Add Multiple Folders

[Josebr]

How do I add multiple foldering when adding folders? The program seems to want one to go back to brows and select the other folder(s) one at a time. I hope that's not the way I have to add multiple folders. Seems way out of date, practice to have one do it that way. No program works that way today.

[Mario]

You can select multiple folders in Windows Explorer and drop them into the Media & Folders View.
Or just click the Add new folders... button and then add any number of folders as needed.



See Adding Folders Using Drag and Drop and Using the Add or Update Folders Dialog in the IMatch help for detailed information.

[Josebr]

Mario, 
Using the menu item you Add Folders, just takes me back to the same place as before. Where I have to pick a folder, click ok, then click brows again to pick another folder.  Why can't I pick multiple folders at once? Instead of going back and forth. And no, I don't use the windows Explorer to select a bunch of files. Every other program I have allows one to pick multiple folders at once. I don't like having a separate window open as I then have to shrink the current window to then have two small size windows. Please tell me there is a way to brows and while in brows pick more than one folder.

[thrinn]

I don't like having a separate window open as I then have to shrink the current window to then have two small size windows.

You don't have to shrink the windows to have them both visible at the same time. You can select multiple folders in Windows Explorer and drag them to the IMatch tab in the task bar. Keep the mouse button pressed (!) until IMatch pops to the front, then drag the folders to the Media & Folders view.

As the "Add & update folders" dialog indeed does not allow to select multiple folders at once, this might be a relatively simple workaround. (You can add multiple folders one by one to the "ingestion list", and then start importing them at once, but I understand that this is not what you want to do).

[Mario]

The Add folder dialog is usually only used for special situations, e.g. when copying and pasting folder names from somewhere. It does not allow multiple selections and AFAIK that was never requested before. Feel free to add a feature request.

The normal method is to select the folder(s) to add in Windows Explorer and drag them to the Media & Folders View.
Even on small monitors it should be easy to see both the Explorer Window (on top) and the IMatch Window (below). Just drag the selected folders to the Media & Folders View.

When the IMatch Window is not visible, just keep the the left mouse button down and use <Alt>+<Tab> to tab through all open applications until you IMatch is highlighted. Release <Alt>+<Tab> and drop the files into the Media & Folders View.

Or use the method described by thrinn to bring IMatch into the foreground by dragging the selection from Windows Explorer to the IMatch icon in the Windows task bar, keep the mouse cursor steady until Windows pops up the IMatch window and then drop the selection into the Media & Folders View.

May I ask why you have to add multiple folders so often that this becomes a burden?

Usually users manage one or two top-level folders (like "c:\images") in IMatch.
When new folders are added under these root folders, IMatch automatically adds them to the database when you rescan the root folder with <Shift>+<F5> or automatically when advanced file system monitoring is enabled (see Indexing for more information).

[Josebr]

Mario,
I take photos everyday. Using my DSLR and my iPhone cameras. I organize my photos by camera, then Year, Month, Day.
So that my folders are as follows for my DSLR
Nikon P950
2021
-2021_08
  -2021_08_01
  -2021_08_02
  -2021_08_03
      2021_08_03_091857.jpg
      2021_08_03_103030.jpg

So after taking photos for the day, I move the photos from their respective cameras to my computer into that camera's folder. So each day I am adding a folder. Sometimes I will wait a few days to bring the photos into my computer, hence the need to add more than one folder at a time. 

Since I organize my photos by Camera, Year, Month, Day, I use your software to categorize them and add keywords.

[thrinn]

But if you have a common "main" folder (or one per camera), it should be enough to just "rescan" this top folder. IMatch will add new subfolders automatically. And a rescan for existing folders where nothing has changed is really fast, so I would not expect any time penalty by rescanning the master folder instead of adding each sub-sub-folder separately.

[Mario]

Mario,
Since I organize my photos by Camera, Year, Month, Day, I use your software to categorize them and add keywords.

Just rescan the Nikon P950 folder via <Shift>+<F5>
IMatch automatically detects new sub-folders and files and adds them.
No need to manually add them via the dialog or drag and drop.

[Josebr]

Mario, 
Thank you for your feedback. I will try the Rescan. I did not know that is what the feature was for. And best yet, I won't have to 'add folders anymore. I love it! Thanks Again.

[Mario]

Mario,
Thank you for your feedback. I will try the Rescan. I did not know that is what the feature was for. And best yet, I won't have to 'add folders anymore. I love it! Thanks Again.

This is indeed the function of this feature. To check a folder for new files and sub-folders.

IMatch automatically adds new files and rescans modified files in folders already in the database.
It does not automatically add sub-folders or remove no longer existing files, because this could have side effects and hence is let to the user. See Rescanning Folders for more info.

If advanced file monitoring is enabled under Edit > Preferences > Indexing, IMatch does this automatically. But this may have unwanted side-effects, so this is off by default. See Indexing for more information.