Questions tagged [file-management]

Methods by which files are managed and organized. Could refer to file management by the OS or by a third party application.

1315 questions
433
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25 answers

How to delete directories with path/names too long for normal delete

Windows seems to have a length limit on file names when trying to delete, though it won't prevent those files from being created. Our build process creates a number of temporary files (many build off of a WSDL) that run afoul of this limit. Our ant…
Herms
  • 9,992
315
votes
23 answers

How can I visualize the file system usage on Windows?

How can I visualize which folders and files are taking up all of the space on my hard drive? I'm getting some conflicting reports on the size of hard drive contents. Namely what is and isn't there and what folders are actually using the space. I…
192
votes
7 answers

How can I determine file type without an extension on Windows?

I sometimes get files from my clients that have the wrong file extension. For example, the name is image.jpg but the file is actually a TIFF image. In many cases I can clarify it by opening the file in a text editor, looking at the first few bytes,…
Martin
  • 4,012
190
votes
18 answers

How do I delete a folder that's in use?

Sometimes when I'm working in Windows I'll get this prompt when I try to delete a directory: Folder In Use The action can't be completed because the folder is open in another program Close the folder and try again. However, the folder isn't "in…
Factor Mystic
  • 13,015
159
votes
11 answers

How to set the default program for opening files without an extension in Windows?

How to set the default program for opening files without an extension in Windows?
156
votes
14 answers

Mass deleting files in Windows

I have a directory, that contains ~ 3 million files in certain subdirectories on a Windows 2008 server. Manually deleting the files via SHIFT+DEL on the root dir takes ages. Is there any other way to do the deletion in a faster manner?
aaginor
153
votes
1 answer

How do I delete all files smaller than a certain size in all subfolders?

I have a folder with many sub-folders containing small tif files (less than 160kb) which have been merged together in bigger pdf files, together with some big multi-page tif files. I want to delete all small tif files without deleting the bigger…
To Do
  • 2,560
141
votes
24 answers

How can I mass rename files?

I've got a bunch of files named with a the pattern 99 - DescriptiveName.txt and I'd like to remove the number from the front so I just have DescriptiveName.txt. How can I do this? Can I do it from the command line or is there a utility that can do…
BIBD
  • 1,594
137
votes
16 answers

How do I move files and directories to the parent folder in Linux?

In Linux (Ubuntu), how do you move all the files and directories to the parent directory?
nekbaba
106
votes
12 answers

Windows 10 deletes lots of tiny files super slowly. Can anything be done to speed it up?

I work with tens of thousands 20 kB JPEG files in batches which add up to gigabytes. When I try to delete an old batch, Windows 10 has a very low delete rate which sometimes even drops to zero for some reason: Is this just a fact of life for the…
96
votes
12 answers

What's a good solution for file-tagging in linux?

I've been looking for a way to tag my files and search/filter them based on those tags. Here are my (updated) requirements : any file readable by the user can be tagged freely a user can search for files matching one or several tags files can be…
julien
  • 1,596
86
votes
5 answers

What technical reasons exist for not using space characters in file names?

Somebody I know expressed irritation today regarding those of us who tend not to use spaces in our filenames, e.g. NamingThingsLikeThis.txt -- despite most modern operating systems supporting spaces in filenames. Are there technical reasons that…
Chris W. Rea
  • 10,978
85
votes
13 answers

Is there a way to batch rename files to lowercase?

I need a way to rename all files in folders and subfolders to lowercase. I'd like to know if there is a way to do that using only windows (XP or 7)
ino
  • 1,575
83
votes
8 answers

Windows 7, file properties, date modified, how do you show seconds?

Anyone know a way to immediately show the seconds of a file's date modified property in the GUI? So if you create a file, any file in any directory, right-click and choose Properties, the date modified (if it's recent) will say something like…
Jordan W.
  • 971
76
votes
17 answers

How do I find the largest files and folders on a drive?

Possible Duplicate: How can I visualize the file system usage on Windows? I am looking for a tool to tell me which files and folders are the largest as I need to do some cleanup.
leora
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