[X4U] Finder Question

[Ed Gould]

On Nov 20, 2008, at 12:56 AM, Christopher Collins wrote:

> Ah yes, I didn't get that bit from the original email. Yes,  
> Spotlight is not perfect and I don't think search programs ever are  
> or can be.
>
> I don't understand why you want to move all these files you want to  
> delete to one folder before you delete them?
>
> Isn't that really a double step? Why not just delete them where  
> they are?
>
> Also, I wonder why the need to delete them at all? With disk space  
> being so cheap, why not just move them off to an external backup disk?
>
> Have you looked at the Spotlight Preferences available in System  
> Preferences? It allows you to define what is returned and in what  
> order.
>
> Might be useful?
>
> Regards,
>
> cjc
>
>

Alas I am about out of will on this but one last attempt to explain  
and then lets all please drop this as it obvious there are no good  
solutions for what I want to do.
I get *LOTS* of emails with pictures either attached or imbedded in  
them. What happen to me was that I thought when I dragged the picture  
to a general folder (that I have) the window that I was dragging the  
pictures to was a folder (unknown to me) that contained literally 100+ 
+ folders. When I dropped the file(s) I *THOUGHT* I was putting them  
into my folder that I set aside for such things, instead they went to  
the *WRONG* folder(s in my case). so my 100+ pictures ended up in 100 
+ folders (like I said before it seemed to spread them all over the  
place for some reason).
The folders they ended up in were incorrect and my goal was to find  
the pictures and put them into the correct folder so I could later  
sort through which ones I wanted to keep and ones I want to delete.

My initial (and I consider it still valid and best) idea was to  
identify which folders had the pictures and to move the pictures to  
my work folder so I could decide then what I wanted to keep/delete.

My idea was to use a facility (spotlight or ?) to find the folders  
that contained the pictures and to move the pictures to my work  
folder for later processing. There are side issues that are sort of  
germane that the folders are huge (10K+ files each) and opening each  
one takes a bit of time on my computer (and yes I have subdivided the  
folders but the folders grow and never shrink). Each folder to open  
takes anywhere from 45-120 seconds to open and the amount of time to  
open each folder is at best tedious. So to not to have to look  
through 100++ folders my attempt was to open the subset of folders  
that contain only the items I want. That limits the time I need to  
sit at the computer.

I thought I took the simplest route maybe not but it still seems the  
easiest way to just open the folders I want (if I know the folder  
(path)) it is a straight shot and not having to hunt through every  
folder seemed to be the quickest way to correct my error. Yes it was  
my error to begin with and not knowing that I was making an error  
till after the drag and drop was done. Yes in the future I will  
attempt to be more careful but again it was a stupid mistake that  
never should have happened but the point was it did.

Now back to the other OS X issues.

Ed