Shortcuts To Help You Organize Your Files

You can use Shortcuts to move files based on choices, file names or locations. Check out these three ideas for Shortcuts apps that will help you stay organized.
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Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you some ways that you can use shortcuts on your Mac to organize your files. 
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Now one of the things that the Shortcuts App does well is to move files. You can use logic to only move some files or to move some files to one location and other files to another location. So whenever I talk about Shortcuts what I want to do is give you some building blocks to be able to build your own shortcut to do your own things. So these shortcuts here are really just starting points. So let's create some a new shortcut in the Shortcuts App here.  
The first I'm going to do is look at the Move File command. So I want to search for Move over here and I can bring Move File over. You can see I can select what file to move. So I can select a specific file and also where it goes. My default it is going to go to the Shortcuts Folder which I not where we want it to go. But we can choose another. So unless we just want to move one specific file we want to loop through a list of files. So to do Loops we want to use Repeat. So I'm going to use Repeat with Each. I am going to bring that over here and Repeat With Each Item in what. So we're going to click on that and say we're going to use the Shortcut Input. This is going to add the Shortcut Input block here at the top. We're going to change that by using Select All then Deselect All so it deselects everything and say we just want it to receive files. So it will receiver files, and from what? We can select here and it's going to go to the detail section. So we're going to say let's use this as a Quick Action in the Finder. So it can appear there as a Service. We can select some files and then it will repeat through them preforming an action on each file that is selected. 
Now we can also click Continue here and say Ask For and change this to Files. So if nothing is actually received, in other words we run it, say, from the Shortcuts Menu up here. Then it will prompt us for files. Just another way to use the same shortcut. 
So now every time it goes through the loop we want it to do something to files based on either the name or the extension. So let's get the name and extension. I'm going to look under the Actions here and I'm going to search for File Details. The Get Details of File action. We're going to put that here in the Repeat Loop. The detail we want to get is the name of the repeat item. Now we also may want to know the extension. So I'm going to drag this over a second time but this time the detail we're going to get is the file extension and we're going to get it from, and select here, clear that out, click again and then say we want to get it from the Repeat item. 
Now we can use IF statements to check the name or file extension and do something with the files. So let's search for IF and here is the If Function, and we'll say IF, and not file extension, I'm going to Control Click, two-finger click, or right click here and change that to the Name. So IF the Name and the condition, and let's do Contains, and let's say the Name Contains Screenshot. Notice here I've got on the Desktop, that's a typical screenshot, and it names it with the word Screenshot there at the beginning. So we can do Contains. We can even say let's do Starts With or Begins With right here. So if the name begins with screenshot then what? Well, now we go back to our Move File command and we're going to stick that in here and I'll Control Click here and then, say, What. The Repeat Item. Move the Repeat Item to where. I don't want it to move to Shortcuts. In my Documents Folder I've created a folder called Screenshots. That's where I want the screenshots to go. So any file, as it repeats through the Input Files with the name that begins with the word Screenshot, that item will then be moved to the folder called Screenshots. Then we got Otherwise. I'm going to get rid of the Otherwise here and just have this as an IF statement by itself. 
I'm going to do another one just to show that you don't have to just search for one thing at a time. So we're going to use IF again and put it after this End If and say IF and then we're going to say the File Extension, in this case because we get the file extension here, is, and let's say txt. Then we're going to Move the File. I'm going to change this to Repeat Item to where? Not to Shortcuts but again in the Documents folder I've got a folder called Text Files. So anything with the extension txt is going to get moved to Text Files. I can get rid of Otherwise. So I'll loop through everything and if either of these two conditions are met it's going to move the file to one of these two folders. You can, of course, continue to add more to make it more useful. You can have ten or twenty different IF statements moving different files to different locations. So the idea here might be that you let your Desktop get crowded with stuff as you're working on a project throughout the day. At the end of the day you want to clean everything up. You want things to automatically move to different folders based on their name or file extensions or other things. 
Let's go and name this Move Files Auto and then I'll hide the Shortcuts App. Then if I look here in the Documents Folder there are my text files. There's nothing in there and there is nothing in Screenshots either. So if I select these two files here I go to Finder Services and there is Move Files Auto. I'm going to run that and it's going to loop through those and you can see it moved the Screenshot file to Screenshots, the text file to Text Files. 
One thing to note here that each IF statement is going to check the file regardless of the previous one did anything with it. So, for instance if you had a file that had Screenshots at the beginning of the file name and it was a Text File then it would move it here and then it should move it there. So that probably should never occur. But if you're concerned about that with the conditions you set you can go ahead and use this Otherwise section here. Then move each IF statement in the Otherwise. So in this case it is going to say IF the name begins with Screenshot then move it here Otherwise then it is going to check IF file extension is txt then move here and then you can add Otherwise right here as well, and it will keep, kind of indenting and getting deeper and deeper. 
Now let's create a different shortcut. One that won't automatically move things but give you a choice of where things go. So, I'm going to create a new shortcut here and I'm going to call this Move Files To. The idea here is I want to be able to select a bunch of files and move them all to a folder without having to find that folder in the Finder. As a matter of fact I'm going to show you how to be able to drag and drop to have this happen. 
