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notheremuch

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2005
50
0
I am at my limit with my current system of organizing web snagged photos. I love having landscape photos as my screen saver. I collect all good quality photos I can find and save them in "Landscapes" in my Picture folder.

I add Spotlight comments to every photo (currently c.600): things like mountains, rivers, snow, trees and so on. I want to have all pictures with the spotlight word "mountains" in a mountain folder (better yet, aliases). That way, I can choose the type of landscape I want to appear on my screensaver.

What is the easiest way to do this? Remember, that I am grabbing new images all the time and need to add to the existing folders. I also will need the same images often placed in multiple folders (snow + mountains)...

Currently, I have examplemountainsnow.jpeg in the master folder, another copy in the snow sub folder, another copy in the mountain folder and so on. The disk space is adding up. It is also time consuming to manually add the comments, then use Automater to copy finder items into the respective folders.

Any ideas?
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Making a smart folder is actually very easy.

Open a Finder window, and then type something in the search bar. It will start searching. Make sure that the search domain is the right disk or folder or whatever. Start with kind:image, which will only show pictures. Then add in search terms based on your keywords. For instance, if you want all mountain pictures, you put in "mountain kind:image" (no quotes).

When you're satisfied, just click the save button below the search bar, and you can save this search as a smart folder. Whenever you open up the smart folder, it will contain links to all files that meet criteria. :)

The smart folder doesn't really take up any space, since it doesn't contain the files, so you can create lots of smart folders, based on different keywords. Within file dialogs from other programs and so on, the folder acts like a normal folder and the links in it like normal files.
 

notheremuch

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2005
50
0
Thanks, I'm closer, but..... It's grabbing all images with the word "snow" or whatever. I selected "landscapes" in the picture category and it even says "folder landscapes". But, when I have the Smart folder opened, all images with the search word are there!?
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
notheremuch said:
Thanks, I'm closer, but..... It's grabbing all images with the word "snow" or whatever. I selected "landscapes" in the picture category and it even says "folder landscapes". But, when I have the Smart folder opened, all images with the search word are there!?

Does it work to use "landscapes" as a keyword in the Spotlight search string?
 

notheremuch

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2005
50
0
You know, I have to add it and then it will I suppose! (As I drag the whole folder to my Add Spotlight comments routine...)
 

notheremuch

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2005
50
0
I've gone through the links and suggestions provided. Still, I cannot use the items in my Smart folder for screensaver images. Meaning, when I go to Choose Folder, I choose the Smart folder, but I am not allowed to choose it (or the images inside.)

Also, when I try and use the same Smart folder for Desktop->Choose Folder-> I can only choose single images, not the entire folder as normal. By choosing the entire (normal) folder, all of the images come up as thumbs for choosing.

Help!
 
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