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Move photos from managed to referenced while keeping folder structure/hierarchy

David Brewster
  • Edited

(Bumping this question from two years ago as I never got an answer. If anyone has any ideas I appreciate them.)

I know variations on this question have been asked many times, however I can't see a specific answer to my question.

I know that managed files are stored inside the catalog in folders (revealed using 'Show Package Contents') using a date-based (yyyy>mm>dd) hierarchy. 

I know also that you can move files from managed to referenced by dragging them between 'In Catalog' and pre-existing or newly created referenced locations inside the Library > Folders panel.

I'd like the best of both worlds. I want to move images from managed to referenced while maintaining that date-based hierarchy.

Other than manually (and very slowly), is there any way to do this? 

1

Comments

4 comments

Date Votes
  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    There is no simple way to maintain that date-based folder structure while moving the images from managed to referenced. If you are on macOS it might be possible to do it via AppleScript. I haven't tried using AppleScript to create and add folders to a catalog, and then move images into them.

    0
  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    I have done some reading .. the Capture One dictionary for AppleScript includes a "move" action. I think this is scriptable but only on macOS.

    0
  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    It took some work but I have a working AppleScript. It will move selected variants to a folder tree where you choose the parent and it creates the necessary YYYY/MM/DD subfolders based on EXIF date. It does not use the catalog managed folder date path as those dates are import dates vs image dates.

    0
  • Walter Rowe
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    David Brewster

    See this project on Github where I posted the script that moves managed images to referenced folders based on EXIF date. If you select managed and referenced images it will skip over the images already referenced and only move the "managed" images stored inside the catalog. It does this by looking at the path of the file. If the path of the file doesn't match the path of the catalog itself then it knows the file is already referenced.

    https://github.com/walterrowe/capture-one-scripts/tree/master/managed-to-referenced

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