Create Move Action Wizard

At times it is advantageous to move files as opposed to renaming them. Renaming always preserves the original folder structure and simply changes names. Regardless as to how many files are in a renamed folder, they always remain together. Moves, however, can put different files in different folders, creating the folders if required.

While rename templates can be directly accessed in the UI, moves can only be performed by an action. The Create Move Action Wizard is accessed from the Actions menu or in Settings - Rename. Select a single rename template to use with the Move action and click on the Action button.

The current incarnation of the wizard will allow the creation of actions to perform virtually any type of move or copy that you want to make. The created actions can optionally be run in immediate mode and via the Batch Processor. Further the created actions are designed to be safe to be called from other actions.

The wizard will step you through the process. Based on your choices a move action will be created. The action which gets generated depends on the supplied rename template and your responses to the questions which are presented.

The created action uses the ❨Folder Start❩ tokens in the associated rename template to determine the folder structure to be created. If the template contains ❨Folder Start❩ tokens, the destination folder will be relative to each audio file's containing folder unless you supply an absolute base path.

If a folder has a path of /Volumes/Music/artist1/album1/file.mp3 and the rename template has two Folder Start tokens, the destination path will be:

/Volumes/Music/../../ ❨Folder Start❩ ²/ ❨Folder Start❩ ¹

If you supply a base path, the destination path will be:

supplied path/ ❨Folder Start❩ ²/ ❨Folder Start❩ ¹

Remember that ❨Folder Start❩ tokens in rename templates are applied right to left in a path.

If the rename template does not have any ❨Folder Start❩ tokens and you do not select a destination path, Audio files will not be moved but they may be renamed.

If the rename template has any ❨Ignore if Empty❩ tokens, the wizard will only allow moves to a base path. Relative moves will be disabled as the number of path components can only be made at runtime.

The rename template can also contain any valid rename token, including the ❨Alpha❩ token if you want to create an index type structure to quickly find items in the Finder.

The rename template handles all transformations and the entire path construction with the exception of the optional fixed destination path.

It is a good idea to handle duplicates in the rename template. Use ❨IfDup❩ and ❨Dup #❩ tokens. The wizard will warn you if these tokens are not supplied, as if they are not, Keep Both is not a valid runtime choice for file already exists situations.

The created action has a grouping of Move. The action will appear on the File>Rename>Actions submenu making it easy to access. If you select the created action in the Action Manager and hit the spacebar, the configuration summary will be displayed.

The wizard will also let you create actions which copy files as opposed to moving them.

If you are moving files which are contained in an Apple App's library, you can cause the created action to ensure that the files are linked. Whenever a linked file is moved, Yate will update its location in the appropriate Apple App.

The wizard's display panel can be resized and the font size can be adjusted via Font>Bigger and Font>Smaller.

The wizard provides descriptive text for each question as it proceeds. The following is summary of the questions/choices:

Move Files / Copy Files

While the wizard is typically used to move files it can also be used to generate an action which copies files.

No Logging / Log (Append) / Log (Flush)

The created actions can log the results of each attempted move or copy. The logging information is written to a database (CSV) called the Move Log which can be opened from the View menu. The value of the log being a database is that it can be searched and filtered.

Log (Append) will append to the database if it already exists. Log (Flush) will delete all previous contents of the database, if any, when the action starts. If at any time you want to manually flush the database, you can do so from the View menu.

Path Determination

The choices are:

Relative to Containing Folder

Each Folder Start token in the template raises the effective base path of the destination folder one folder above the containing folder. For a file at /A/B/C/D/file and a rename template with three Folder Start tokens, the created folders will be in /A. More often than not, relative folders are not used.

Supplied Path

You are prompted to supply the destination folder to be used by the created action.

Runtime Path

You are prompted at runtime for the destination folder. You have the option to retain the path. Doing so, the Runtime Path method becomes equivalent to Supplied Path. A retained path can be removed, by starting the action with the Option key pressed. Alternately, you can edit the runtime settings set with the same name of the action and then delete the path item. You can do so easily by selecting the action in the Action Manager and then selecting the Edit Runtime Settings item from the context menu.

Disable Folder Verification

The generated actions will assume that all files initially in the same folder should end up together in the same folder after moving or copying. If you do not care if files end up grouped together as they initially were, enable this option. Essentially it causes the generated action not to care if files get scattered.

