Move files from subfolders












1















I've been beating my head against this for a while, but I'm really not a good script writer. Apologies...



I'm running Ubuntu/gnome 18.10, and have a large set of pictures exported from my wifey's mac. The directory structure is:



year1
(login dir name with spaces) - Month
Image names
year2
...


as in:



2013
May 4, 2013
Image1.jpg
Image2.jpg
May 5, 2013
Image 1.jpg
Image 3.jpg
June 22, 2013


What I would like, is:



2013
January
All the "january" images...
February
All the...


I can create the directories easily enough mkdir {January..December} suffices. But I cannot figure out how to walk the ugly directory tree (exported from Mac), move the images, and then delete the ugly directory.










share|improve this question

























  • I'd want to rename the images first, probably adding the full date, otherwise it looks like they'll overwrite each other if moved to a common directory. If the file's dates match their folder's dates that might be easier than using the file's path..

    – Xen2050
    Jan 16 at 23:14











  • @Xen2050 Thanks - the file naming has changed over the years as cameras were bought and destroyed... but I think I have a fairly elegant solution. It unfortunately does not advance my knowledge of scripting... exiftool '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m-%B/%f%%-c.%%e . -r -> it's almost perfect, except for some .mov files which do not have exif data

    – Charles Green
    Jan 17 at 0:28


















1















I've been beating my head against this for a while, but I'm really not a good script writer. Apologies...



I'm running Ubuntu/gnome 18.10, and have a large set of pictures exported from my wifey's mac. The directory structure is:



year1
(login dir name with spaces) - Month
Image names
year2
...


as in:



2013
May 4, 2013
Image1.jpg
Image2.jpg
May 5, 2013
Image 1.jpg
Image 3.jpg
June 22, 2013


What I would like, is:



2013
January
All the "january" images...
February
All the...


I can create the directories easily enough mkdir {January..December} suffices. But I cannot figure out how to walk the ugly directory tree (exported from Mac), move the images, and then delete the ugly directory.










share|improve this question

























  • I'd want to rename the images first, probably adding the full date, otherwise it looks like they'll overwrite each other if moved to a common directory. If the file's dates match their folder's dates that might be easier than using the file's path..

    – Xen2050
    Jan 16 at 23:14











  • @Xen2050 Thanks - the file naming has changed over the years as cameras were bought and destroyed... but I think I have a fairly elegant solution. It unfortunately does not advance my knowledge of scripting... exiftool '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m-%B/%f%%-c.%%e . -r -> it's almost perfect, except for some .mov files which do not have exif data

    – Charles Green
    Jan 17 at 0:28
















1












1








1


1






I've been beating my head against this for a while, but I'm really not a good script writer. Apologies...



I'm running Ubuntu/gnome 18.10, and have a large set of pictures exported from my wifey's mac. The directory structure is:



year1
(login dir name with spaces) - Month
Image names
year2
...


as in:



2013
May 4, 2013
Image1.jpg
Image2.jpg
May 5, 2013
Image 1.jpg
Image 3.jpg
June 22, 2013


What I would like, is:



2013
January
All the "january" images...
February
All the...


I can create the directories easily enough mkdir {January..December} suffices. But I cannot figure out how to walk the ugly directory tree (exported from Mac), move the images, and then delete the ugly directory.










share|improve this question
















I've been beating my head against this for a while, but I'm really not a good script writer. Apologies...



I'm running Ubuntu/gnome 18.10, and have a large set of pictures exported from my wifey's mac. The directory structure is:



year1
(login dir name with spaces) - Month
Image names
year2
...


as in:



2013
May 4, 2013
Image1.jpg
Image2.jpg
May 5, 2013
Image 1.jpg
Image 3.jpg
June 22, 2013


What I would like, is:



2013
January
All the "january" images...
February
All the...


I can create the directories easily enough mkdir {January..December} suffices. But I cannot figure out how to walk the ugly directory tree (exported from Mac), move the images, and then delete the ugly directory.







command-line bash






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 2 days ago









pa4080

13.7k52564




13.7k52564










asked Jan 16 at 17:59









Charles GreenCharles Green

13.1k73657




13.1k73657













  • I'd want to rename the images first, probably adding the full date, otherwise it looks like they'll overwrite each other if moved to a common directory. If the file's dates match their folder's dates that might be easier than using the file's path..

    – Xen2050
    Jan 16 at 23:14











  • @Xen2050 Thanks - the file naming has changed over the years as cameras were bought and destroyed... but I think I have a fairly elegant solution. It unfortunately does not advance my knowledge of scripting... exiftool '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m-%B/%f%%-c.%%e . -r -> it's almost perfect, except for some .mov files which do not have exif data

    – Charles Green
    Jan 17 at 0:28





















  • I'd want to rename the images first, probably adding the full date, otherwise it looks like they'll overwrite each other if moved to a common directory. If the file's dates match their folder's dates that might be easier than using the file's path..

    – Xen2050
    Jan 16 at 23:14











  • @Xen2050 Thanks - the file naming has changed over the years as cameras were bought and destroyed... but I think I have a fairly elegant solution. It unfortunately does not advance my knowledge of scripting... exiftool '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m-%B/%f%%-c.%%e . -r -> it's almost perfect, except for some .mov files which do not have exif data

    – Charles Green
    Jan 17 at 0:28



















I'd want to rename the images first, probably adding the full date, otherwise it looks like they'll overwrite each other if moved to a common directory. If the file's dates match their folder's dates that might be easier than using the file's path..

– Xen2050
Jan 16 at 23:14





I'd want to rename the images first, probably adding the full date, otherwise it looks like they'll overwrite each other if moved to a common directory. If the file's dates match their folder's dates that might be easier than using the file's path..

