The only way to overcome information overload is to put everything in its place on arrival. But you don’t want to spend all your time organizing files on Windows 10. Why not take a smart and lazy approach! After all, the better organized your files, the faster you can retrieve what you need from them.
But how do you get started? We’ll show you some excellent apps that let you organize different types of files in Windows automatically.
1. File Juggler
If you’re having trouble in organizing your files, consider using an automation utility app. File Juggler monitors changes to folders and performs an action based on a set of rules. The app uses conditional if-and-then statements just like IFTTT. With File Juggler, you can rename, move, copy, extract, and more.
Before using the app, make a plan on what you want to do with files. Click the Add button and type in a brief description. Add a folder for which you want to take action in the Monitor section. In the If section add a condition.
Check out the conditions page for more information. At last, choose an action you wish to take on your files in the Then box.
Unique Features:
- File Juggler lets you move and rename files based on the content of a searchable PDF. Use it to organize invoices, credit card bills, and snippets of information.
- The app lets you create variables to organize different types of content with precision. Variables include file name, path, date, file properties, and more.
- After organizing a file, you can tell File juggler to upload the file in Evernote. Select the notebook you want and add tags to the notes.
- There is a separate tab called Log to help you keep track and check if it’s working correctly or not.
Download: FileJuggler (Free Trial for 30 days, $40)
2. DropIt
DropIt is open source and works on the same principle of File Juggler. To organize files, you have to create rules and actions. Right-click the floating icon and choose Associations. Click the Plus button to create rules. Then, drag-and-drop files or folders into the DropIt icon to start processing them.
And like File Juggler, you can define a watch folder or activate the SendTo integration to process files and folders. You can define how to filter your content by name, date, size, property, and associate one of the 21 available actions. They include upload, rename, encrypt, compress, change properties, and more.
The Rules field is a powerful feature in DropIt to define filters. It’s superior to File Juggler. With different types of characters, abbreviations, and regular expression, you can selectively decide how to filter files according to the name, extension, or type.
Unique Features:
- Group associations in different profiles. For example, you can set an association for office computer and another one for home. You can easily switch between the profiles.
- There are some exclusive actions, including a feature to split and join files, create a list of files as HTML, create a playlist, send files through email, and more.
- You can set a timer to monitor folders at set intervals. DropIt will also show you a progress window for monitored folders.
- The app also supports the use of environment variables in the Destination field. For example, you can include file abbreviation with their paths, date abbreviation with the creation or modified date, and more.
Download: DropIt (Free)
3. PhotoMove
Photo organizer apps like Adobe Lightroom make it incredibly easy to organize your photos by their EXIF data. If you don’t use these kinds of apps, then cataloging and sorting all these photos to a folder is a headache. With limited support of metadata, organizing photos in your PC is a manual and tedious task.
PhotoMove is an app that uses EXIF data to automatically move (or copy) and sort the photos into folders based on the actual date. To get started, choose the source folder containing your photos. Then, set the destination folder.
Click either Move or Copy button to process your files. Optionally, go to settings and decide the folder structure, duplicate file handling, file types, and more.
Unique Features:
- PhotoMove works perfectly with NAS. If you have a vast photo collection, you can directly move and sort photos in the NAS itself.
- Choose a different type of folder structure to organize pictures. In the free version, you can organize photos by (Yr, Month, Date). The pro version has ten different options.
- PhotoMove supports command line syntax. You can use the command prompt or batch file to organize your photo collection.
- If your photos don’t have EXIF data, you can use the file date or sort photos with no EXIF data to a different folder.
Download: PhotoMove (Free, Pro Version: $9)
4. TagScanner
Anyone having a massive collection of music knows the pain of renaming or managing a poorly tagged library. While a file name is essential, it’s the metadata that holds all the critical information, including artist, album, year of release, cover art, and more. Editing the metadata is a time consuming and challenging task.
TagScanner is an app that lets you organize and manage music collections. It includes an array of built-in configuration settings for editing tags of various audio formats.
Click the Browse for folder button to load the audio files. The app will read the metadata and display them according to the sorting mode.
Unique Features:
- It supports advanced text replacement and transformation function in tags and file names.
- The app can rename and reorganize audio files in bulk. You can create a new folder structure based on the tag structure.
- TagScanner lets you preview tags and cover art from online databases before applying them into mp3 files.
- You can create playlists and export information as CSV, HTML, M3U, and more.
Download: TagScanner (Free)
5. FileBot
Poorly named files, missing subtitles, episode names, and incomplete information is a common problem for people who like to watch movies or TV shows. FileBot is a utility app that can automate the task of organizing and renaming media files.
FileBot has a two-sided interface. Drag and drop the media folder into Original Files panel. Under the New Names panel, click the Fetch Data button. The app will try to automatically match your files with data from various online databases. They include The TVDB, AnDB, TheMovieDB, TVmaze, and more. Once you verify the information, click Rename.
Unique Features:
- FileBot can scan the file names to figure out which show, season, and episodes the videos contain. How you choose to name the media files and organize them is up to you.
- It also lets you see the complete list of every episode a TV series has ever broadcast. Just search for your show, pick a source, and sorting order.
- The app also lets you manually search and download subtitles, preview them, and fix encoding problems in different languages.
- Fetch cover art, poster images, and create NFO files for your media library. If you use Kodi, FileBot can fix various metadata related issues.
Download: FileBot (Paid, $6/year)
6. Listary
The automation apps discussed above will help you organize files. Once you get them sorted, you’ll need a search tool. Listary is an excellent search utility app to quickly find files.
On the first launch, Listary will ask you to set up keyboard shortcuts.
Go to Options > Hotkeys and enter the shortcut. When you press the hotkey, Listary search bar will pop up on the screen. Listary’s Fuzzy Search recognizes suffix, prefix, or any part of the file’s name. The results are instantly shown in the search box.
Unique Features:
- Listary seamlessly integrates with Open and Save Dialog Box to quickly open and save files. You can search for files to open within any app that uses the Open File dialog.
- Use the Quick Switch hotkey to instantly jump to the folder of the file you’re working with. Open files faster without manually navigating the Open File dialog.
- You can set custom keywords for any number of folders. Search for files only in that folder.
- Create shortcuts to files, folders, and apps you use frequently.
Download: Listary (Free, Pro Version for $20)
Ideas for Managing Your Files
Organizing files on Windows is a tedious job. But if you don’t spend time on this, it will lead to loss of productivity and frustration when files pile up.
With these apps discussed above, you can organize files and take control of the entire process without too much effort.