Folder Size Question

[Michael5014]

So far, Loving the new IMatch!  Have a simple question:  How does IMatch handle folder size?  In other words, is it better to have several smaller folders, or fewer larger folders as far as how efficiently and quickly IMatch scans and loads data?  My collection includes several thousands of photos compiled from several sources over many time frames.  I had set folders initially to be by location, but the sheer size of the folders makes any thing I do take quite a bit of time.  I am thinking of resetting my folders to years and months, which should make hundreds of folders, but all of a smaller size.  My collection is numbered in the 100,000s of images.  Thanks for any suggestions.

[JohnZeman]

It's been my impression that folder sizes are only limited by Windows ability to manage the files in any given folder.  Once IMatch imports an image (along with its metadata) it's in the database so the actual location of an image in a folder isn't all that important.  That said, if you're trying to import a new folder containing 10s of thousands of images, it likely will take quite some time for IMatch to do that.

FWIW I use one folder for each year of my images.  A typical folder will hold around 7000-10000 images and I have no problems at all with this.

[Mario]

On older Windows versions, certain file system operations could become slower when you had more than a few thousand of files in a folder. For example, the Windows indexing service, the Windows thumbnail generation (to show you previews and thumbnails in Windows Explorer). Also, some virus checking engines slowed down with large folder structures.

IMatch 5 does not care much for number of files in a folder. Of course when you click on a folder in the Media & Folders view and IMatch has to retrieve data for 10,000 files it will take longer than to retrieve data for 500 files. This means a folder with 10,000 files will take a bit longer to load and display.

IMatch 5 has been designed to handle very large number of files int he file window - you can even bring all files in the database into the file window!.

I personally use a date/month/shooting folder structure.