Documentation

Getting started

FlowRate works on the files of the folders you select. Nothing about those files is changed while you review them. Only the sort-out run carries out the decisions you made.

1. 1Open a folder with ⌘O, drop it on the app icon, or hand it to FlowRate from the Finder's Services menu.
2. 2If the folder contains subfolders, you decide whether their files belong to the session.
3. 3Go through the files: ↑ keeps, ↓ discards, and 1–9 keeps the file with the matching rating.
4. 4Press ⌘S, choose what happens to the kept and the discarded files, and start the sort-out run.

The session

A session covers the folders you selected, their files and your decisions. It is kept when you close it. Open a session again later and FlowRate resumes at the point you last reached. Open sessions are listed on the start screen.

Whether files from subfolders are included is settled before the session begins. FlowRate only asks for folders that have subfolders. Alternatively this setting can be fixed permanently in the settings.

Decisions are saved when you leave a session and after a sort-out run, not after every single input. If FlowRate quits unexpectedly before that, the decisions made since the last save are lost.

Favorites and the start screen

The start screen shows favorites, open sessions and the last ten opened folders. Each of these lists can be switched off in the settings. The context menu of a row lets you add a folder to the favorites or remove it from a list.

A favorite stores more than the folder path. It can hold its own setting for including subfolders as well as its own sort-out settings. Opening a favorite applies those settings automatically.

Deciding

After a decision FlowRate moves on to the next file that has not been decided yet. ← and → move between files without making a decision.

In the grid the decision keys apply to the whole selection. A single undo takes those decisions back together.

⌘Z takes decisions back one at a time. The undo history is cleared as soon as files leave the session or the filter is changed.

When a decision means the file no longer matches the current filter, it disappears from the view immediately. For example: with a filter for undecided files, a file you have just decided disappears from the list. It was decided, not removed.

The status bar shows the folder, the file name, the current decision, the position within the session, and the number of kept, discarded and still undecided files.

The counters shown refer only to the files that are currently visible. A click on the folder or the file name opens the full path.

Rating

The digits 1–9 keep a file and assign it the matching rating at the same time. 0 sets the file back to “undecided”.

The rating can be used during a sort-out to distribute files across different folders. It can also be part of a rename rule set.

Store ratings in the files is an option of the sort-out run, not a global setting. With the option enabled, FlowRate writes the rating into the file as a star rating. That rating can then be read by the Finder and by Spotlight as well.

When a folder is opened again later, FlowRate reads existing ratings back in. Those files then appear as kept and with their stored rating.

Filtering

The toolbar carries switches for the different file kinds: images, videos, audio files, PDFs and other files. The filter beside them narrows the view further by decision and rating.

Invert turns the current choice around, Show All clears the filtering. The same options are available in the View menu.

A sort-out run only processes visible files. A file kind that is switched off, or a file hidden by the filter, is therefore not processed, even when it has already been decided. It is left out of the status bar counters in the same way.

Hiding a file changes neither its decision nor its location. Changing the filter drops the current undo history.

The file menu

A right-click or ⌃-click on a file, or on a selection in the grid, opens the file menu. The file operations available there are carried out immediately and do not wait for a sort-out run.

Available actions:

• Copy Folder Path
• Copy File Name
• Copy Full Path

  each for one file or for the whole selection

• Show in Finder
• Rename… – renames a single file immediately and without a rule set
• Move to Folder…
• Move to Trash

A file moved or trashed this way leaves the session. A file renamed directly stays part of the session and is carried under its new name.

Sorting out

⌘S opens the sort-out dialog. An action of its own is set for the kept and for the discarded files.

• Leave in Place – the files stay at their current location.
• Move to Folder – moves the files into a destination folder of your choice. The subfolder structure can be recreated, or the files can be filed flat. When filed flat, a file name is numbered if it already exists in the destination folder.
• Move to Folder by Rating – available for kept files only. A destination folder of its own is used for every rating. It can also be set what happens to files without a rating.
• Move to Trash – moves the files to the Finder's Trash, from where they can be restored.
• Delete Permanently – deletes the files irretrievably. By default a confirmation is required before this runs.

1. 1If the duplicate check is enabled, the kept files are compared with one another. Groups of identical files that are found are shown for review. One file of each group is kept; the rest are added to the discarded files.
2. 2If the destination check is enabled, kept files are also compared with files that already exist in the destination folder. For every identical group you decide which file is kept: if the file in the destination folder is kept, the file from the session is sorted out; if the file from the session is kept, it is moved and the existing copy in the destination folder is moved to the Trash.
3. 3If a rule set is selected, FlowRate works out the new file names. Reading the metadata needed for this can take a moment on large sessions.
4. 4If storing the ratings is enabled, the ratings are written into the files concerned.
5. 5The discarded files are processed first, then the kept ones. Moving and renaming happen as one operation.
6. 6Folders that the run has left empty can then be moved to the Trash.

The result shows a summary of the groups processed, the number of file names numbered automatically, and every failed operation including the reason for the failure.

File operations are not undone automatically. Files in the Trash can be restored through the Finder. For files renamed directly at their original location, a function for undoing the rename is available after the run.

Duplicates

⌘D compares the files that are currently visible and detects files that are identical byte for byte.

For files of the same size, the first 64 KB are compared first. Only when those match does FlowRate read the remaining content in full. Files that already differ at the start therefore do not have to be read completely.