– Xen2050
Jan 16 at 23:14













@Xen2050 Thanks - the file naming has changed over the years as cameras were bought and destroyed... but I think I have a fairly elegant solution. It unfortunately does not advance my knowledge of scripting... exiftool '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m-%B/%f%%-c.%%e . -r -> it's almost perfect, except for some .mov files which do not have exif data

– Charles Green
Jan 17 at 0:28







@Xen2050 Thanks - the file naming has changed over the years as cameras were bought and destroyed... but I think I have a fairly elegant solution. It unfortunately does not advance my knowledge of scripting... exiftool '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d %Y/%m-%B/%f%%-c.%%e . -r -> it's almost perfect, except for some .mov files which do not have exif data

– Charles Green
Jan 17 at 0:28












3 Answers
3






active

oldest

votes


















1














Here is such script:





#!/bin/bash

# The destination where the new directory structure will be created
DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

# Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
for year in */
do
cd "$year"
# Walk through the months of the year
for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
do
# Walk through the second level directories
for dir in */
do
# If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
# go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
then
cd "$dir"
dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
mkdir -p "$dest"
find . -type f | while IFS= read -r item
do
# Copy the files to the new destination and
# add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
filename=$(basename -- "$item")
extn="${filename##*.}"
name="${filename%.*}"
cp "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
done
cd ..
fi
done
done
cd ..
done


The script should be executed in the first level directory where your images are located. You should tweak the destination directory - DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/". This version of the script relies that all files are in directories that contain the name of a month in one way or another. Example of usage:



user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
.
├── 2013
│   ├── January 17, 2013
│   │   ├── Image1.jpg
│   │   └── Image 3.jpg
│   ├── January 24, 2013
│   │   └── Image2.jpg
│   ├── January 25, 2013
│   │   └── Image 3.jpg
│   ├── June 22, 2013
│   │   └── image1.jpg
│   ├── May 4, 2013
│   │   └── Image1.jpg
│   └── May 5, 2013
│   ├── Image1.jpg
│   └── Image 2.jpg
└── 2014
├── January 17, 2014
│   ├── Image1.jpg
│   └── Image 3.jpg
├── January 24, 2014
│   └── Image2.jpg
├── January 25, 2014
│   └── Image 3.jpg
└── May 5
├── Image1.jpg
└── Image 2.jpg

12 directories, 14 files


user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh


user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
/tmp/new-order-pictures/
├── 2013
│   ├── Jan
│   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
│   │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
│   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
│   │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
│   ├── Jun
│   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
│   └── May
│   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
│   ├── Image1-a66c5863e6986605cb2ca6d622ae72a0.jpg
│   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
└── 2014
├── Jan
│   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
│   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
│   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
│   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
└── May
├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
└── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg

7 directories, 14 files


In my case the script is named order.sh and it is located in ~/bin, thus I can use it as shell command. In the example you can see the directory structure is changed but the number of files is 14 in both structures.





Here is another version of the script that use mv instead of cp and will deal also with the files which are not in directories that contain the name of a month. Before running this script it is a good idea to create a backup copy of the original directory structure.



#!/bin/bash

# The destination where the new directory structure will be created
DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

# Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
for year in */
do

cd "$year"

# Walk through the months of the year
for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
do
# Walk through the second level directories
for dir in */
do
# If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
# go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
then

cd "$dir"
dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
mkdir -p "$dest"

while IFS= read -r item
do
# Copy the files to the new destination and
# add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
filename=$(basename -- "$item")
extn="${filename##*.}"
name="${filename%.*}"
mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
done < <(find . -type f)

cd ..

fi

done

done

# Dial with the rest of the files for that $year

dest="${DEST}${year}other"

while IFS= read -r item
do
mkdir -p "$dest"
filename=$(basename -- "$item")
extn="${filename##*.}"
name="${filename%.*}"
mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
done < <(find . -type f)

cd ..

done


Example of usage:



user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
.
├── 2013
│   ├── January 17, 2013
│   │   ├── Image1.jpg
│   │   ├── Image 3.jpg
│   │   └── video 7.mpg
│   ├── January 25, 2013
│   │   └── Image 3.jpg
│   ├── June 22, 2013
│   │   └── image1.jpg
│   └── May 5, 2013
│   ├── Image1.jpg
│   └── Image 2.jpg
└── 2014
├── Apr 7
│   ├── Image1.jpg
│   └── Image 2.jpg
├── Image 2.jpg
├── January 11, 2014
│   ├── Image1.jpg
│   └── Image 3.jpg
├── some other name
│   └── some other name file inside.jpg
├── some other name file inside.jpg
└── video 1.avi

9 directories, 15 files

user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh

user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
/tmp/new-order-pictures/
├── 2013
│   ├── Jan
│   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
│   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
│   │   ├── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
│   │   └── video 7-86764d9565469adfb22c8ef4f0b9c04f.mpg
│   ├── Jun
│   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
│   └── May
│   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
│   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
└── 2014
├── Apr
│   ├── Image1-3c19da25e0e56ef0fc752a9e4f75b190.jpg
│   └── Image 2-dcc35e86de393a014ac62e8c4390c7e6.jpg
├── Jan
│   ├── Image1-ae34289b0bc5258f286165745ff3c258.jpg
│   └── Image 3-1724adf2dfcc1d4a0dc50cb38ad2c510.jpg
└── other
├── Image 2-eff5208f7eee6a536e48f9982b918dfb.jpg
├── some other name file inside-7d0a68e0b4e9cc3928744cb83f4d1136.jpg
├── some other name file inside-c2dd637e94a9025c3e1004d66f59539c.jpg
└── video 1-c277d93a2427bedf3f0b8ae07427edb9.avi

8 directories, 15 files


After that you can go inside the destination directory and use the rename command within for loop to deal with the long names:



# For each directory on the second level
for dir in */*
do
cd "$dir"
rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *
cd ..
cd ..
done


Example:



user@host:~/Pictures$ cd /tmp/new-order-pictures/

user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ for dir in */*; do cd "$dir"; rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *; cd ..; cd ..; done

user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ tree .
.
├── 2013
│   ├── Jan
│   │   ├── Image-001.jpg
│   │   ├── Image-002.jpg
│   │   ├── Image-003.jpg
│   │   └── Image-004.mpg
│   ├── Jun
│   │   └── Image-001.jpg
│   └── May
│   ├── Image-001.jpg
│   └── Image-002.jpg
└── 2014
├── Apr
│   ├── Image-001.jpg
│   └── Image-002.jpg
├── Jan
│   ├── Image-001.jpg
│   └── Image-002.jpg
└── other
├── Image-001.jpg
├── Image-002.jpg
├── Image-003.jpg
└── Image-004.avi

8 directories, 15 files


Or you can change (.[0-9a-zA-Z]+) with (.jpg), then on next iteration with (.mpg) (respectively Image- with Video-), etc. References about this usage of rename:




  • How to rename multiple files sequentially from command line?


  • Renaming hundreds of files at once for proper sorting







share|improve this answer


























  • Thanks! I think this is really close to what I asked for, and I'll have to scour the web looking for shell expansions et al...

