If you have a lot of files that you want to keep organized and accessible, Windows 10 has a way for you to create folders from them. This is done by using the Folder Options tool. To use Folder Options, open the Start menu and type “Folder Options.” Then click on the “Options” button. The Folder Options dialog will appear. On the left side of this dialog, you will see three tabs: “General,” “User,” and “Organize.” The General tab is where you can set how folders are created. You can choose to create folders by name, by location (in your Documents or My Documents folder), or by type (files that are text, images, or both). The User tab allows you to decide how users can access your files. You can choose to allow anyone to access your files, or you can choose to require authentication before anyone can access your files. You can also choose whether or not to create subfolders for individual files. The Organize tab allows you to decide how your files are organized. You can choose one of four options: alphabetical order, chronologically order, per file type (text, image, etc.), or per user (everyone in your organization must have their own folder). You can also choose whether or not to include subfolders in your organization’s folder structure.
We’ve previously written about a tool that allows you to create a bunch of folders at one time from a list of words or phrases. However, what if you want to create one or more folders from a bunch of selected text files?
There’s a simple, free tool, called Files 2 Folder, that allows you to do that. Installing Files 2 Folder adds an option to the context menu for Windows Explorer. Simply extract the .zip file you downloaded (see the link at the end of this article). Right-click on the Files2Folder.exe file and select Run as administrator.
If the User Account Control dialog box displays, click Yes to continue.
NOTE: You may not see this dialog box, depending on your User Account Control settings.
A dialog box displays asking if you want to register the shell extension. Click Yes to continue.
A confirmation dialog box tells you that the Files 2 Folder menu option has been added to the context menu for Windows Explorer. Click OK to close the dialog box.
Once you’ve added the Files 2 Folder option to the context menu, a shortcut is added to the same folder containing the Files2Folder.exe file that allows you to unregister the shell extension, should you want to. Double-click the shortcut to do so.
A message displays that the shell extension was unregistered.
If you want to move one file to a new folder, right-click on that file and select the Files 2 Folder option from the popup menu.
A new folder is created with the same name as the file (without the extension) and the file is moved (not copied) into the folder.
If you select multiple files, right-click on them, and select Files 2 Folder, a dialog box displays, asking what you want to do. To move all the files to one new folder, select the Move all selected items into a subfolder named option and enter a name for the new folder in the edit box.
To move files to separate folders based on their names (not counting the extensions), select the second option, Move each file to individual subfolders based on their names.
To move a list of files with different file extensions to separate folders based on the extensions, select the third option, Move each file to subfolders based on their file extensions.
In all three cases, the files are automatically moved (not copied) into their respective folders.
The following image shows an example of choosing the first option and moving all selected files into a new folder with a name you specify.
You can also move folders into other folders. To move a folder into a new folder, right-click on the folder, and select Files 2 Folder from the popup menu. The folder is moved to a new folder that is named the same as the selected folder with a tilde (~) added to the end of the name.
Download Files 2 Folder from http://skwire.dcmembers.com/wb/pages/software/files-2-folder.php.
Officially, Files 2 Folder supports only 32-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. However, we tested it on a Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit machine and it worked fine. Be sure to run the program as administrator in Windows 7, Vista, and Windows 8, otherwise the option is not added to the context menu.
