
// 2011, use it at your own risk;
#target photoshop
// select folder;
var theFolder = Folder.selectDialog ("select folder");
if (theFolder) {
// get the jpgs;
var theJpgs = getJpgFiles(theFolder);
// iterate through the jpg files;
for (var m = 0; m < theJpgs.length; m++) {
var theDoc = app.open(new File(theJpgs[m]));
// thanks to xbytor;
var theName = theDoc.name.match(/(.*)\.[^\.]+$/)[1];
// place the png-files in groups coresponding to the folders;
placeFolderFiles(theFolder, theDoc, theName)
////// ceck for jpgs //////
function checkJpg (theFile) {
    if (theFile.name.match(/\.(jpg)$/i)) {
        return true
////// ceck for pngs //////
function checkPng (theFile) {
    if (theFile.name.match(/\.(png)$/i)) {
        return true
////// place //////
function placeScaleFile (file, xOffset, yOffset, theScale) {
// =======================================================
var idPlc = charIDToTypeID( "Plc " );
    var desc5 = new ActionDescriptor();
    var idnull = charIDToTypeID( "null" );
    desc5.putPath( idnull, new File( file ) );
    var idFTcs = charIDToTypeID( "FTcs" );
    var idQCSt = charIDToTypeID( "QCSt" );
    var idQcsa = charIDToTypeID( "Qcsa" );
    desc5.putEnumerated( idFTcs, idQCSt, idQcsa );
    var idOfst = charIDToTypeID( "Ofst" );
        var desc6 = new ActionDescriptor();
        var idHrzn = charIDToTypeID( "Hrzn" );
        var idPxl = charIDToTypeID( "#Pxl" );
        desc6.putUnitDouble( idHrzn, idPxl, xOffset );
        var idVrtc = charIDToTypeID( "Vrtc" );
        var idPxl = charIDToTypeID( "#Pxl" );
        desc6.putUnitDouble( idVrtc, idPxl, yOffset );
    var idOfst = charIDToTypeID( "Ofst" );
    desc5.putObject( idOfst, idOfst, desc6 );
    var idWdth = charIDToTypeID( "Wdth" );
    var idPrc = charIDToTypeID( "#Prc" );
    desc5.putUnitDouble( idWdth, idPrc, theScale );
    var idHght = charIDToTypeID( "Hght" );
    var idPrc = charIDToTypeID( "#Prc" );
    desc5.putUnitDouble( idHght, idPrc, theScale );
    var idLnkd = charIDToTypeID( "Lnkd" );
    desc5.putBoolean( idLnkd, true );
executeAction( idPlc, desc5, DialogModes.NO );
return app.activeDocument.activeLayer;
////// place images in folder and contained folders //////
function placeFolderFiles (theFolder, theContainer, theName) {
          var theContent = theFolder.getFiles();
          for (var n = theContent.length - 1; n >= 0; n--) {
                    var theObject = theContent[n];
                    if (theObject.constructor.name == "Folder") {
                              var aFolder = theContainer.layerSets.add();
                              aFolder.name = Folder(theContent[n]).name;
                              placeFolderFiles(theObject, aFolder, theName)
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                              var theLayer = placeScaleFile(theObject, 0, 0, 100);
                              theLayer.name = File(theObject).name;
                              theLayer.move(theContainer, ElementPlacement.PLACEATBEGINNING)
////// place images in folder and contained folders //////
function getJpgFiles (theFolder) {
          if (!theArray) {var theArray = new Array};
          var theContent = theFolder.getFiles();
          for (var n = theContent.length - 1; n >= 0; n--) {
                    var theObject = theContent[n];
                    if (theObject.constructor.name == "Folder") {
                              theArray = theArray.concat(getJpgFiles(theObject))
                    if (checkJpg(theObject) == true) {
                              theArray.push(theObject)
          return theArray

Jsp code (js code) to display(tree) the files and sub folders in a folder

Hi all
plz can any one send me the source in jsp or js to display in tree structure for files and sub folders in a folder.

There are dozens of Javascript tree widgets available on the Internet. Some are free. Some are good. Google will find them for you.
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I am struggling! Help! I need to move 3500 pics-in TIFF format in 175 folders and sub folders from my old PSE6, Windows XP to my new PSE13, Windows8.1. I have the PSE6 backed up on an external hard drive. What is the safe way to do this? Can anyone at Ado

I am struggling! Help! I need to move 3500 pics-in TIFF format in 175 folders and sub folders from my old PSE6, Windows XP to my new PSE13, Windows8.1. I have the PSE6 backed up on an external hard drive. What is the safe way to do this? Can anyone at Adobe help me? Please?

Use the Organizer backup & restore method, starting the restore from the TLY file. Probably best to use a custom location as the XP file structure will be different. See this link for further help:
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/backup-restore-move-catalog-photoshop.html

Can you create a new folder and put several documents in it in Adobe?

Can you create a new folder and put several documents in it in Adobe?

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How can i open the directory/folder and read all the files inside it in order and then close it?

How can i open the directory/folder and read all the files inside it in order and then close it? any example would be nice.
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In the File I/O>>Advanced File Functions Palette is a function named "List directory". This function will give you two arrays. One contains the names of all subdirectories the other the names of all files. If you want to sort them by name use the array sort function. If you want to sort them by another attribute use the File/Directory Info function to get more data. Use a cluster which contains the attribut to sort and the original index of the name. Then sort this array.
Waldemar
Waldemar
Using 7.1.1, 8.5.1, 8.6.1, 2009 on XP and RT
Don't forget to give Kudos to good answers and/or questions

Can I import an entire folder and sub-folders at once?

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