Built-in presets vs Custom (Pro)
The picker above shows PhotoMove’s fixed preset layouts — Year/Month/Day, Camera Model combinations, Year only, and the rest.
PhotoMove Pro also adds Custom… at the bottom of the same dropdown. Custom is not another preset name. It opens a dialog where you write your own folder pattern using tokens. PhotoMove builds a separate destination path for each file from that file’s date (and camera, if you include it).
How Custom works
- Set your Destination folder in Step 2 (same as any other layout).
- Choose Output Folder Structure → Custom….
- In the Custom Folder Template dialog, type a pattern and click OK.
- Use / (forward slash) between folder levels — for example
{YYYY}/{MM}/{DD}creates2026\08\24\under your destination.
Tokens you can use:
{YYYY}— 4-digit year ·{YY}— 2-digit year{MM}— 2-digit month ·{DD}— 2-digit day ·{Month}— English month name (August){Camera}— camera model from the file’s EXIF{Sep}— separator from the Options tab (underscore, dash, or none){City}— reserved for a future feature; currently empty — do not rely on it
Example (template {YY}/{Month}{Sep}{DD} with dashes chosen in Options):
D:\Sorted Photos\26\August-24\Beach_Sunset.jpg
The original filename is never part of the template — PhotoMove still uses each file’s normal name inside the final folder.
Separators (hyphens vs underscores)
Preset layouts and Custom templates that include {Sep} follow the choice on the main window’s lower-right Options tab — underscore (default), dashes, or no separator. You can also type - or _ directly in a Custom string; those stay literal and do not change when Options changes.
Custom is Pro only. Free keeps the preset dropdown above. Need layouts the presets do not offer? That is what Custom is for — not the older “six additional preset formats” line on the sales page, which still means Year/Month, Year only, camera-based presets, and similar fixed choices.
Full token list, worked examples, Preview/Undo notes, and FAQ: PhotoMove Custom Folder Structure.
This program is the best. Whoever created it is a genius. Thank you!! You have saved so much of my time :)
Hi David,
Thank you for using PhotoMove for so long! I completely understand why you couldn’t find that setting—the option to switch back to hyphens is slightly hidden until the program actually completes a scan.
To get your folders back to the Year-Month format, please follow these quick steps:
Open PhotoMove and select your input and output folders as usual.
Click the Find Photos button.
Wait for the scan to finish. Once it does, look at the lower right section of the window. You will see three tabs become active.
Click the Other Options tab.
Check the box for “Use Dashes. Not Underscores. In Folder Names”.
PhotoMove will save this preference automatically, so you will only ever need to do this once and your future folders will use hyphens again.
I have attached a screenshot to this reply that highlights exactly where these tabs appear. Please let me know if you run into any trouble getting it set back up!
Best regards,
Mike Baker
I’ve been using PhotoMove for some time – using Camera Model, Year, Month to sort my photos. I’ve just upgraded to the current version and the folder name seems to have change from using hyphens to underscores. I’ve just pulled some new photos which were sent to me and the folder goes x:\home\camera\2026\2026_03 rather than the previous x:\home\camera\2026\2026-03
I may have changed something when I first installed it but I can’t now see how to get hyphens back between the year and month.
Thanks
Yes. No problem.
I have 500,000 images to sort. Will it mange to deal with that many photos?
This is ythe best app out there hands down. Great workd and thanks you!
Can I store as 2022-01-23 rather than 2022_01_23? (This is to match up with thousands of already matched photos in folders.)
—-
Yes Suzanne. Here is a screen clipping how to change (or remove) the separator:
This app really helped me sort through the duplicate and disorganized mess of photos from my phone! Simple, powerful, and well worth the price for PRO version.
Purchased this app a few months back since i had over 80,000 plus photos to sort through from over 10 years. Its been a massive help in sorting out my duplicates and sorting them into better folders for their new home. Anyways i’m about 50,000 photos through and the app has been a godsend. Thanks alot you have saved me a massive amount of time highly recommended :-)
I purchased the Pro version of PhotoMove 2 yesterday and used it for the first time overnight. I must say this is going to save me a huge amount of time organizing many years of photos over many platforms and packages (Mac, PC, Aperture, Lightroom, ACDSee ect) so it is well worth the price. Great work!
Thanks again for the great software!
Incredible, I’ve been looking for such a program for long.
Thanks!
Absolutely brilliant program, thank you, easily worth the price for the Pro version.
Bloody Brilliant,
I have years of photos I have been putting off sorting (cause I had no idea how or where to start) and PhotoMove 2 has done it all for me for free.
Thanks Heaps
Having read the user comments I went straight to Photomove 2.5 Pro.
This program is very very easy to use! I must confess I did not even bother to look at the instructions!
In about 2 hours I have been able to find and totally organise 32,000+ photos, including multiple duplicates in multiple file types that were spread all over my HDD. I now have just two properly organised folders, by date and by camera. Wonderful, this will save me so much time!
Photomove 2.5 Pro installed and runs faultlessly on my Windows 10 (x64) computer. I cannot recommend this software highly enough – I guarantee you will be impressed too!
Chris
Guildford, Surrey, UK
You are simply the best!! Thanks a lot for integrating the “YYYY_MM_DD” folder structure!!