separating child folders from parent folders

[dmehling]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask my particular question, but here goes. I have a folder for all of my music, and within that folder is a bunch of artists folders, and within each of those I have album folders, which contain the individual music files. I am trying to figure out an easy way to grab all of those album folders at once and move them to one main folder. That's instead of looking through each artist folder, and moving the album folders within each one which could be a very time-consuming process. I thought I had figured out a way to do this, but all of the song files were placed directly into the master folder without being contained within their album folders. Any idea how to do this?

 

[loaba]

1. create new folder on desktop (or any other location you like)
2. click Start button
3. click Computer
4. double-click drive where music is stored
5. look at the left side of the window
6. double-click drive where music is stored (file tree expands)
7. click the triangle next to folder where music is stored (file tree expands)
8. click the triangle next to artist folder(s)
9. start dragging album folders to newly created folder

edit* that's one way to do it anyway

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello dmehling.



I'm not at all sure what you're asking but start by having a look at the tutorial at the link below, I move all kinds of stuff around with it all the time (single and multiple files); be sure to keep us informed.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/516-context-menu-add-copy-folder-move-folder.html?ltr=C

 

[dmehling]

I know how to find my music folders and move files. This is what I described as the time-consuming method, which I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to have to look within each artist folder and move album folders. I want to be able to move all album folders at once.

 

[loaba]

Hello dmehling.



I'm not at all sure what you're asking but start by having a look at the tutorial at the link below, I move all kinds of stuff around with it all the time (single and multiple files); be sure to keep us informed.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/516-context-menu-add-copy-folder-move-folder.html?ltr=C

I'm pretty sure the OP is looking for a less labor intensive method (something to the effect of "select all">copy>paste. Problem is, I don't think folders behave that way.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Looks pretty easy to me.

 

[loaba]

The OP wants to copy (or move) all Album (child) folders, that are themselves within multiple Artist (parent) folders, at the same time.

I think the problem is that if you're working inside a given parent folder, while you can use "select all" to copy or move that folder's entire contents, you can't move on to a different parent folder and add its contents to what you've already copied.

I don't think there is a "clipboard" function for this sort of thing, is there?

Does that even remotely make sense? I'm not the most articulate of cats...

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

One last time.

In the upper left corner click "Organize" in organize click "select all" then on one of the highlighted (blue) lines right click, then "move to" then in the window that opens navigate to the new location then select move.


I do it all the time and it works flawlessly.

 

[Thorsen]

If they are all .mp3, then you could do a search and then select all and then move them all to a new folder. This would move all .mp3 files on your computer to one folder though. dont know if that is a good idea or not lol

Do a search and type in *.mp3
make sure all the files listed are the ones you want to move to the new folder
Move the files

Edit: hmmm I was way off....

I will look into this when I get home

 

[CommonTater]

I know how to find my music folders and move files. This is what I described as the time-consuming method, which I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to have to look within each artist folder and move album folders. I want to be able to move all album folders at once.

Ok... open your music folder where you want the files in one window...

Now open the folder with the sub folders you want to move in another...

Two windows.... one destination the other source.

Use the Aero snap feature....
Drag one to the left side of the screen... it will jump to fill half the screen
Drag the other to the right side of the screen... it will fill the other half

Drag the folders you want moved from one window and drop them on the other.

 

[FliGi7]

From the Windows Command Line:

for /D %i in ("C:\Path\to\Artists\Directory") do xcopy %i "C:\Path\to\New\Folder" /E


...where C:\Path\to\Artists\Directory is the directory with all of the artist folders that contain all of the albums within each of those folders

I believe this is what you're looking for.

 

[CommonTater]

Don't ya just love a question with a dozen right answers?

 

[garysgold]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask my particular question, but here goes. I have a folder for all of my music, and within that folder is a bunch of artists folders, and within each of those I have album folders, which contain the individual music files. I am trying to figure out an easy way to grab all of those album folders at once and move them to one main folder. That's instead of looking through each artist folder, and moving the album folders within each one which could be a very time-consuming process. I thought I had figured out a way to do this, but all of the song files were placed directly into the master folder without being contained within their album folders. Any idea how to do this?

If I understand correctly, you have a tree that looks something like this:



and you want to move a,b,c,d etc. to a new folder without having to open 1 and copy those folders and then open 2 and copy those. Something that would go into the artist folders (1,2 etc. here) and copy only the album folders (a,b,c etc.) to another drive/folder. You have hundreds of artists folders and doing them one at at time will take forever.

Unfortuneately I don't have an answer at this time, a macro or script maybe. Just trying to clarify the question.

 

[FliGi7]

Assuming the structure above, if you want to copy folders a,b,c,d,e... to a new folder, run the following command:

for /D %i in (@dir /b "C:\Test\*") do xcopy "%i" "C:\Path\to\New\Folder" /e

This will create C:\Path\to\New\Folder\a, C:\Path\to\New\Folder\b, C:\Path\to\New\Folder\c, ....