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago











  • Hi, @CharlesGreen, I"ve updated the answer with few more ideas. Sorry for the long answer and the lack of explanations inside... if you need clarifications about some parts, please ping me :)

    – pa4080
    2 days ago











  • No problem at all - I really am looking to use this more as a reason to learn some shell scripting. I did in fact find a single line command which does exactly what I need!

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago











  • @CharlesGreen: Nice! It will be worth to write an answer.

    – pa4080
    2 days ago











  • I can certainly share the command, and will add it later. But your command answered a deeper question in prompting me to learn more about scripting

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago



















2














There is an application which can move and rename the files in a single command line - exiftool



sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl


In my case, the specific command line used was



exiftool  '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


or



exiftool  '-FileName<CreateDate' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


depending upon which tag is present in the images. If the requested tag is not present, the application throws a warning and does not move that file, but continues processing. This application also handles multiple images with the same date/time by appending a numeric to the end of the filename.



I did have several images without exif data, and I was able to add exif data to the images with the command



exiftool -createdate='2011:12:04 12:00:00' * -overwrite_original


As an example, I placed some images in a directory ~/aa/test1 and ran the tool, placing the output in ~/aa/test2. The results are below:



chick@dad:~/aa$ tree .
.
├── test1
│   ├── DSC00018.JPG
│   ├── DSC00022.JPG
│   ├── DSC00024.JPG
│   ├── DSC00025.JPG
│   ├── DSC00026.JPG
│   ├── DSC00028.JPG
│   ├── DSC00031.JPG
│   ├── DSC00033.JPG
│   └── Thumbs.db
└── test2
└── 2000
└── 12-December
├── 20001222_185523.JPG
├── 20001222_200726.JPG
├── 20001222_200819.JPG
├── 20001222_201205.JPG
├── 20001222_201223.JPG
├── 20001222_210536.JPG
├── 20001222_211858.JPG
└── 20001222_215950.JPG





share|improve this answer
























  • Superb! You may accept this answer, because of its simplicity :) Yesterday when I made the last edit on my answer, I realized rename can be used in similar way as it is made here, but I do not have time to elaborate.

    – pa4080
    yesterday








  • 1





    @pa4080 But I still like your answer, because it will cause me to work seeper into scripting...!

    – Charles Green
    yesterday



















0














So, I assume you want a step-by-step and simple solution.
First, I would address the problem of Whitespace and comma in the folders.
I would first cd into the year folder and use rename to first remove Whitespace



rename "s/ //g" *


Similarly, remove comma



rename "s/,//g" * 


Now that I have all the folders as desired I would create a month based list using



ls | grep "January" > January.txt


Now make folder "January"



mkdir January


Then loop thru the list using xargs to copy their contents



cat January.txt | xargs -I {} cp -R {}/. ./January/





share|improve this answer























    Your Answer








    StackExchange.ready(function() {
    var channelOptions = {
    tags: "".split(" "),
    id: "89"
    };
    initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

    StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
    // Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
    if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
    StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
    createEditor();
    });
    }
    else {
    createEditor();
    }
    });

    function createEditor() {
    StackExchange.prepareEditor({
    heartbeatType: 'answer',
    autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
    convertImagesToLinks: true,
    noModals: true,
    showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
    reputationToPostImages: 10,
    bindNavPrevention: true,
    postfix: "",
    imageUploader: {
    brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
    contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
    allowUrls: true
    },
    onDemand: true,
    discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
    ,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
    });


    }
    });














    draft saved

    draft discarded


















    StackExchange.ready(
    function () {
    StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2faskubuntu.com%2fquestions%2f1110359%2fmove-files-from-subfolders%23new-answer', 'question_page');
    }
    );

    Post as a guest















    Required, but never shown

























    3 Answers
    3






    active

    oldest

    votes








    3 Answers
    3






    active

    oldest

    votes









    active

    oldest

    votes






    active

    oldest

    votes









    1














    Here is such script:





    #!/bin/bash

    # The destination where the new directory structure will be created
    DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

    MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

    # Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
    for year in */
    do
    cd "$year"
    # Walk through the months of the year
    for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
    do
    # Walk through the second level directories
    for dir in */
    do
    # If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
    # go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
    if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
    then
    cd "$dir"
    dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
    mkdir -p "$dest"
    find . -type f | while IFS= read -r item
    do
    # Copy the files to the new destination and
    # add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    cp "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done
    cd ..
    fi
    done
    done
    cd ..
    done


    The script should be executed in the first level directory where your images are located. You should tweak the destination directory - DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/". This version of the script relies that all files are in directories that contain the name of a month in one way or another. Example of usage:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── January 17, 2013
    │   │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── January 24, 2013
    │   │   └── Image2.jpg
    │   ├── January 25, 2013
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── June 22, 2013
    │   │   └── image1.jpg
    │   ├── May 4, 2013
    │   │   └── Image1.jpg
    │   └── May 5, 2013
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── January 17, 2014
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    ├── January 24, 2014
    │   └── Image2.jpg
    ├── January 25, 2014
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    └── May 5
    ├── Image1.jpg
    └── Image 2.jpg

    12 directories, 14 files


    user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh


    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    │   ├── Image1-a66c5863e6986605cb2ca6d622ae72a0.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
    │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    └── May
    ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg

    7 directories, 14 files


    In my case the script is named order.sh and it is located in ~/bin, thus I can use it as shell command. In the example you can see the directory structure is changed but the number of files is 14 in both structures.





    Here is another version of the script that use mv instead of cp and will deal also with the files which are not in directories that contain the name of a month. Before running this script it is a good idea to create a backup copy of the original directory structure.



