Filter Actions

• Watch the video on filter actions (3m 55s)

Filter actions are special actions that do not change the file name, but decide which files or folders the actions below it in the action table apply to.

Using filter actions, you can apply different renaming actions to different kinds of files. You can, for instance, make all folder names uppercase and all file names lowercase, or add sequence numbers only to files with a .jpg extension.

To create a filter action:

1. Click the Show Advanced Sidebar button (or choose View › Toggle Sidebar), then select the Actions tab
2. Click the filter button (the funnel icon with the plus sign) at the bottom of the action list

The currently edited action will provide an interface that allows you to include or exclude files and folders based on a range of criteria.

At the top of the action parameters, the first popup decides whether the filter selects file names, folder names or file and folder names, and the second whether all or any of the rules below must be fulfilled. Below this line you can add one or more rules. Each rule has three parts: what to look at (File name, File extension, Image user comment, or whether digital camera EXIF shooting date information can be read), how to compare it (is, is not, contains, does not contain, starts with, does not start with, ends with, does not end with) and the text to compare with. Comparisons ignore the difference between upper and lower case, File name means the name without its extension, and File extension includes the leading dot. Add a rule with the + button on the right of an existing rule, delete one with the - button to its right.

Example

To add sequence numbers to the JPEG files in a folder but leave the RAW files alone:

1. Create a filter action and set it to change file names if all rules are fulfilled
2. Add the rule File extension is .jpg (this also matches .JPG)
3. Add the sequence number action below the filter action

The Show Intermediate Results Column option described below shows which files passed the filter.

You can examine whether an item fulfills the conditions by activating the Show Intermediate Results Column option in the Preview table (View › Preview › Show Intermediate Results Column).

If you have a single filter action, its filter applies to all actions below it. You can place actions that should be applied to all items above the first filter action.

If you have several filter actions, each filter applies to all the items below it and before the next filter action.

You can drag & drop filter actions in the actions table, and you can delete them like normal actions.