IMPORTING METADATA & COMMENTS FROM MAC FOLDERS

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Alright!!

I am trying to bring my workflow process to take place within Scrivener and Scrivener only; to do that, I need to bring information from all over the place - mac, drives (to name a few) - however, i’m having problems with integrating metadata when I import folders from mac. I use my mac because it gives me more flexibility to automate anything in my workflow process, after which, I import everything in Scrivener. I implement complex hierarchical outlines and doing it manually would be a disaster. Ok, so here’s the dilemma; I want to import empty folders that are structured with many subfolders into Scrivener then convert them all to file folders; then I need to import the metadata (tags & comments) so I can use the custom metadata field to sort, categorize, etc. my project. Importing the folders along with the structure is not problematic however, it is not bringing in the metadata & comments (see attachments). I need someone to guide me (if it is even possible) on how to do this.

Thank You

Mac Folder Screenshot.png
Mac Folder Screenshot.png396×797 71 KB

2

Hi, welcome to Scrivener and its forums.

To be honest, I’ve not heard of it being possible to do what you want to do in Scrivener (being a writing application, rather than a document manager or database). You can import certain kinds of files in text or outline format into a Scrivener Projects Draft folder (for writing), you can import other kinds of files into its Research folder (for holding and reference - although the larger your Research folder becomes, the longer it takes to back up a Scrivener project), and you can also import aliases. But I don’t think that you can import folders as folders, or pre-existing metadata, such as tags.

For those sorts of purposes, you’d be better to use a document manager or database application in conjunction with Scrivener, or rely on the Finder. Some of us use DevonThink for just this purpose when we’re writing in Scrivener; unlike Scrivener, DevonThink can import Finder Tags along with files, for example.