    #!/bin/bash

    # The destination where the new directory structure will be created
    DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

    MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

    # Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
    for year in */
    do

    cd "$year"

    # Walk through the months of the year
    for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
    do
    # Walk through the second level directories
    for dir in */
    do
    # If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
    # go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
    if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
    then

    cd "$dir"
    dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
    mkdir -p "$dest"

    while IFS= read -r item
    do
    # Copy the files to the new destination and
    # add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done < <(find . -type f)

    cd ..

    fi

    done

    done

    # Dial with the rest of the files for that $year

    dest="${DEST}${year}other"

    while IFS= read -r item
    do
    mkdir -p "$dest"
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done < <(find . -type f)

    cd ..

    done


    Example of usage:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── January 17, 2013
    │   │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3.jpg
    │   │   └── video 7.mpg
    │   ├── January 25, 2013
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── June 22, 2013
    │   │   └── image1.jpg
    │   └── May 5, 2013
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr 7
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    ├── Image 2.jpg
    ├── January 11, 2014
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    ├── some other name
    │   └── some other name file inside.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside.jpg
    └── video 1.avi

    9 directories, 15 files

    user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh

    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    │   │   └── video 7-86764d9565469adfb22c8ef4f0b9c04f.mpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr
    │   ├── Image1-3c19da25e0e56ef0fc752a9e4f75b190.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-dcc35e86de393a014ac62e8c4390c7e6.jpg
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image1-ae34289b0bc5258f286165745ff3c258.jpg
    │   └── Image 3-1724adf2dfcc1d4a0dc50cb38ad2c510.jpg
    └── other
    ├── Image 2-eff5208f7eee6a536e48f9982b918dfb.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside-7d0a68e0b4e9cc3928744cb83f4d1136.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside-c2dd637e94a9025c3e1004d66f59539c.jpg
    └── video 1-c277d93a2427bedf3f0b8ae07427edb9.avi

    8 directories, 15 files


    After that you can go inside the destination directory and use the rename command within for loop to deal with the long names:



    # For each directory on the second level
    for dir in */*
    do
    cd "$dir"
    rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *
    cd ..
    cd ..
    done


    Example:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ cd /tmp/new-order-pictures/

    user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ for dir in */*; do cd "$dir"; rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *; cd ..; cd ..; done

    user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image-002.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image-003.jpg
    │   │   └── Image-004.mpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    └── other
    ├── Image-001.jpg
    ├── Image-002.jpg
    ├── Image-003.jpg
    └── Image-004.avi

    8 directories, 15 files


    Or you can change (.[0-9a-zA-Z]+) with (.jpg), then on next iteration with (.mpg) (respectively Image- with Video-), etc. References about this usage of rename:




    • How to rename multiple files sequentially from command line?


    • Renaming hundreds of files at once for proper sorting







    share|improve this answer


























    • Thanks! I think this is really close to what I asked for, and I'll have to scour the web looking for shell expansions et al...

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago











    • Hi, @CharlesGreen, I"ve updated the answer with few more ideas. Sorry for the long answer and the lack of explanations inside... if you need clarifications about some parts, please ping me :)

      – pa4080
      2 days ago











    • No problem at all - I really am looking to use this more as a reason to learn some shell scripting. I did in fact find a single line command which does exactly what I need!

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago











    • @CharlesGreen: Nice! It will be worth to write an answer.

      – pa4080
      2 days ago











    • I can certainly share the command, and will add it later. But your command answered a deeper question in prompting me to learn more about scripting

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago
















    1














    Here is such script:





    #!/bin/bash

    # The destination where the new directory structure will be created
    DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

    MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

    # Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
    for year in */
    do
    cd "$year"
    # Walk through the months of the year
    for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
    do
    # Walk through the second level directories
    for dir in */
    do
    # If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
    # go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
    if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
    then
    cd "$dir"
    dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
    mkdir -p "$dest"
    find . -type f | while IFS= read -r item
    do
    # Copy the files to the new destination and
    # add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    cp "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done
    cd ..
    fi
    done
    done
    cd ..
    done


    The script should be executed in the first level directory where your images are located. You should tweak the destination directory - DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/". This version of the script relies that all files are in directories that contain the name of a month in one way or another. Example of usage:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── January 17, 2013
    │   │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── January 24, 2013
    │   │   └── Image2.jpg
    │   ├── January 25, 2013
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── June 22, 2013
    │   │   └── image1.jpg
    │   ├── May 4, 2013
    │   │   └── Image1.jpg
    │   └── May 5, 2013
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── January 17, 2014
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    ├── January 24, 2014
    │   └── Image2.jpg
    ├── January 25, 2014
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    └── May 5
    ├── Image1.jpg
    └── Image 2.jpg

    12 directories, 14 files


    user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh


    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    │   ├── Image1-a66c5863e6986605cb2ca6d622ae72a0.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
    │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    └── May
    ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg

    7 directories, 14 files


    In my case the script is named order.sh and it is located in ~/bin, thus I can use it as shell command. In the example you can see the directory structure is changed but the number of files is 14 in both structures.





    Here is another version of the script that use mv instead of cp and will deal also with the files which are not in directories that contain the name of a month. Before running this script it is a good idea to create a backup copy of the original directory structure.



    #!/bin/bash

    # The destination where the new directory structure will be created
    DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

    MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

    # Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
    for year in */
    do

    cd "$year"

    # Walk through the months of the year
    for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
    do
    # Walk through the second level directories
    for dir in */
    do
    # If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
    # go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
    if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
    then

    cd "$dir"
    dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
    mkdir -p "$dest"

    while IFS= read -r item
    do
    # Copy the files to the new destination and
    # add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done < <(find . -type f)

    cd ..

    fi

    done

    done

    # Dial with the rest of the files for that $year

    dest="${DEST}${year}other"

    while IFS= read -r item
    do
    mkdir -p "$dest"
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done < <(find . -type f)

    cd ..

    done


    Example of usage:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── January 17, 2013
    │   │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3.jpg
    │   │   └── video 7.mpg
    │   ├── January 25, 2013
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── June 22, 2013
    │   │   └── image1.jpg
    │   └── May 5, 2013
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr 7
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    ├── Image 2.jpg
    ├── January 11, 2014
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    ├── some other name
    │   └── some other name file inside.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside.jpg
    └── video 1.avi

    9 directories, 15 files

    user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh

    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    │   │   └── video 7-86764d9565469adfb22c8ef4f0b9c04f.mpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr
    │   ├── Image1-3c19da25e0e56ef0fc752a9e4f75b190.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-dcc35e86de393a014ac62e8c4390c7e6.jpg
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image1-ae34289b0bc5258f286165745ff3c258.jpg
    │   └── Image 3-1724adf2dfcc1d4a0dc50cb38ad2c510.jpg
    └── other
    ├── Image 2-eff5208f7eee6a536e48f9982b918dfb.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside-7d0a68e0b4e9cc3928744cb83f4d1136.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside-c2dd637e94a9025c3e1004d66f59539c.jpg
    └── video 1-c277d93a2427bedf3f0b8ae07427edb9.avi

    8 directories, 15 files


    After that you can go inside the destination directory and use the rename command within for loop to deal with the long names:



    # For each directory on the second level
    for dir in */*
    do
    cd "$dir"
    rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *
    cd ..
    cd ..
    done


    Example:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ cd /tmp/new-order-pictures/

    user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ for dir in */*; do cd "$dir"; rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *; cd ..; cd ..; done

    user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image-002.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image-003.jpg
    │   │   └── Image-004.mpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    └── other
    ├── Image-001.jpg
    ├── Image-002.jpg
    ├── Image-003.jpg
    └── Image-004.avi

    8 directories, 15 files


    Or you can change (.[0-9a-zA-Z]+) with (.jpg), then on next iteration with (.mpg) (respectively Image- with Video-), etc. References about this usage of rename:




    • How to rename multiple files sequentially from command line?


