Greetings. My first post here. Does importing PDFs into Eagle Filer (EF) create copies of the original files? I keep a collection of user manuals for everything purchased which includes a manual. I first download the PDF to my “Manuals” folder and store it in the “Hardware” or “Software” folders. My collection is pretty well organized and it seems like it may be a good candidate for bringing into EF. I’m thinking sorting, searching, tagging, etc. However, my Finder-based collection works. If EF makes a copy of everything on import, would I then trash the original files? Or, keep them just in case? Its size is 1.4 GB on an external HD.
I do that with manuals, too. I like to download the manual for an electronic item, appliance, etc. right after purchasing, since they can be hard to find later.
There’s information about different ways of importing here. You can either move files into EagleFiler’s folders in Finder or import using another method, which will create a copy. The disk space used is the same either way due to APFS file cloning. That said, I would generally recommend only keeping the files in EagleFiler, since it’s simpler to have a single copy. You can still access it in Finder since EagleFiler’s library is stored as regular folders/files.
That’s cool you also download manuals for the same reason I do!
A couple things I realized after reading your helpful reply. Thank you.
I store my “Manuals” folder on an external, spinning HD, formatted in HFS+ rather than APFS (per Howard Oakley’s advice). If I were to import the pdfs into EF on this external drive it would result in duplicates.
In your articles on Importing Files into EF, you caution not to import folders. Many of my PDFs live in folders named to more easily identify the contents e.g. “Brother Laser Printer 2270DW” (my folder name) vs. “UM_HL_2220_2230_2240_2240D_2270DW_EN_2640.PDF” (actual pdf file name). So the folders have value and I want to include the names of the folders in the record in EF.
Is there a way to import the list of folder names as text and then import the pdfs into those records? It’s easy enough to copy all the folder names to a text file. Now I’d like to use EF to create individual records and import the related pdfs into the related records. Perhaps I’m overthinking this…
Yes, if the duplicate files are on different drives (internal vs. external) or both on HFS+, they will consume double the storage. I personally use APFS on most of my external drives because I like the safety of snapshots and because Apple seems to be phasing out encrypted HFS+. APFS is definitely slower, though, even if you turn on defragmentation.
It’s fine to import folders. Could you tell me which part you’re referring to? Perhaps there’s something about the wording that’s giving you the wrong impression.
That could be done via script, but unless there’s something I’m missing about your situation I would just drag the folders in directly.