Organize Your Files Automatically: A Bash Script Based on Creation Date

In today’s digital age, managing and organizing files can quickly become overwhelming. Locating specific files can be a time-consuming task, especially when dealing with a large number of documents, photos, or other digital assets. To streamline your file organization process, I’ve developed a bash script that automatically classifies files into respective year and month folders based on their creation date. This script simplifies file management and ensures a well-organized file structure. Let’s dive into the details of this handy script!

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Create a folder structure to classify files by YEAR and MONTH.
# Aliased as 'sortdate'

for file in *; do
    if [ -f "$file" ]; then
        filename="$file"
        year=$(date -r "$file" +%Y)
        month=$(date -r "$file" +'%m %B')
        destination="$year/$month"

        mkdir -p "$destination" && mv "$filename" "$destination"
    fi
done

Explanation:

The script revolves around a for loop that iterates through each item in the current directory. It performs the following steps:

1. File Validation: The script verifies if the item is a regular file using the [ -f “$file” ] condition. This ensures that only files are considered for classification, excluding directories and other special files.

2. Extraction of Date Information: The date command is utilized to extract the creation date of the file. The date -r option retrieves the creation date of the file specified by $file. Two variables, year and month, are assigned the extracted year (+%Y) and month (+%m %B) respectively. The latter format includes both the month number and the full month name for better folder naming.

3. Destination Folder Creation: The destination folder path is constructed by concatenating the year and month variables. The mkdir -p command is used to create the destination folder if it doesn’t already exist. The -p flag ensures that parent directories are created as needed.

4. File Movement: The mv command moves the file ($filename) to the destination folder ($destination).

Conclusion: By utilizing this script, you can automate the process of organizing files based on their creation date. This simplifies file management and allows for easier access to specific files within a well-structured directory hierarchy. Whether you want to organize documents, photos, or any other files, this script will save you time and effort.

Note: When running scripts, exercise caution and ensure you have a backup of your files before making any changes to their locations.