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 wizard will step you through the process. Based on your choices a move action will be created.
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.
You can optionally specify that the action should prompt for the base path. When you run the action you can specify that the selected base path should be retained. If you do so, no prompt will be issued on subsequent runs unless the Option key is held when the action is started. Note that the retained path is stored in an action runtime settings set with the same name as the action.
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 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.
You can optionally delete containing folders which become empty after moving. You can also elect to delete empty parent folders as well. A parent folder contains the containing folder.
Non audio files can optionally be moved at the same time as the audio files are moved. You can choose to overwrite or preserve files which already exist. Subfolders in an audio file's containing folder can also be moved. When doing so you can choose to ignore folders which already exist or to delete the old folder before moving the new one.
Rename templates can specify that Name exceptions, General exceptions and Replacements should be performed. By default the default sets, if any, associated with these transformations are used. The wizard allows you to override the sets which are used.
The created action will attempt to report simple metadata related errors before actually moving the files. By default the action will also ensure that all files in the same initial folder will end up in the same destination folder after moving. This can be disabled when creating the action.
The wizard's display panel can be resized and the font size can be adjusted via Font>Bigger and Font>Smaller.
The created action is marked as hidden and 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.
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.