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Automation won't apply to existing files. How can I achieve that?

I have a directory with a very large number of files (several thousand) that I only access online. All of the files have names based on their date of creation (eg 2025-07-01-7:00.txt). I would like to organize these into subdirectories based on their date.

From the dropbox website, I added an automation to sort these files into subfolders based on the month of file creation. I clicked on "Apply to existing files" when creating the automation. However, once the process starts, I get a Notification:

"Automation will apply to new files added to (Folder), but not to existing files"

Why isn't it applying the automation to existing files? How can I organize the existing files? There are too many files to do this by manually clicking boxes.

Thanks.

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Mark

Are you folder owner, or, is it a Shared/Team one?

https://help.dropbox.com/organize/dropbox-automations#How-to-add-automation-to-an-existing-folder

user71

I am the owner and only user of this folder.

Megan

Hey @user71, welcome to our Community!

Do you get the error message when following the steps @Mark provided in this relevant Help Center article?

Could you attach a screenshot showing the automation itself, and the folder on which the automation is applied to on the Dropbox site?

Keep me posted!

user71

I followed the steps:

When I add the automation, I click on "Apply to existing files".

Then, a notification appears on my homepage under the notifications bell saying "Automation will apply to new files ... but not to existing files".

I took some screenshots, but when I drag an drop them onto this box, I get "File not allowed". Also, there is no option to attach a file at the bottom of this box.

If you can link this help query to my dropbox account, the folder is an App folder called "Audio2024".

Thanks.

Nancy

Hey @user71! Are you getting an error, if you try to copy paste your screenshot directly into your message box here?

user71

Yes. When I drag a JPG to the message box it says "File not allowed." I'm using firefox on arch linux.

Jay

Hi @user71, thanks for the info. Could you try copying and pasting the image directly into your next reply in order for us to assist further.

user71

It turns out that the problem with attaching the screenshot files was that they were too large. I have reduced their size and attach them here.

Jay

As you mentioned you have several thousand files, are there over 5000 files in the folder you're trying to automate?

If you click the i icon there next to 'Apply to existing files', it would mention the file limit.

user71

Ok thanks, it might be helpful to have this pointed out in the notification, or not permit the automation if it is not going to work.

If Dropbox won't provide this automation, is there some other way to organize online files in bulk? For example, equivalents to command-line operations like

mkdir July

mv 2025-07*.wav July

Thanks

Hannah

Hi there, @user71.

The truth is that through Dropbox you could go about this with files in smaller batches, but at the moment there's no other alternative or feature like using a command-line operation.

I've passed your comments along to our team, though, and made sure your feedback went to the appropriate people.

If there's anything else we can help you with, please let us know!