Hi, I'm working on an online project which involves over 50,000 images all identified by unique numbers. When adding updates, I run a query in my database to match the old with the new. I know very little about writing batch files and need help in writing a batch file that will delete images not matched after I run my query. Following, I need help in writing a batch file that copies images remaining in my folders to my specified folder structure (i.e. if the file remaining is 123456.jpg, I would like to copy that file to folder 456/ so the path would read 456/123456.jpg). I would appreciate anyone's help. Thanks in advance!

"delete images not matched" Not clear what you mean. ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

I will try to explain this better. Let's say for instance that I am running a bookstore and in the bookstore, I have images representing the books and they're all named by the isbn number (i.e. 1234567890.jpg). Each week I receive an updated version of (i.e. 1234567890.jpg). After importing the updated list of images to Microsoft Access, I run a query that will match the previous (i.e. 123456789.jpg) with the new (i.e. 1234567890.jpg), how can I create a batch file that will delete all of the images in the uploaded directory that were not matched? And for the next question, let's say that I download 4 images and each of the images are named 1234567890.jpg, 1234000890.jpg, 1234567891.jpg, 1234000891.jpg - how do I write a batch file so that these images are placed in folders by the last 3 characters of the filename, for instance, placing file 1234567890.jpg and 1234000890.jpg into folder 890/? I've been racking my brain trying to figure this out. I appreciate all help. Thanks.

"I run a query that will match" I don't know what that means. But maybe it boils down to 'delete OLD files if they exist in the NEW folder'. So if you have a \NEW folder and a \OLD folder, where the \NEW contains: 1.jpg 4.jpg and the \OLD contains: 1.jpg 2.jpg You ant to delete the .jpg and keep the 2.jpg in the \OLD folder. Is this getting close? ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Ok, here's another example... by the way, thanks for trying to help me.. Example: I have 10 files in a folder and their names are 1234000890.jpg, 1234001890.jpg, 1234002890.jpg, 1234003890.jpg, 1234004890.jpg,1234005890.jpg, 1234000891.jpg, 1234002891.jpg, 1234003891.jpg, 1234004891.jpg. I only want to keep the first 5 files, how do I delete the remaining files that I do not want using a batch file? And the next question right after that is, supposing I didn't delete any of these files, how would I organize these files so that all files with common last 3 characters (i.e. 890.jpg or 891.jpg) would be sent to folders 890/ and 891/? Thanks for your patience.

"I only want to keep the first 5 files" Depends on how you define first. If you want to keep the five newest [seems reasonable] try this: ::============================= @echo off setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion for /f "tokens=* skip=5 delims= " %%a in ('dir/b/o-d *.jpg') do ( del %%a ) ::=================================== For the moving of files with same last three nums: ::=================================== @echo off setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in (dir/b *.jpg) do ( set FN=%%a set FN=!FN:~7,3! echo if not exist !FN! md !FN! echo move %%a !FN! ::============================== As written it does DO the move. To activate, edit out the ECHOs preceeding IF and MOVE. ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Let me just say... thank you for taking the time to help me! I am such a newbie at programming so I have the following questions: I copied and pasted the code below into notepad and saved as a .bat file into the same folder where the images were located. I double clicked on the .bat file and nothing happened. I took the words "echo" off. Do I include the path location of the folder in the code? and if so, where? For the moving of files with same last three nums: ::=================================== @echo off setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in (dir/b *.jpg) do ( set FN=%%a set FN=!FN:~7,3! echo if not exist !FN! md !FN! echo move %%a !FN! ::============================== Also, in relation to deleting selected files from a folder. Instead of deleting the oldest files, how would I be able to delete just a short list of files that I no longer want without having to search and find one by one? For instance, deleting 1234567890.jpg, 1234567895.jpg, and 1234567899.jpg without deleting all files in that same folder?