I need to use EagleFiler without changing original file-structure, moving or copying

Hello Dear developers of Eagle Filer.

I am in love with organizing my files, you have so many features, everything I need EXCEPT ONE thing!

I need to be able to organize my all my files, where there are already in my computer. I cannot move, or copy the files over to eagle application. Is it possible for your software to just “Referance” to the files original location?

If I “Import ALL” into eagle filer,. it will duplicate all the files , and I don’t have enough space to do that., Plus most of my files are HUGE (I am a video editor) so moving them around, duplicating and all that, is wayy to slow, and a bad idea.

On top of that, the video editing software I use, stops working when i alter the file pathways with eagle filer. Built into the software, if a filename changes, or if the pathway changes, I lose hours worth of data-rendering, that associates each file location with specific render files.,

The amount of data and footage, and clips I am about to organize with eagle filer,. we’re talking in Terabytes my largest drive I have is about 16TB worth of video files…

This program will simply not work if I have to move the files from their original location, This will destroy my years of work organizing years of video footage. I want to keep my current file structure., because if using eagle filer doesn’t work out with me, a simple time-machine backup to restore my system back to “Pre-Eaglefiler” would waste time, which I cannot afford to lose on level of projects i am working on…

Tell me if explaining my dilemma makes sense to you, I can clarify if you need.

So far this is the closest program I have found to what I am looking for!

I am willing to pay more than just the 40$ to buy the eaglefiler software., if you don’t have this feature already. How much would adding this feature cost? OR does this feature already exsist? Please advise.

That’s not currently possible.

You can avoid the overhead of duplicating files by moving the existing files into EagleFiler’s folder.

If your video software can’t track the moved files, one option would be to keep the same relative folder structure in EagleFiler and then put a symlink at the old location so that the video software can still find the files. For example, your files are in the folder:

/Users/Listern/Documents/Movies

you could replace that folder with a symlink to:

/Users/Listern/Documents/EagleFilerLibrary/Files/Movies

Symlink?

Symlink? Is this a feature in eagle filer? I am not familiar with this, i googled it, and it got really complicated saying i had to use terminal, which i’ve not messed around in.

Is it similar to an “Alias” on mac? Will i be able to “batch make symlink” somehow with Eagle for every file on my system easily as a part of the import process?? I don’t see this option., Keep in mind all 16TB of files on my system, is quite a huge feat to tackle if i need to make a symlink for each individual file…

I’ve tried something similar with “Alias” feature in finder., but I kept running into huge problems whenever I change a folder name, or file name, or pretty much moved anything at all, it would break the link, and waste my time, and put huge important projects on hold with deadlines barreling in on me… I do not want to repeat that if Symlinks are like that as alias’s are… In video production we often replace files by making one previous version of the footage or file, with a new file version (but with the exact same name) to quickly swap things out in the software., but when working with alias, it got really messy,. and didn’t work like a normal file would. Especially when some data is referenced to external hard drives that are disconnected, re-connected, on a clients server… ect.

What appealed to me about this program, is it seemed like a simple way to ADD organization and features to my already organized system… OS X finder has very little features compared to eagle filer., yet, i do not want to loose the years and years of organizing my files in finder, or have to re-make my entire file structure., or making things error.

No, it’s a general Mac/Unix feature. Symlinks can be created in Terminal or using an app such as Path Finder. There is an example in the manual.

Yes, except that it operates at a lower level so that it is more compatible. Most apps will treat a symlink to a folder just like a folder, whereas with aliases the app has to be specially coded to follow the alias.

No. I’m not exactly sure how your files are organized, but my thinking was that you would only need one symlink for the folder that contains the files, instead of linking each file individually.