When folder validation is disabled, other tests typically performed are also disabled. For example if two files in the same folder end up with the same destination path (think files named Intro), you will not be notified.

Typically you would only disable folder verification when you have one or more folders containing non album dependent tracks. The wizard detects moving from a flat album structure to a disc structure and adjusts the test accordingly.

Alpha Token Configuration

If a path component in the rename template contains an Alpha token, you are creating a path component which is typically a single letter. This can make it easier to locate artists or or groupings in the file system. You can opt to use the default setting supplied in Settings - Rename - Settings, or you can override the defaults.

Moving Non Audio Files

You can elect to move non audio files when moving or copying audio files. Note that this might be indeterminate if folder validation is disabled. When the wizard detects that you are moving from a flat album structure to a disc structure, the non audio files will be moved to the folder containing the disc folders (typically the album folder). Further, when moving from a disc folder structure to a disc folder structure, non audio files in the Album folder will be copied as well as those in the disc subfolders. The wizard assumes that a folder containing audio files which ends in Disc # or CD # is a disc subfolder.

Moving Contained Folders

If you have elected to move non audio files you can attempt to move contained folders which do not contain audio files.

Deleting Empty Consecutive Folders

When moving files you can opt to delete folders which become empty. A folder is considered empty if it only contains hidden files.

Overriding Default Information

If the rename template specified that Named Exceptions, General Exceptions or Replacements should be applied, you can override the configured application defaults sets and specify specific sets to be used. Also, if a Remove Leading Articles token is in the rename template, you can override the default Natural Sort (S) exception set.

Link Choices

If you are moving files contained in Apple Music (or iTunes), the application must be notified that the files are moving. You can elect to link all files before moving. If file cannot be linked, the file or entire folder will not be moved.

When linking is required you can choose to only link by retained PIDs. Linking by PID (persistent ID) is the recommended method of linking. It is much faster and safer than linking by metadata. As the action prompts you for your selections it will note the current value of Settings - Apple Apps - Prefer PIDs when Linking and will adjust its recommendations.

Execution Mode

You can generate the action be able to run in Immediate mode (on selected files), via the Batch Processor or both. Depending on what you select, you can choose the action to be taken if a file at the destination exists.

Hidden

You can elect to hide the action on action menus. This setting is disabled if the action can be run via the Batch Processor.

Rename

You can make the action visible on the File>Rename>Actions submenu and the equivalent toolbar icon Actions submenu.

Wrapper

You can also automatically generate a wrapper action for the generated action. The wrapper action serves as a template for adding additional functionality. The wrapper action is named Wrapper for supplied action name. If the generated action is valid when batch processing, the wrapper will place the generated action on the batch chain.

Note that the created action will not be updated if the original rename template is modified. However, if the number of ❨Folder Start❩ tokens is modified, the action will detect it and will not run. The action also checks for changes to the ❨IfDup❩ and ❨Dup #❩ tokens.

Calling the Produced Action from Other Actions

The produced actions may safely be called from other actions. In fact multiple produced actions can be called when batch processing, if desired.

For any information that must persist, the produced actions use named variables with a suffix of the action's name. All other named variables are transitory.

All special named variables and application settings are restored after each call to one of the produced actions.

All transient named variables used by the action start with the word move following by a space.

The actions use various track variables, depending on the code which was generated. The track variables are not restored. If you want to preserve track variables use Save and Restore Variables statements before calling the move action.

If you are calling a produced action from another and it is to be run in the batch processor, the produced action should be placed on the Batch Chain. The action will function correctly if you do not do so, however if a prompt has to be issued for a runtime path, it will be done during the batch processor's Batch Start phase as opposed to when the action eventually is executed.

If you generated a wrapper action it will handle the batch chain if required. For a generated action named My Move, an unmodified generated wrapper action named Wrapper for My Move could look like:

Version 1.0 - Generated on date by Yate version
Version 1.0 - Generated on 2026-02-11 16:47:53 by Yate v9.0

' Insert pre move/copy statements here

Run action 'xxx'

' Insert post move/copy statements here

Note that the Include Batch Chain statement would only be generated if My Move supports running in the Batch Processor.

There is an action bundle named Create Move Action Wizard Wrapper Snippets. You can download it from the web resources page or via Yate>Resource Actions Installer. The bundle contains actions which can be used as samples. Each of the supplied actions can be called from a produced wrapper action.