How can I reorganize Lightroom 3 photos from date-based folders to event/year/date folders?

Question

I’m using Lightroom 3 and my files are currently stored like this:

year/dd-mm/eventname-##.jpg

I’d prefer an event-first folder structure so the files are easier to browse outside Lightroom:

eventname/year/dd-mm/eventname-##.jpg

Each event is already grouped in its own Lightroom collection (for example, a collection called "Birthday"). I want to move the original files for each collection into folders matching that structure and keep Lightroom aware of the new locations. Is there a way in Lightroom 3 to do this in bulk for around 50 events?

user13141 · Accepted Answer

I'm not aware of a way Lightroom can be used to read part of a filename and then create folders based on that and move the files into those folders. But if you're only talking about 50 folders it might not take long to create them and drag-and-drop the content in, especially if each event is on a separate date and therefore easy to isolate.

If you're looking at too many folders to manually create, or if there are multiple events on each day then I would consider scripting the creation and moving of the folders using your operating system, but you would still have to manually update the location of the folders in Lightroom

How can I reorganize Lightroom 3 photos from date-based folders to event/year/date folders?

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