    • Renaming hundreds of files at once for proper sorting







    share|improve this answer


























    • Thanks! I think this is really close to what I asked for, and I'll have to scour the web looking for shell expansions et al...

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago











    • Hi, @CharlesGreen, I"ve updated the answer with few more ideas. Sorry for the long answer and the lack of explanations inside... if you need clarifications about some parts, please ping me :)

      – pa4080
      2 days ago











    • No problem at all - I really am looking to use this more as a reason to learn some shell scripting. I did in fact find a single line command which does exactly what I need!

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago











    • @CharlesGreen: Nice! It will be worth to write an answer.

      – pa4080
      2 days ago











    • I can certainly share the command, and will add it later. But your command answered a deeper question in prompting me to learn more about scripting

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago














    1












    1








    1







    Here is such script:





    #!/bin/bash

    # The destination where the new directory structure will be created
    DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

    MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

    # Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
    for year in */
    do
    cd "$year"
    # Walk through the months of the year
    for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
    do
    # Walk through the second level directories
    for dir in */
    do
    # If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
    # go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
    if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
    then
    cd "$dir"
    dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
    mkdir -p "$dest"
    find . -type f | while IFS= read -r item
    do
    # Copy the files to the new destination and
    # add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    cp "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done
    cd ..
    fi
    done
    done
    cd ..
    done


    The script should be executed in the first level directory where your images are located. You should tweak the destination directory - DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/". This version of the script relies that all files are in directories that contain the name of a month in one way or another. Example of usage:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── January 17, 2013
    │   │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── January 24, 2013
    │   │   └── Image2.jpg
    │   ├── January 25, 2013
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── June 22, 2013
    │   │   └── image1.jpg
    │   ├── May 4, 2013
    │   │   └── Image1.jpg
    │   └── May 5, 2013
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── January 17, 2014
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    ├── January 24, 2014
    │   └── Image2.jpg
    ├── January 25, 2014
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    └── May 5
    ├── Image1.jpg
    └── Image 2.jpg

    12 directories, 14 files


    user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh


    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    │   ├── Image1-a66c5863e6986605cb2ca6d622ae72a0.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
    │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    └── May
    ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg

    7 directories, 14 files


    In my case the script is named order.sh and it is located in ~/bin, thus I can use it as shell command. In the example you can see the directory structure is changed but the number of files is 14 in both structures.





    Here is another version of the script that use mv instead of cp and will deal also with the files which are not in directories that contain the name of a month. Before running this script it is a good idea to create a backup copy of the original directory structure.



    #!/bin/bash

    # The destination where the new directory structure will be created
    DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

    MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

    # Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
    for year in */
    do

    cd "$year"

    # Walk through the months of the year
    for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
    do
    # Walk through the second level directories
    for dir in */
    do
    # If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
    # go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
    if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
    then

    cd "$dir"
    dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
    mkdir -p "$dest"

    while IFS= read -r item
    do
    # Copy the files to the new destination and
    # add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done < <(find . -type f)

    cd ..

    fi

    done

    done

    # Dial with the rest of the files for that $year

    dest="${DEST}${year}other"

    while IFS= read -r item
    do
    mkdir -p "$dest"
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done < <(find . -type f)

    cd ..

    done


    Example of usage:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── January 17, 2013
    │   │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3.jpg
    │   │   └── video 7.mpg
    │   ├── January 25, 2013
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── June 22, 2013
    │   │   └── image1.jpg
    │   └── May 5, 2013
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr 7
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    ├── Image 2.jpg
    ├── January 11, 2014
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    ├── some other name
    │   └── some other name file inside.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside.jpg
    └── video 1.avi

    9 directories, 15 files

    user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh

    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    │   │   └── video 7-86764d9565469adfb22c8ef4f0b9c04f.mpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr
    │   ├── Image1-3c19da25e0e56ef0fc752a9e4f75b190.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-dcc35e86de393a014ac62e8c4390c7e6.jpg
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image1-ae34289b0bc5258f286165745ff3c258.jpg
    │   └── Image 3-1724adf2dfcc1d4a0dc50cb38ad2c510.jpg
    └── other
    ├── Image 2-eff5208f7eee6a536e48f9982b918dfb.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside-7d0a68e0b4e9cc3928744cb83f4d1136.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside-c2dd637e94a9025c3e1004d66f59539c.jpg
    └── video 1-c277d93a2427bedf3f0b8ae07427edb9.avi

    8 directories, 15 files


    After that you can go inside the destination directory and use the rename command within for loop to deal with the long names:



    # For each directory on the second level
    for dir in */*
    do
    cd "$dir"
    rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *
    cd ..
    cd ..
    done


    Example:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ cd /tmp/new-order-pictures/

    user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ for dir in */*; do cd "$dir"; rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *; cd ..; cd ..; done

    user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image-002.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image-003.jpg
    │   │   └── Image-004.mpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    └── other
    ├── Image-001.jpg
    ├── Image-002.jpg
    ├── Image-003.jpg
    └── Image-004.avi

    8 directories, 15 files


    Or you can change (.[0-9a-zA-Z]+) with (.jpg), then on next iteration with (.mpg) (respectively Image- with Video-), etc. References about this usage of rename:




    • How to rename multiple files sequentially from command line?