The result shows every group of identical files, the disk space taken by the spare copies, and the file that is kept from each group.

A file you have marked as Keep is never selected automatically as a spare copy. A click on a file name lets you set which file within a group is to be kept.

For every duplicate check it is set anew whether spare files are moved to the Trash or deleted permanently. This choice is not stored and defaults to Trash.

Renaming

A rule set consists of a sequence of steps from which FlowRate builds the new file name.

⌘⇧R opens the rule sets. FlowRate comes with four predefined rule sets. While you edit, the preview continuously shows the file names that result. It uses the files of the session currently open, or sample files when no session is open.

Rule sets are applied during the sort-out run. Which files can use a rule set depends on the action chosen:

• Kept files: with every action. With Leave in Place the files are renamed directly at their current location.
• Discarded files: only with the action Move to Folder.

Moving and renaming happen as one operation. A file that is moved and renamed therefore appears at the destination under its new name right away.

After the run, the function Undo Renames is available for files that were renamed at their original location. For files that were moved, the rename cannot be undone this way.

Rules for rule sets

1. 1The starting point is the file name without its extension. The extension is not part of the name for any processing step.
2. 2The enabled steps are carried out in the order set. Every step applies only to the files selected for it. The selection can be made by file kind or by extension and refers to the original file extension.
3. 3With the exception of Template, every step works on the name the previous step produced. Template discards the name so far and builds a new one out of placeholders.
4. 4Placeholders always refer to the original file and never to intermediate results. {name} still returns the original file name in the fifth step, for instance.
5. 5The numbering is worked out for the whole run before processing. Order, restart, start value and increment determine the number of a file – regardless of where {seq} is used in the template.
6. 6The name produced is cleaned up. Slashes and colons are replaced with hyphens; control characters and leading dots are removed. With the option Windows-safe names enabled, backslashes, asterisks, question marks, quotation marks, angle brackets and vertical bars are replaced as well. Trailing dots and spaces are removed.
7. 7The file extension is appended in the case the rule set specifies: original case, lowercase or uppercase.
8. 8If two files would be given the same name in the same destination folder, the later name is numbered automatically. The preview marks such conflicts.
9. 9If no name was produced after processing, the file keeps its original name. This case is marked in the preview as well.

A file name may be at most 255 bytes long including the extension. Longer names are shortened at the end.

If a rule set contains errors, no files are renamed with it. The editor shows the problems concerned; during the sort-out you are told that the original names are kept.

Rule sets can be exported as files and imported again. This makes it possible to transfer them to another Mac, for example.

Placeholders

Placeholders are written in braces. The menu beside a template field can insert them directly.

Some placeholders accept an argument after a colon. {seq:3} pads a running number to three digits, for instance, and {hash:8} limits the hash to eight characters. Date placeholders take a format, for example yyyy for the year, MM for the month, dd for the day, and HH and mm for hour and minute.

{name}

Original file name without the extension

{folder}

Name of the folder the file lies in

{session}

Name of the session folder

{seq:3}

Running number, padded to the given number of digits

{rating}

Rating from 1 to 9; empty without a rating

{captured:yyyy-MM-dd}

Capture date

{created:yyyy-MM-dd}

Creation date

{modified:yyyy-MM-dd}

Modification date

{today:yyyy-MM-dd}

Date of the sort-out run

{width}

Width in pixels

{height}

Height in pixels

{camera}

Camera

{lens}

Lens

{duration}

Duration in seconds

{kind}

File kind

{hash:8}

Content hash, cut to the given length

{artist}

Artist

{album}

Album

{title}

Title of a media file or a document

{track}

Track number

{author}

Author of the document

{pages}

Number of pages

When there is no value for a placeholder, nothing is inserted. For a file without camera information, {camera} leaves no empty string behind. The text around the placeholder is joined up accordingly.

Whatever the language of the interface, {kind} always returns one of the values image, video, audio, pdf or other.

When a file contains no capture date, {captured} uses the creation date instead.

Settings

⌘, opens the settings. The seven sections are described in the interface itself. A few settings have a particular behavior:

• General: the interface language can be changed without a restart. The confirmation before a permanent delete can also be switched off.
• Session: sets which file kinds a new session starts with. PDFs and other files can be hidden by default, for instance. Whether subfolders are included can also be fixed permanently here.
• Viewer: thumbnails can be cached on disk during a session. This can make a second pass through the same folder faster.
• Rating: position and size of the rating badge can be configured separately for the single-file view and the grid.

Keyboard shortcuts

The same overview is available under Help → Keyboard Shortcuts.

When something does not work

FlowRate reports errors directly in the application. These are the most common cases:

A folder cannot be opened or is no longer accessible.

The folder may have been moved, renamed or deleted, or the permission required is no longer present. Select the folder again through the action offered.

A file shows a warning triangle instead of the preview.

FlowRate could not read the file or could not produce a preview for it. The file stays part of the session and can still be decided.

A file could not be moved, trashed or renamed.

The result list shows the file concerned and the reason for the error. Processing an application bundle can require an additional system permission for app management, for instance.

FlowRate cannot verify the App Store purchase.

Try Again starts another check through the App Store. If the check keeps failing, make sure you are signed in with the Apple Account that FlowRate was bought with.

Decisions are missing after a crash.

Decisions are saved when a session is closed and after a sort-out run, not after every input. Decisions made since the last save can therefore be lost in a crash.