I created a loop of subfolders. How can I prevent this.

[gbcosgrove]

My goal was to take a whole mass of files that were located all over my computer and sort them into subfolders by year and month. Then, run a rule on the subfolders to sort the files into subfolders by kind. This seemed to work, until I realized that on a portion of these, it created a loop. So, the rule would go into the month folders and sort into subfolders by kind, and then go into those subfolders and sort into subfolders by kind again, and so on and so forth. So ended up looking something like this - 2012-10>JPEG>JPEG>JPEG>JPEG>JPEG>Jpeg File. I shut down hazel before it ran through all the files, so it only goes so far. Now, I'm having to manually resort these. My two questions are:

1. How can I use Hazel to fix this problem and get all the files back up to the first kind subfolder?
2. How can I prevent this in the future?

Thank you so much for your help.

[a_freyer]

(1) Probably easier to search for the files in Finder and just move them manually

(2) Use "Subfolder Depth" on your dive into subfolder rule.

[gbcosgrove]

Thanks. I will make sure to do that in the future.

[Mr_Noodle]

You can also add a condition to filter out folders or folders matching the pattern of the folders being created.

[craw]

1. How can I use Hazel to fix this problem and get all the files back up to the first kind subfolder?

Not sure about hazel but to fix it you might want to take a look at using a smart folder, trigger on type of file and last modified. If you are lucky and can narrow them down it may show you just the files that you moved on that date in which case you can grab them onmass and drag them to where they should be.