    • Renaming hundreds of files at once for proper sorting







    share|improve this answer















    Here is such script:





    #!/bin/bash

    # The destination where the new directory structure will be created
    DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

    MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

    # Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
    for year in */
    do
    cd "$year"
    # Walk through the months of the year
    for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
    do
    # Walk through the second level directories
    for dir in */
    do
    # If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
    # go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
    if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
    then
    cd "$dir"
    dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
    mkdir -p "$dest"
    find . -type f | while IFS= read -r item
    do
    # Copy the files to the new destination and
    # add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    cp "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done
    cd ..
    fi
    done
    done
    cd ..
    done


    The script should be executed in the first level directory where your images are located. You should tweak the destination directory - DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/". This version of the script relies that all files are in directories that contain the name of a month in one way or another. Example of usage:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── January 17, 2013
    │   │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── January 24, 2013
    │   │   └── Image2.jpg
    │   ├── January 25, 2013
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── June 22, 2013
    │   │   └── image1.jpg
    │   ├── May 4, 2013
    │   │   └── Image1.jpg
    │   └── May 5, 2013
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── January 17, 2014
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    ├── January 24, 2014
    │   └── Image2.jpg
    ├── January 25, 2014
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    └── May 5
    ├── Image1.jpg
    └── Image 2.jpg

    12 directories, 14 files


    user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh


    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    │   ├── Image1-a66c5863e6986605cb2ca6d622ae72a0.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   ├── Image2-cbf4d36ff84e7ec24c05f8181236e6b8.jpg
    │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   └── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    └── May
    ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg

    7 directories, 14 files


    In my case the script is named order.sh and it is located in ~/bin, thus I can use it as shell command. In the example you can see the directory structure is changed but the number of files is 14 in both structures.





    Here is another version of the script that use mv instead of cp and will deal also with the files which are not in directories that contain the name of a month. Before running this script it is a good idea to create a backup copy of the original directory structure.



    #!/bin/bash

    # The destination where the new directory structure will be created
    DEST="/tmp/new-order-pictures/"

    MONTHS=('Jan' 'Feb' 'Mar' 'Apr' 'May' 'Jun' 'Jul' 'Aug' 'Sep' 'Oct' 'Nov' 'Dec')

    # Walk through the first level directories, located in the current directory and go inside
    for year in */
    do

    cd "$year"

    # Walk through the months of the year
    for month in "${MONTHS[@]}"
    do
    # Walk through the second level directories
    for dir in */
    do
    # If we have coincidence between the name of the directory and the month
    # go inside, make a new destination directory; ignore character cases^^
    if [[ ${dir^^} =~ ${month^^} ]]
    then

    cd "$dir"
    dest="${DEST}${year}${month}"
    mkdir -p "$dest"

    while IFS= read -r item
    do
    # Copy the files to the new destination and
    # add the file's md5sum to its name to prevent files lose
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done < <(find . -type f)

    cd ..

    fi

    done

    done

    # Dial with the rest of the files for that $year

    dest="${DEST}${year}other"

    while IFS= read -r item
    do
    mkdir -p "$dest"
    filename=$(basename -- "$item")
    extn="${filename##*.}"
    name="${filename%.*}"
    mv "$item" "${dest}/${name}-$(md5sum "$item" | cut -f1 -d' ').${extn}"
    done < <(find . -type f)

    cd ..

    done


    Example of usage:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── January 17, 2013
    │   │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3.jpg
    │   │   └── video 7.mpg
    │   ├── January 25, 2013
    │   │   └── Image 3.jpg
    │   ├── June 22, 2013
    │   │   └── image1.jpg
    │   └── May 5, 2013
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr 7
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 2.jpg
    ├── Image 2.jpg
    ├── January 11, 2014
    │   ├── Image1.jpg
    │   └── Image 3.jpg
    ├── some other name
    │   └── some other name file inside.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside.jpg
    └── video 1.avi

    9 directories, 15 files

    user@host:~/Pictures$ order.sh

    user@host:~/Pictures$ tree /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    /tmp/new-order-pictures/
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image1-7b71d9fdfe5b15a2d1a4968c195f93ae.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-0bca5188fd3f3eb470533fdaf0630633.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image 3-6a83880cae1aa57e19a7c45de7759e68.jpg
    │   │   └── video 7-86764d9565469adfb22c8ef4f0b9c04f.mpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── image1-adb3bf995f1a25d008f758a7266d7be5.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image1-511d541b35fcb38af8ada18d7961268c.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-c34ffc32ce5d3901e1ad89b9fd15a877.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr
    │   ├── Image1-3c19da25e0e56ef0fc752a9e4f75b190.jpg
    │   └── Image 2-dcc35e86de393a014ac62e8c4390c7e6.jpg
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image1-ae34289b0bc5258f286165745ff3c258.jpg
    │   └── Image 3-1724adf2dfcc1d4a0dc50cb38ad2c510.jpg
    └── other
    ├── Image 2-eff5208f7eee6a536e48f9982b918dfb.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside-7d0a68e0b4e9cc3928744cb83f4d1136.jpg
    ├── some other name file inside-c2dd637e94a9025c3e1004d66f59539c.jpg
    └── video 1-c277d93a2427bedf3f0b8ae07427edb9.avi

    8 directories, 15 files


    After that you can go inside the destination directory and use the rename command within for loop to deal with the long names:



    # For each directory on the second level
    for dir in */*
    do
    cd "$dir"
    rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *
    cd ..
    cd ..
    done


    Example:



    user@host:~/Pictures$ cd /tmp/new-order-pictures/

    user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ for dir in */*; do cd "$dir"; rename 's/^.*(.[0-9a-zA-Z]+)$/our $i; sprintf("Image-%03d$1", 1+$i++)/e' *; cd ..; cd ..; done

    user@host:/tmp/new-order-pictures$ tree .
    .
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── Jan
    │   │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image-002.jpg
    │   │   ├── Image-003.jpg
    │   │   └── Image-004.mpg
    │   ├── Jun
    │   │   └── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── May
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    └── 2014
    ├── Apr
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    ├── Jan
    │   ├── Image-001.jpg
    │   └── Image-002.jpg
    └── other
    ├── Image-001.jpg
    ├── Image-002.jpg
    ├── Image-003.jpg
    └── Image-004.avi

    8 directories, 15 files


    Or you can change (.[0-9a-zA-Z]+) with (.jpg), then on next iteration with (.mpg) (respectively Image- with Video-), etc. References about this usage of rename:




    • How to rename multiple files sequentially from command line?


    • Renaming hundreds of files at once for proper sorting








    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited 2 days ago

























    answered 2 days ago









    pa4080pa4080

    13.7k52564




    13.7k52564













    • Thanks! I think this is really close to what I asked for, and I'll have to scour the web looking for shell expansions et al...

