Editing Folders (aka Freebie for You)

If you’re like me you try to keep your video project folders organized. And if you’re like me, you can find the process tedious, repetitive, and ultimately you always end up forgetting a folder or two. The other day I finally said “enough is enough, there has to be a better way” and searched for a solution.

I knew of Post Haste, a great app from Digital Rebellion that can create folders/files for your projects based on preset parameters. It’s a free app, but it felt like overkill, and I didn’t really like the way it handled some of the naming conventions. Plus I knew that with the built in tools in Mac OS X there had to be an even easier solution.

Enter: Automator. Automator is an incredibly powerful tool that ships with all Macs designed to do this very thing; automate common tasks. I had a fairly basic understanding of what I needed to do, but despite my best efforts I couldn’t sort it out. I’m not a programmer, nor do I play one on TV, so I did what any great problem solver would do: I asked the internet.

The end result is this little application I’m calling “Editing Folders” (creative, huh?). When you run it the first thing it will do is ask for your folder (or project) name. Then it will ask you where you’d like to create your new folders. Once you’ve made your selections it will then batch create a series of folders. It’s lightweight, and it’s straight forward. It may not reflect your own workflow, though you can easily open it up in Automator and adjust it to fit your needs. I’m posting it here for free in hopes that some other editors might find it useful.

Special thanks to "Tony T1" at the Apple Support Forums for helping me figure out how to get this up and running. The icon is from the “Flurry Extras 3” set by David Lanham for The Icon Factory. 

Please note: this software is being offer for free, but with absolutely zero support and I cannot be held responsible if it causes any damage, data loss, or full-fledged nuclear meltdowns. Though you’re probably pretty safe with regards to that last one (unless your Matthew Broderick).