timefops

Performs file operations (moving, copying and archiving) on files/directories based on their access/change/modified times.

Description

timefops provides moving, copying and archiving capabilities for files/directories based on their access time, change time or modified time.

The interface contains nested sub-parsers where you'll be required to choose the time predicate and operation. Both the copying and moving functionality utilize Python's shutil module, whereas thetarfile and zipfile modules are both used for creating archives.

Platforms: Linux, Windows; compatibilty with Mac OS is unknown.

Python 3.7+ is required.

Installation

Using pipx (recommended):

pipx install timefops

Using pip:

pip3 install --user timefops

Usage

Choosing the time predicate:

stiftcast@debian:~$ timefops -h
usage: timefops [-h] [-V] <time> ...

Operate on files/directories based on their access/change/modified times.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -V, --version  print version number/info and exit

Time predicate:
  <time>
    atime        Perform operations based on last access-time.
    ctime        Perform operations based on last change-time.
    mtime        Perform operations based on last modification-time.

Choosing the operation:

stiftcast@debian:~$ timefops mtime -h
usage: timefops mtime [-h] [-V] <operation> ...

Perform operations based on last modification-time.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -V, --version  print version number/info and exit

Operations:
  <operation>
    archive      Archive contents to a tarball or a zip file.
    copy         Copy contents to a different location.
    move         Move contents to a different location.

Options for archive:

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -V, --version         print version number/info and exit

General arguments:
  src                   Source directories/files.
  -a NAME, --archive NAME
                        Name for target archive.
  --to-stdout           Write tar archive or zip file to stdout instead of a
                        named file, emulates the '-' option of the tar and zip
                        executables.
  -z, --zipfile         Makes a zip file instead of a tar archive (GZ
                        compression is not available with this option)
  -c {bz2,gz,xz}, --compression {bz2,gz,xz}
                        Compression format for the archive.
  -f FORMAT [FORMAT ...], --format FORMAT [FORMAT ...]
                        Set folder name format (using Python's datetime
                        formatting directives). If there are multiple values
                        specifed, contents will get nested under the last
                        value.
  -i, --individual-items
                        Setting this flag will allow for specifying individual
                        source files and folders. The difference between
                        specifiying a source folder with this flag on is that
                        any folder(s) specified will not be traversed and
                        instead be treated as a standalone item.
  -v, --verbose         Set log level to verbose.
  -d, --debug           Set log level to debug (includes verbose).
  --no-color, --no-colour
                        Disable coloured logging output.
  --dry-run             Show results, but don't execute.

AES-Encrypted Zipfile options:
  Arguments for making a password-protected AES-Encrypted zip file. The
  -z/--zipfile flag is required for any of these to register, otherwise they
  will be ignored. Encrypting a zip file will not hide the directory
  structure, or encrypt any directories, but will encrypt individual files.

  --zip-password, -zp   Prompts for a password to encrypt zip folder contents
                        with.
  --zip-password-plaintext PASSWORD, -zP PASSWORD
                        Specify zip file password in plaintext, avoid this
                        option if possible.
  --zip-encryption {weak,medium,strong}, -ze {weak,medium,strong}
                        Set the strength of the AES encryption, if nothing is
                        specified, 'medium' is used by default.

Options for copy or move:

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -V, --version         print version number/info and exit

General arguments:
  src                   Source directories/files.
  -t TARGET_DIRECTORY, --target-directory TARGET_DIRECTORY
                        Destination directory.
  -f FORMAT [FORMAT ...], --format FORMAT [FORMAT ...]
                        Set folder name format (using Python's datetime
                        formatting directives). If there are multiple values
                        specifed, contents will get nested under the last
                        value.
  -i, --individual-items
                        Setting this flag will allow for specifying individual
                        source files and folders. The difference between
                        specifiying a source folder with this flag on is that
                        any folder(s) specified will not be traversed and
                        instead be treated as a standalone item.
  -v, --verbose         Set log level to verbose.
  -d, --debug           Set log level to debug (includes verbose).
  --no-color, --no-colour
                        Disable coloured logging output.
  --dry-run             Show results, but don't execute.

Examples

The provided commands can either be used on their own, or with the find and xargs commands in tandem. The latter is the recommended method, due to find's powerful filtering options.

Standalone

Traverse through multiple directories and copy the contents somewhere, sorted by access-time:

timefops atime copy dir1/ dir2/ dir3/ -t /dest/path

Archive all the files and folders specified as is into a .tar.bz2 archive, sorted by modified-time:

timefops mtime archive file1 dir1/ dir2/ file2 -i -a standalone_example -c bz2

Using find and xargs

Find files accessed within the last hour and move them somewhere into folders with the 12-hour time, sorted by accessed-time:

find ./ -type f -amin -60 -print0 | xargs -0 timefops atime move -f "%I:%M%p" -i -t /dest/path

Find all shell scripts and put them in a gzip-compressed tar archive, sorted by changed-time:

find ./ -type f -iname "*.sh" -print0 | xargs -0 timefops ctime archive -i -a ex_archive -c gz

Get directories that were modified between April 1, 2020 - April 30, 2020 and copy them somewhere, sorted by modified-time:

find ./ -type d -newermt 2020-04-01 ! -newermt 2020-04-30 -prune -print0 | \
xargs -0 timefops mtime copy -i -t /dest/path

Specify directories to be traversed (-i flag is omitted) and copy the contents inside to somewhere, sorted by modified-time:

find ./ -type d \( -iname 'pat1' -o -iname 'pat2' \) -prune -print0 | \
xargs -0 timefops mtime copy -t /dest/path