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago











    • Hi, @CharlesGreen, I"ve updated the answer with few more ideas. Sorry for the long answer and the lack of explanations inside... if you need clarifications about some parts, please ping me :)

      – pa4080
      2 days ago











    • No problem at all - I really am looking to use this more as a reason to learn some shell scripting. I did in fact find a single line command which does exactly what I need!

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago











    • @CharlesGreen: Nice! It will be worth to write an answer.

      – pa4080
      2 days ago











    • I can certainly share the command, and will add it later. But your command answered a deeper question in prompting me to learn more about scripting

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago



















    • Thanks! I think this is really close to what I asked for, and I'll have to scour the web looking for shell expansions et al...

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago











    • Hi, @CharlesGreen, I"ve updated the answer with few more ideas. Sorry for the long answer and the lack of explanations inside... if you need clarifications about some parts, please ping me :)

      – pa4080
      2 days ago











    • No problem at all - I really am looking to use this more as a reason to learn some shell scripting. I did in fact find a single line command which does exactly what I need!

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago











    • @CharlesGreen: Nice! It will be worth to write an answer.

      – pa4080
      2 days ago











    • I can certainly share the command, and will add it later. But your command answered a deeper question in prompting me to learn more about scripting

      – Charles Green
      2 days ago

















    Thanks! I think this is really close to what I asked for, and I'll have to scour the web looking for shell expansions et al...

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago





    Thanks! I think this is really close to what I asked for, and I'll have to scour the web looking for shell expansions et al...

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago













    Hi, @CharlesGreen, I"ve updated the answer with few more ideas. Sorry for the long answer and the lack of explanations inside... if you need clarifications about some parts, please ping me :)

    – pa4080
    2 days ago





    Hi, @CharlesGreen, I"ve updated the answer with few more ideas. Sorry for the long answer and the lack of explanations inside... if you need clarifications about some parts, please ping me :)

    – pa4080
    2 days ago













    No problem at all - I really am looking to use this more as a reason to learn some shell scripting. I did in fact find a single line command which does exactly what I need!

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago





    No problem at all - I really am looking to use this more as a reason to learn some shell scripting. I did in fact find a single line command which does exactly what I need!

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago













    @CharlesGreen: Nice! It will be worth to write an answer.

    – pa4080
    2 days ago





    @CharlesGreen: Nice! It will be worth to write an answer.

    – pa4080
    2 days ago













    I can certainly share the command, and will add it later. But your command answered a deeper question in prompting me to learn more about scripting

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago





    I can certainly share the command, and will add it later. But your command answered a deeper question in prompting me to learn more about scripting

    – Charles Green
    2 days ago













    2














    There is an application which can move and rename the files in a single command line - exiftool



    sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl


    In my case, the specific command line used was



    exiftool  '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


    or



    exiftool  '-FileName<CreateDate' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


    depending upon which tag is present in the images. If the requested tag is not present, the application throws a warning and does not move that file, but continues processing. This application also handles multiple images with the same date/time by appending a numeric to the end of the filename.



    I did have several images without exif data, and I was able to add exif data to the images with the command



    exiftool -createdate='2011:12:04 12:00:00' * -overwrite_original


    As an example, I placed some images in a directory ~/aa/test1 and ran the tool, placing the output in ~/aa/test2. The results are below:



    chick@dad:~/aa$ tree .
    .
    ├── test1
    │   ├── DSC00018.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00022.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00024.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00025.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00026.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00028.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00031.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00033.JPG
    │   └── Thumbs.db
    └── test2
    └── 2000
    └── 12-December
    ├── 20001222_185523.JPG
    ├── 20001222_200726.JPG
    ├── 20001222_200819.JPG
    ├── 20001222_201205.JPG
    ├── 20001222_201223.JPG
    ├── 20001222_210536.JPG
    ├── 20001222_211858.JPG
    └── 20001222_215950.JPG





    share|improve this answer
























    • Superb! You may accept this answer, because of its simplicity :) Yesterday when I made the last edit on my answer, I realized rename can be used in similar way as it is made here, but I do not have time to elaborate.

      – pa4080
      yesterday








    • 1





      @pa4080 But I still like your answer, because it will cause me to work seeper into scripting...!

      – Charles Green
      yesterday
















    2














    There is an application which can move and rename the files in a single command line - exiftool



    sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl


    In my case, the specific command line used was



    exiftool  '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


    or



    exiftool  '-FileName<CreateDate' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


    depending upon which tag is present in the images. If the requested tag is not present, the application throws a warning and does not move that file, but continues processing. This application also handles multiple images with the same date/time by appending a numeric to the end of the filename.



    I did have several images without exif data, and I was able to add exif data to the images with the command



    exiftool -createdate='2011:12:04 12:00:00' * -overwrite_original


    As an example, I placed some images in a directory ~/aa/test1 and ran the tool, placing the output in ~/aa/test2. The results are below:



    chick@dad:~/aa$ tree .
    .
    ├── test1
    │   ├── DSC00018.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00022.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00024.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00025.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00026.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00028.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00031.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00033.JPG
    │   └── Thumbs.db
    └── test2
    └── 2000
    └── 12-December
    ├── 20001222_185523.JPG
    ├── 20001222_200726.JPG
    ├── 20001222_200819.JPG
    ├── 20001222_201205.JPG
    ├── 20001222_201223.JPG
    ├── 20001222_210536.JPG
    ├── 20001222_211858.JPG
    └── 20001222_215950.JPG





    share|improve this answer
























    • Superb! You may accept this answer, because of its simplicity :) Yesterday when I made the last edit on my answer, I realized rename can be used in similar way as it is made here, but I do not have time to elaborate.

      – pa4080
      yesterday








    • 1





      @pa4080 But I still like your answer, because it will cause me to work seeper into scripting...!

      – Charles Green
      yesterday














    2












    2








    2







    There is an application which can move and rename the files in a single command line - exiftool



    sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl


    In my case, the specific command line used was



    exiftool  '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


    or



    exiftool  '-FileName<CreateDate' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


    depending upon which tag is present in the images. If the requested tag is not present, the application throws a warning and does not move that file, but continues processing. This application also handles multiple images with the same date/time by appending a numeric to the end of the filename.



