Removing files based on a list

[still]

Hi all,

I've got a folder with about 3000 pictures. My sister has gone through and
made a list of pictures she wants to remove in excel (instead of actually
deleting them). She now wants to get rid of the files on the list. I was
hoping there is a way of using the excel list to delete the files
automatically. One thing to note is that the file names have spaces so I'm
not sure how that will affect this.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[db.·.. >]

actually there is,

however it would be simply
easier to use a program designed
to index files/folders and
manage them by with the
right click method or menu
bar options.

you see what you are trying to
do is to re invent the wheel.

the list you made in excel is
simply an index or table of
pic files and because i would
guess you don't have a year or
so to learn computer programming,
just use a freeware from
microsoft called windows
desktop search.

another tool that does the same
as above is the windows explorer
search assistant feature that comes
with windows already

the search assistant will build
an index and then you can save
that listing as a file and to the
desktop, then you can maintain that
index by adding or deleting files.

 

[still]

Thanks for the reply. I'm just having a bit of a problem understanding what I
need to do with windows desktop search to delete the files i have listed in
my excel file.

My excel file, as you said, is a list of filenames like Washington 001,
Washington 004, Washington 009, ... . Now that I have this list, I want to
load it into a program/script and let it delete them from the folder, instead
of me going and deleting them one by one and potentially make a mistake
reading from the list and deleting the wrong file.

I'm not sure if what I want makes complete sense. I'm not very familiar with
desktop search (although I have it installed) so I don't know how I could
tell it to use my list and delete the files on that list.

Once again thanks for your help.

 

[Tim Slattery]

Hi all,

I've got a folder with about 3000 pictures. My sister has gone through and
made a list of pictures she wants to remove in excel (instead of actually
deleting them). She now wants to get rid of the files on the list. I was
hoping there is a way of using the excel list to delete the files
automatically. One thing to note is that the file names have spaces so I'm
not sure how that will affect this.

Hmm..I'd save the spreadsheet as a text file. Then open it in a text
editor and add

delete "

at the beginning of each line, and

"

at the end. Then save it as something.bat or something.cmd, preferably
in the directory where the images are (will make it easier to invoke).
Now open a command window, navigate to the directory in question and
invoke it:

something.cmd

 

[still]

Thanks Tim, great solution. I can do this easily in excel just write a
formula with 'delete "' in front. Thanks again.

 

[John John (MVP)]

Export the Excel filelist to a text file then run a batch command
against the fileset:

for /f "usebackq delims=" %%A in ("c:\dirlist.txt") do echo "%%A"

The above will echo the filelist, to delete the files replace echo in
the above command with del . Note that files deleted at the command
prompt or with batch files do not go to the Recycle Bin, they are
permanently deleted! It may be safer to MOVE the files then examine the
results and delete the file from their new location:

md c:\test
for /f "usebackq delims=" %%A in ("c:\dirlist.txt") do move "%%A" C:\Test

or make sure you have a backup before you run the batch file!

If the filelist only contains names (filename.jpg) as opposed to fully
qualified filenames and path, (C:\Folder Name\filename.jpg) put the
filename.txt file and the batch file in the same folder as the pictures
and from a command prompt navigate to the folder and launch the batch
file from within the containing folder. The batcg commmand will look
for the files in the folder where it was launched.

John