Can organizing a massive Shopify file library into folders be automated?

[Craftware]

There are quite a few posts out there that ask if Shopify supports file management in the native file manager sense - [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7].

We built Simple File Manager to solve this problem but what use is a file manager if one has to re-upload their entire catalog and update their products to use the newly uploaded files, or manually arrange your files in folders? Both options are a substantial investment of time.

If you happen to be in the same boat as the participants in any of the above discussions, that is, you already have your files neatly organized and just need a way to transfer that organization to the app, we've built a way!

Instead of uploading the actual files, you can use the Organize option in Simple File Manager to upload just the directory structure.

Here's what the store looks like in the beginning, all the files are in a flat structure:

Here's what the file structure on my desktop looks like (this was generated using a cool tool called tree for the curious😞

├── Snowboards
│   ├── Burton's
│   │   ├── 10708110000_2ML.webp
│   │   ├── 10708110000_3ML.webp
│   │   └── 10708110000_6ML.webp
│   ├── Mountain
│   │   ├── Main_0a40b01b-5021-48c1-80d1-aa8ab4876d3d.jpg
│   │   ├── Main_b13ad453-477c-4ed1-9b43-81f3345adfd6.jpg
│   │   └── Main_c8ff0b5d-c712-429a-be00-b29bd55cbc9d.jpg
│   ├── Powder
│   │   ├── Main_0a4e9096-021a-4c1e-8750-24b233166a12.jpg
│   │   ├── Main_5127218a-8f6c-498f-b489-09242c0fab0a.jpg
│   │   ├── Main_52f8e304-92d9-4a36-82af-50df8fe31c69.jpg
│   │   ├── Main_589fc064-24a2-4236-9eaf-13b2bd35d21d.jpg
│   │   ├── Main_9129b69a-0c7b-4f66-b6cf-c4222f18028a.jpg
│   │   ├── snowboard_purple_hydrogen.png
│   │   └── snowboard_sky.png
│   └── Regular
│   ├── Main_b9e0da7f-db89-4d41-83f0-7f417b02831d.jpg
│   ├── Main_d624f226-0a89-4fe1-b333-0d1548b43c06.jpg
│   ├── Main_f44a9605-cd62-464d-b095-d45cdaa0d0d7.jpg
│   └── Main.jpg
└── Wax
├── Purple
│   └── wax-special.png
└── Yellow
├── sample-normal-wax.png
└── snowboard-wax.png

8 directories, 20 files

Here's a picture of Snowboard/Powder for clarity:

Here's what happens when I use the Organize feature:

Organization begins...

Code does the reorganizing work for you... 

 And voila, the same Snowboards/Powder directory in Simple File Manager.

How does this work?

Most modern browsers support `webkitRelativePath`; we use it to identify your folder structure and replicate it on Simple File Manager.

There is a catch though. Your filenames need to be an exact match. If they aren't, or there are files with the same name in multiple directories, the algorithm currently doesn't know how to resolve those issues. So a bit of human intervention is still necessary.

Other than this caveat, it really is as simple as uploading a folder:

• Right click anywhere in Simple File Manager for the context menu
• Hit Organize and select the folder on your machine that contains all your Shopify store files
• Wait for a few minutes while we work our magic to put your files in the right directories
• Files that couldn't be reorganized will remain the Home directory for you to manually move (like the Gift Card & Theme Cover Images in the above example)

With these newly organized files, you can follow Update product media in a jiffy with Simple File Manager to stay on top of your product listing quality.

Don't have your files already organized locally?

Do you manage all your files on Shopify CDN exclusively? Then you should be using the app to create a directory structure today so that you can also update your product media in a jiffy.

If this organizing files isn't something that you want to invest time in, we are considering automatically creating product listing based directories.

For example,

will result in a directory and file structure like this

Would something like this solve your file management woes? Let us know in the replies!