    I did have several images without exif data, and I was able to add exif data to the images with the command



    exiftool -createdate='2011:12:04 12:00:00' * -overwrite_original


    As an example, I placed some images in a directory ~/aa/test1 and ran the tool, placing the output in ~/aa/test2. The results are below:



    chick@dad:~/aa$ tree .
    .
    ├── test1
    │   ├── DSC00018.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00022.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00024.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00025.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00026.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00028.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00031.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00033.JPG
    │   └── Thumbs.db
    └── test2
    └── 2000
    └── 12-December
    ├── 20001222_185523.JPG
    ├── 20001222_200726.JPG
    ├── 20001222_200819.JPG
    ├── 20001222_201205.JPG
    ├── 20001222_201223.JPG
    ├── 20001222_210536.JPG
    ├── 20001222_211858.JPG
    └── 20001222_215950.JPG





    share|improve this answer













    There is an application which can move and rename the files in a single command line - exiftool



    sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl


    In my case, the specific command line used was



    exiftool  '-FileName<DateTimeOriginal' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


    or



    exiftool  '-FileName<CreateDate' -d <path-to-output-dir>/%Y/%m-%B/%Y%m%d_%H%M%S%%-c.%%e . -r


    depending upon which tag is present in the images. If the requested tag is not present, the application throws a warning and does not move that file, but continues processing. This application also handles multiple images with the same date/time by appending a numeric to the end of the filename.



    I did have several images without exif data, and I was able to add exif data to the images with the command



    exiftool -createdate='2011:12:04 12:00:00' * -overwrite_original


    As an example, I placed some images in a directory ~/aa/test1 and ran the tool, placing the output in ~/aa/test2. The results are below:



    chick@dad:~/aa$ tree .
    .
    ├── test1
    │   ├── DSC00018.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00022.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00024.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00025.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00026.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00028.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00031.JPG
    │   ├── DSC00033.JPG
    │   └── Thumbs.db
    └── test2
    └── 2000
    └── 12-December
    ├── 20001222_185523.JPG
    ├── 20001222_200726.JPG
    ├── 20001222_200819.JPG
    ├── 20001222_201205.JPG
    ├── 20001222_201223.JPG
    ├── 20001222_210536.JPG
    ├── 20001222_211858.JPG
    └── 20001222_215950.JPG






    share|improve this answer












    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer










    answered yesterday









    Charles GreenCharles Green

    13.1k73657




    13.1k73657













    • Superb! You may accept this answer, because of its simplicity :) Yesterday when I made the last edit on my answer, I realized rename can be used in similar way as it is made here, but I do not have time to elaborate.

      – pa4080
      yesterday








    • 1





      @pa4080 But I still like your answer, because it will cause me to work seeper into scripting...!

      – Charles Green
      yesterday



















    • Superb! You may accept this answer, because of its simplicity :) Yesterday when I made the last edit on my answer, I realized rename can be used in similar way as it is made here, but I do not have time to elaborate.

      – pa4080
      yesterday








    • 1





      @pa4080 But I still like your answer, because it will cause me to work seeper into scripting...!

      – Charles Green
      yesterday

















    Superb! You may accept this answer, because of its simplicity :) Yesterday when I made the last edit on my answer, I realized rename can be used in similar way as it is made here, but I do not have time to elaborate.

    – pa4080
    yesterday







    Superb! You may accept this answer, because of its simplicity :) Yesterday when I made the last edit on my answer, I realized rename can be used in similar way as it is made here, but I do not have time to elaborate.

    – pa4080
    yesterday






    1




    1





    @pa4080 But I still like your answer, because it will cause me to work seeper into scripting...!

    – Charles Green
    yesterday





    @pa4080 But I still like your answer, because it will cause me to work seeper into scripting...!

    – Charles Green
    yesterday











    0














    So, I assume you want a step-by-step and simple solution.
    First, I would address the problem of Whitespace and comma in the folders.
    I would first cd into the year folder and use rename to first remove Whitespace



    rename "s/ //g" *


    Similarly, remove comma



    rename "s/,//g" * 


    Now that I have all the folders as desired I would create a month based list using



    ls | grep "January" > January.txt


    Now make folder "January"



    mkdir January


    Then loop thru the list using xargs to copy their contents



    cat January.txt | xargs -I {} cp -R {}/. ./January/





    share|improve this answer




























      0














      So, I assume you want a step-by-step and simple solution.
      First, I would address the problem of Whitespace and comma in the folders.
      I would first cd into the year folder and use rename to first remove Whitespace



      rename "s/ //g" *


      Similarly, remove comma



      rename "s/,//g" * 


      Now that I have all the folders as desired I would create a month based list using



      ls | grep "January" > January.txt


      Now make folder "January"



      mkdir January


      Then loop thru the list using xargs to copy their contents



      cat January.txt | xargs -I {} cp -R {}/. ./January/





      share|improve this answer


























        0












        0








        0







        So, I assume you want a step-by-step and simple solution.
        First, I would address the problem of Whitespace and comma in the folders.
        I would first cd into the year folder and use rename to first remove Whitespace



        rename "s/ //g" *


        Similarly, remove comma



        rename "s/,//g" * 


        Now that I have all the folders as desired I would create a month based list using



        ls | grep "January" > January.txt


        Now make folder "January"



        mkdir January


        Then loop thru the list using xargs to copy their contents



        cat January.txt | xargs -I {} cp -R {}/. ./January/





        share|improve this answer













        So, I assume you want a step-by-step and simple solution.
        First, I would address the problem of Whitespace and comma in the folders.
        I would first cd into the year folder and use rename to first remove Whitespace



        rename "s/ //g" *


        Similarly, remove comma



        rename "s/,//g" * 


        Now that I have all the folders as desired I would create a month based list using



        ls | grep "January" > January.txt


        Now make folder "January"



        mkdir January


        Then loop thru the list using xargs to copy their contents



        cat January.txt | xargs -I {} cp -R {}/. ./January/






        share|improve this answer












        share|improve this answer



        share|improve this answer










        answered 2 days ago









        puneetpuneet

        11




        11






























            draft saved

            draft discarded




















































            Thanks for contributing an answer to Ask Ubuntu!


            • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

            But avoid



            • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

            • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


            To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




            draft saved


            draft discarded














            StackExchange.ready(
            function () {
            StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2faskubuntu.com%2fquestions%2f1110359%2fmove-files-from-subfolders%23new-answer', 'question_page');
            }
            );

            Post as a guest















            Required, but never shown





















































            Required, but never shown














            Required, but never shown












            Required, but never shown







            Required, but never shown

































            Required, but never shown














            Required, but never shown












            Required, but never shown







            Required, but never shown







            Popular posts from this blog

            How did Captain America manage to do this?

            迪纳利

            南乌拉尔铁路局