The main window

The window of File Multi Tool has two halves: the action and its settings on the left, and the file list on the right.

The action and its settings

The Action: pop-up menu at the top left selects what will be done to the files. As soon as you choose an action, its settings appear below the menu. The actions are grouped by what they change:

• file creation and modification dates: setting, copying and adjusting them
• the Advanced date manipulation action for everything the simple date actions cannot do
• embedded photo and video dates and other metadata tags
• file flags: extension visibility, lock, Finder label, legacy creator and type codes
• invisible files and Finder updates

The file list

The right-hand side invites you to drag your files and folders into it. Once you do, it becomes a table with one row per item and the columns that matter for the current action: for a date action the dates concerned, for a tag action the tags. A Full Path column can be switched on in View ▸ File List Columns. The info pane shows everything the program knows about the selected item, including a preview.

The buttons under the list add items (+), remove the selected top-level item (−) and clear the list. There are several other ways of adding files.

Where an action does not apply to a file, the row shows an icon in the supported column; see what the icons mean.

Which items are processed

The Process: checkboxes at the bottom decide which of the dropped items are changed:

• Files processes the files you dropped. It does not affect the dropped folders.
• Folders processes the folders you dropped, not their contents.
• Subfolders and their contents descends into every dropped folder and processes what it finds there, according to the other two checkboxes.

The three can be combined. All three ticked means every file and folder inside the dropped folders is processed; Files and Subfolders and their contents without Folders processes only the files inside the hierarchy, and so on.

Performing the changes

Perform Changes applies the action to the listed items; pressing Return does the same. The file list shows the current values of the fields the action touches and updates them as the batch is processed; the Advanced date manipulation action additionally previews the new dates before anything is written. In trial mode, only the first five files of each run are processed.