Handling File Conflicts: Update for Folder Organizer

Update

In my last blog post , No More Mess: Organizing Folders with a Python Script, I introduced a Python script that automatically organizes files into categorized folders. The script helped streamline file management by grouping files based on type, like images, documents, and more. However, during testing, I realized a common issue: what if a file with the same name already exists in the destination folder?

To address this, I updated the code to rename files if a duplicate filename is detected, ensuring smooth organization without overwriting any files.

This enhancement improves the script’s usability by ensuring no files are accidentally overwritten while keeping everything neatly organized.

import os
import shutil

file_types = {
    'Images': ['.jpg', '.png', '.gif', '.jpeg', '.heic', '.webp'],
    'Documents': ['.pdf', '.docx', '.txt', '.xlsx', '.epub', '.doc'],
    'Videos': ['.mp4', '.mkv', '.mov'],
    'Music': ['.mp3', '.wav'],
    'Archives': ['.zip', '.tar', '.gz'],
    'Data': ['.csv', '.json'],
    'Diagrams': ['.drawio', '.svg', '.excalidraw']
}

def rename_file_if_exists(dest_folder, filename):
    base, ext = os.path.splitext(filename)
    counter = 1
    
    new_filename = filename
    while os.path.exists(os.path.join(dest_folder, new_filename)):
        new_filename = f"{base}_{counter}{ext}"
        counter += 1
    
    return new_filename

def organize_folder():
    folder_path = '/Users/samarthgoudar/Downloads'
    
    for filename in os.listdir(folder_path):
        file_ext = os.path.splitext(filename)[1].lower()
        
        for folder, extensions in file_types.items():
            if file_ext in extensions:

                dest_folder = os.path.join(folder_path, folder)
                
                if not os.path.exists(dest_folder):
                    os.makedirs(dest_folder)

                src_file = os.path.join(folder_path, filename)
                
                # Rename the file if it already exists in the destination
                new_filename = rename_file_if_exists(dest_folder, filename)

                dest_file = os.path.join(dest_folder, new_filename)
                shutil.move(src_file, dest_file)
                print(f'Moved: {filename} -> {new_filename} in {folder}')
                
                break

organize_folder()

Check out the full script on my GitHub. Link