If you have a folder that contains thousands of files (in my case it was the motion daemon folder that contained thousands of pictures and videos from a surveillance camera) this script will organize them in sub folders named by the last modification date.

import os 

import sys

import time

from datetime import datetime

import shutil

def orgbyday(directory):

    ans=raw_input("Going to organize files in directory : " + directory  +  " by  modification day in subfolders.Type 'y' to continue:")

    if ans != 'y':

print 'exiting'

sys.exit(0)

    print "listing dir: " + directory

    l = [file for file in os.listdir(directory) 

         if os.path.isfile(os.path.join(directory, file)) ] 

   

    ilen = len(l)

    slen = (str(ilen))

    print "found " + slen + " files"

    i=1

    startt= time.time()

    for f in l:

 

percent = (float(i) / float(ilen)) * 100.0

spercent = "%.2f" % percent

   

print str(i) + " of " + slen 

print spercent + " %  "

passed=time.time()-startt

remaining = (ilen  - i) * (passed / i)  

m, s = divmod(remaining, 60)

h, m = divmod(m, 60)

print "%d:%02d:%02d" % (h, m, s)

#print str(remaining)

print f

ff=os.path.join(directory,f)

mtime = os.path.getmtime(ff)

print "modified: %s" % time.ctime(mtime) 

mdate = datetime.fromtimestamp(mtime)

creation_day = mdate.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

subfolder = os.path.join(directory,creation_day )

dest = os.path.join(subfolder , f )

try:

   shutil.move (ff , dest)

except:

   os.mkdir(subfolder)  

   shutil.move (ff , dest)

print "                               "

print " "

print "\x1b[2J\x1b[H"

i +=1

 

if __name__ == '__main__':

    orgbyday(sys.argv[1])

Chania