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Help accidentally moved pictures from folders to one
- Thread starter wareagle69
- Start date
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Please explain why not. If you don't specify a problem, you won't get a suggested solution.
It's too late to use command z. I dragged and dropped all the pictures from All My Files section to a new folder and they moved from the original folder location.
What part was the accident, copying files from multiple folders without also copying the folders? Or Moving instead of Copying?
I'm trying to figure out the logic of intentionally copying everything to a single folder. If you ever did need to "restore" from that backup, you'd be faced with exactly the same kind of problem you have now - the need to re-organize images that you spent who knows how many hours organizing. Why didn't you copy the folders as well as the images?
If your folders were organized by file date, then it won't be horribly difficult to sort them by date and move them into separate folders again. If your folders were organized in some other manner (topic, location, client, etc.), then let's hope you embedded those criteria into the image files' metadata. If so, there are programs that can search and sort those files by metadata criteria.
I'm trying to figure out the logic of intentionally copying everything to a single folder. If you ever did need to "restore" from that backup, you'd be faced with exactly the same kind of problem you have now - the need to re-organize images that you spent who knows how many hours organizing. Why didn't you copy the folders as well as the images?
If your folders were organized by file date, then it won't be horribly difficult to sort them by date and move them into separate folders again. If your folders were organized in some other manner (topic, location, client, etc.), then let's hope you embedded those criteria into the image files' metadata. If so, there are programs that can search and sort those files by metadata criteria.
OK. All My Files is what's called a Smart Folder. The files appear together in that one place, but they actually have their own "homes" in other folders. What you see in All My Files is sort of a copy of all the files elsewhere on your Mac. When you perform an action on a file in All My Files, it will be executed in the folder where the file exists, not just in All My Files.
So, while you can no longer used Cmd-Z to undo your moves, you can go to the new folder and drag the files out and back to their original folders. This will be a long and arduous operation as the number of files increases. Bottom line, if you don't want to go through this again, don't do that! Maybe what you wanted was to have a "copy" of sorts all in one folder. A good way to do that is to use an alias. This will put a "shortcut" (Windows terminology) of the file anywhere else, but not affect the original file in its "home" folder.
So, while you can no longer used Cmd-Z to undo your moves, you can go to the new folder and drag the files out and back to their original folders. This will be a long and arduous operation as the number of files increases. Bottom line, if you don't want to go through this again, don't do that! Maybe what you wanted was to have a "copy" of sorts all in one folder. A good way to do that is to use an alias. This will put a "shortcut" (Windows terminology) of the file anywhere else, but not affect the original file in its "home" folder.