Help · Organize
The Organize screen reads the metadata inside each photo and video and writes a folder tree from it. This page goes through the panel in the order it appears, using the app's own labels, and says for each one what it changes on disk.
In Copy mode nothing at the source is touched — the originals stay exactly where they are, and a second, organized set is written at the destination. In Move mode the file is transferred and the source copy is removed only after the destination copy has been written and, if verification is on, checksummed.
Nothing is ever deleted to make room. If a file with the same name already exists at the destination, FolioSort follows your Duplicates setting rather than overwriting. Every run is recorded as one batch in Activity and can be undone from there — the last 50 batches are kept.
Where FolioSort reads from. Nothing here writes anything.
Source FolderFree
The folder to read. It can be an internal disk, an external drive, an SD card, or a network volume — the panel tells you which it thinks it is. On a network volume, expect the scan to be slower; nothing else changes.
Include SubfoldersFree
On, everything underneath the source folder is read, however deep. Off, only the files sitting directly in it are. Leave it on for a library that arrived as a pile of folders; turn it off when you want to deal with one level at a time.
ScanFree
Reads the folder and builds the file list. A scan only reads: it opens each file's metadata and closes it again. If you change a file setting afterwards, the panel says Rescan needed and the list you are looking at is from the previous scan until you run it again.
Files greyed out with Excluded by the file-type filter will stay where they are. Files marked Not downloaded from iCloud are placeholders on this machine — FolioSort recognises them and does not force a download.
Destination FolderFree
Where the organized tree is written. It is tested for writability once, before the run starts, rather than at the first file. Pointing it at the source folder is allowed and is how you reorganize a library in place.
Mode — Copy or MoveFree
Copy writes a second organized set and leaves the source untouched. It needs the space for both, and it is the mode to use the first time you try a template on photos that matter.
Move transfers the file and frees the space at the source. The source copy goes only after the destination copy exists and has been verified. Both modes are undoable from Activity.
The shape of the tree that gets written. The preview underneath shows the real result for your actual files before anything moves.
The presetsYear / Month is free
Year / Month / Day — best for date-based browsing.Year / Month — simple monthly buckets.Year only — one folder per year.Year_Month_Day — a flat, sortable folder name rather than nested levels.Date + Camera — sorts by date, then splits by the camera that took the shot.Month + Camera — monthly camera grouping, for multi-camera workflows.Camera / Date — gear first, for people who shoot with several bodies.Folders are dated on every tier. Pro unlocks every preset and the Template Builder.
Custom templatePro
Under Advanced → Build your own pattern. Tokens for year, month, day, camera, lens, and — with reverse geocoding on — country, state and city. The preview updates as you type, on your files, so you can see an unusual template fail before you run it rather than after.
Photos · Videos · OtherPhotos and videos are free
Which kinds of file take part in the run. Photos and videos are free, in every format the free tier reads. Organizing non-photo files — documents, archives, anything else sitting in the same folders — is Pro.
Videos subfolderPro
On, videos are filed into their own subfolder inside each dated folder. Off, they sit beside the photos, on the same dates. Free files them beside the photos.
When no EXIFFree
What to do with a file that has no capture date inside it — a screenshot, a file a messaging app stripped, a scan. You can have FolioSort fall back to the file name (camera-roll and WhatsApp names carry a date), to the file system date, or leave those files where they are.
Approximate inferred dates marks anything dated by inference rather than by real EXIF, so you can tell later which folders are certain and which were a best guess.
Place names inPro
Turns the GPS coordinates already in your photos into real place names, so {Country},
{State} and {City} can be used in a template. This is the one feature that
needs a network connection: only the coordinates are sent for lookup — never the photo, never the file
name. Everything else in FolioSort works with the network off.
Verify after transferFree
Reads the file back after writing it and compares checksums, so a silent write error on a failing drive or a flaky USB cable is caught while the source copy still exists. It costs roughly 16 seconds per gigabyte, because every file is read twice more. On an external drive or a NAS, leave it on.
Duplicates — auto actionPro
What happens when a file that is already at the destination turns up again in the source. The free tier skips it, which never overwrites anything. Pro lets you choose — skip, keep both with a suffix, or replace — and which algorithm decides that two files are the same.
The tree, before anything movesFree
The preview is the real folder tree your current settings would produce, built from your scanned files, not an illustration. If a template produces something you did not expect, it shows up here, before a single file has been touched. Nothing is written until you press the run button under it.
Everything landed in one folder
Usually the files have no EXIF capture date, so they all fell back to the same date. Check the When no EXIF setting, and if these came out of Google Photos, use the Google Photos screen instead — the dates are in the JSON sidecars, not in the files.
The dates are all today
That is the file system date, not the capture date, and it means the capture date was missing or the fallback was set to use the file date. A Takeout export does this to every photo in it.
I want the last run back
Open Activity. Each run is one batch, newest first, with the number of files and where they went. Undo restores them to their original paths; it can be run again if it is interrupted.