I'm going to start off with a Menu choice to choose which folder that these files will move to. So let's search for Menu. You can choose from Menu here. I'm going to drag that in. You can setup prompts. So I can say, you know, which folder and I can choose let's say Screenshots, I could choose Text Files and maybe I can choose another one here like Stuff. Then you can see it creates three different conditions here. If the answer to this menu choice is Screenshots then all of the commands underneath Screenshots will be performed. 
So what do we want to do. Under Screenshots do we want to move things? Well, we actually don't want to move things because what if there is more than one file. We'd have to do a loop and then move each file in that loop. We're going to have to do that for Text Files and for Stuff and maybe you have ten different choices here. So instead let's just get the location for each of these options here. So I'm going to search for File here and there is an Action that is simply just File. I'm going to drag that in and this allows me to select anything including a Folder. I'm going to click there and I'm going to select the Screenshots Folder, like that. You can see how it gives me the path there. I'm going to do the same thing for Text Files here. I'll select the folder named Text Files and I'm going to do the same thing for Stuff. I'm going to select the folder named Stuff. What Choose From Menu does is whatever the choice is is the output from this entire block. So, you choose one of these three things and the Output is going to be either be path to Screenshots, the path to Text Files, or the path to Stuff. 
So now we can do a repeat loop and I can use Repeat with each. Stick that there at the bottom. So it repeats with each item in not the menu result but Shortcuts Input just like before. We have Shortcut Input here and we can have it receive. Let's have it just receive Files and Folders. The input can come from the Services Menu in the Finder. We can also set the Input here to Ask For Files, like that. So various ways for Input to come in. That's going to repeat with each item in the Shortcuts Input. It's going to move and this time it is going to move each repeat item to where. Not to Shortcuts but to the Menu result. So one of these three things based on your choice. So now if I were to select this example file here and then go to Finder Services and then Move Files To, it is going to ask me to choose where I want to move it to. I'll say Text Files. Done. and you can see it moves it to that location. In fact if I were to select both of these files, like that, and I'm actually going to Control Click on it here and then do a Quick Action, because I enable Quick Actions as well, and say Move Files To it will prompt me. I can say Text Files and it will move of those there to Text Files because it loops through them.
But here's the cool thing that you could do with this. You can go back to the Shortcut here and you could do File and Add To Dock. This will add this Shortcut to the Dock. If I look in the Dock I can actually see it here. Now the cool thing about it being in the Dock is you can Drag and Drop to it. So I can take these files here, drag it to the Dock and drag it on top of that and it will work. It will  move those two things there. If you want to go for extra credit you can actually change the shortcut to look for whatever is selected in the Finder and use that instead of Shortcut Input. Then you can use the Pinned Menu up here to activate it and whatever is selected will actually be moved based on your Menu choice. 
Alright, so those are useful starting points for building Shortcuts that can do all sorts of things to help you keep your files organized. Here's a third shortcut that is something I actually use every single day. See, sometimes you go to websites and you can download items from the websites and you can actually Control Click on them and then select where to download the file. But other times websites don't let you do that. You click on something in the script run and a file downloads and it goes to your Downloads folder or whatever your default location is for downloads no matter if you want it there or not. I have a shortcut that will take the last item added to the Downloads Folder and move it to any folder that is chosen. So let's go and create this shortcut here. 
I'm going to call it Bring Last Download To This Folder. I'm going to search for Get Contents and I can use the Contents of Folder here. I'm going to get the Contents of what folder? I'm going to get the contents of the Downloads Folder. Then I'm going to Filter. I'm going to Filter Files here. So the contents of the Downloads Folder are going to pass into Filter and then it is going to Filter the contents of the folder sorted by either the Creation Date or Last Modified Date. I want it to be the latest first and limit it to just one. In other words give me the latest file in the Downloads Folder. So that one file now will pass through to the next thing. That simply going to be a Move File command and it is going to move the file the comes out of the filter. It is going to move them to, I'm going to Control Click here and choose Shortcut Input. The Shortcut Input is going to be simply a Folder. That's all I'm going to allow. The Input is going to come from a Quick Action in the Finder. Now let's go ahead and use this. I've got here in my Downloads Folder a single file here so it is the latest file to be downloaded. So I don't even have to have the Downloads Folder open. So what I can do is select this folder here. I'm going to Control Click on it and then I'm going to go to Quick Actions and notice I've got my Bring Latest Download to this folder shortcut there. I use it and you can see it took it from the Downloads Folder and moved it here. 
One potential issue with this is I can only use the Latest Modified Date or the Latest Creation Date for this. This is never a problem for me. But if you've got a very crowded Downloads Folder, you've left a lot of stuff in there, sometimes you download something and it's like an old file that's on that site and the creation date or modified date isn't right now. So you may end up with a different file coming from the Downloads Folder. This isn't really a problem for me because I keep my Downloads Folder pretty neat and the type of files I'm getting are things that are generated on the spot. So, when I generate say a report on a website it's always got a creation date and a modified date that are right now. So it is always going to be the latest. 
Of course, like the other two shortcuts I showed you these are just starting points for you to build your own shortcut. I hope you found these useful and learned a little bit about using shortcuts on your Mac. Thanks for watching.
Comments: 5 Responses to “Shortcuts To Help You Organize Your Files”

Sheldon
9 months ago
Thanks bunches
Dave Taenzer
Thanks. I really enjoy your Shortcuts videos. Very helpful.
Umesh Kumar
Great shortcuts. Going to use them
Michael
2 months ago
Thanks for this great tutorial! I was wondering if its possible to save a file to multiple folders at the same time? Havent fount a solution for this kind of scenario.
Gary Rosenzweig
Michael: What do you mean, exactly? Two separate, independent copies of the same file? Or are you just looking for easier ways to access the same single file? Describe the problem you are trying to solve.
Shortcuts To Help You Organize Your Files

Comments: 5 Responses to “Shortcuts To Help You Organize Your Files”

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