Suction
Download Suction 1.3.8
287 KB, .exe – Requires .NET 3.5
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Suction is a small application that allows you to consolidate files from any number of directories into a single parent directory.
A perfect replacement for the “Unify” function found in the now defunct Dir Utils, Suction will search through your directories, moving all of the files from those directories up to the root folder of your choosing.
Suction is a great tool for people who download or organize a lot of content located in disparate folders – I’m talking to you Usenet and BitTorrent users!
Suction offers the following features:
- Drag and Drop with multiple folder support
- Context-menu integration with support for multiple folders
- Duplicate file renaming
- Ability to prepend or append custom naming to duplicate files
- Duplicate file deletion, a deep scan for files with identical names to eliminate duplicate content
- Deletion of empty folders
- Ability to delete files to Recycle Bin
- Ability to undo last Suction
- Ability to sort files by type after Suctioning
- Auto exit when finished
- Thorough logging options
- Small executable size
- Automatic update notification – Suction will automatically check for application updates so you always have the latest version at your fingertips
The application itself is pretty self-explanatory – simply drag and drop any number of folders onto the program’s interface, or select any number of directories and launch Suction via the context (right-click) menu. Suction will then work through the chosen folders “suctioning” all of the files it finds to the top. It’s that easy!
Updates to the software can always be found on this page. I can usually be found in the Team Hack-a-Day Chat Room, but feel free to leave comments.
Changelog
Suction 1.3.8 – 2010.04.29
- Internal optimizations and tweaks
- Removed UAC compatability – causes more issues than it resolves
Suction 1.3.5 – 2010.01.29
- Added option to keep the Suction window on top of all other applications (See Configuration pane)
Suction 1.3.4 – 2010.01.27
- Fixed a null reference bug that would cause the application to crash under certain configurations
Suction 1.3.3 – 2010.01.25
- Fixed bug where Suctioned files and sorting folders would be deleted in certain situations when sorting was enabled when sorting folders already exist
Suction 1.3.2 – 2009.12.08
- Added Windows UAC compatability to allow for elevated credentials at runtime
Suction 1.3.1 – 2009.09.28
- Fixed a minor file path issue
Suction 1.3.0 – 2009.09.24
- Added an “Undo” feature allowing you to reverse your last Suction action
- Added a sorting feature allowing you to sort files into folders after Suctioning
- Fixed “Suctioned” count to reflect actual file movements rather than all files seen
Suction 1.2.2 – 2009.09.14
- Fixed update check bug that would cause a NullReference error exclusively affecting Windows XP
Suction 1.2.1 – 2009.09.10
- Changed update system to check for updates once every 24 hours at most
Suction 1.2.0 – 2009.09.02
- Added web-based update notification system
- Added ability to rename duplicate files using custom text
- Added ability to choose between prepending and appending text/numbers when renaming duplicate files
Suction 1.1.4 – 2009.08.24
- Added ability to delete files/folders to the Recycle Bin – this is enabled by default
- New About screen including software license
Suction 1.1.3 – 2009.08.13 – Thanks to Gary M. for the bug reports and testing
- Fixed auto-exit bug that would cause the application to remain open when initiated from the context menu
- Fixed logging location bug (Suction would log its actions in folder being suctioned)
- Fixed logging bug that would leave logging enabled when all logging was disabled
- Tweaked context menu code to better handle registry entries (No more random errors when removing the context menu entry)
Suction 1.1.2 – 2009.08.06
- Non-public testing release
Suction 1.1.1 – 2009.07.15
- Fixed the “Could not remove Suction from registry” bug
Suction 1.1.0 – 2009.07.08
- New configuration pane
- New logging options (log program errors, file moves, or both)
- Ability to toggle empty folder deletion on or off
- Auto exit when finished
Suction 1.0.7 – 2009.07.06
- Fixed bug where data would be lost if a folder contained a file with the same name (including the extension)
Suction 1.0.6 – 2009.05.26
- New “Remove Duplicate Files” option – Scans the first 512 bytes of files having the same name, comparing them for content, and deleting duplicates. There is increased disk I/O and thus slower performance when this option is enabled and a large amount of duplicate files exist. This option can be enabled via the “About Suction” page.
- Minor gui issue resolved
Suction 1.0.5 – 2009.05.22
- Added a post-job indicator that indicates how many files were moved
- Fixed a bug that would cause Suction to try moving files already located in the root folder
Suction 1.0.4 – 2009.05.11
- Suction will now check the registry upon launch and update the context menu command path if you have installed Suction to your context menu. This ensures that your menu is not broken if your relocate the executable.
- New application icon
Suction 1.0.3 – 2009.05.08
- Improved duplicate detection using hashtables, improving performance by over 1200% on average when a large amount of name collisions occur. Example benchmark – 2,448 files in 1,008 folders with 2,441 file name collisions – From 54 seconds to 4 seconds processing time
Suction 1.0.2 – 2009.05.07
- Fixed duplicate bug that caused dupe files to be deleted rather than renamed in the root directory
- Fixed unresponsive GUI issues
Suction 1.0.0 – 2009.05.06
- Initial testing release
Pablo,
Sorry to hear that you are experiencing problems with the application.
At first glance, I can see that part of your issue is that you are using .NET 2.0 – the line in the error report stating “CLR20r3″ signifies that you are using .NET 2.0.
Suction requires you to be using .NET 3.5 to ensure proper functionality, so I recommend upgrading your version from Microsoft’s site and giving the program another try. If that does not fix your issues, let me know.
[...] Suction (180Kb) – One great way to keep mess to a minimum on your system is to consolidate similar directories – that’s exactly what Suction does. It’s portable, too! [...]
Am I going to run into problems with my tens-of-thousands of photos all in one directory? Is there a practical limit to how flat my file system >should< be?
These are family photos, so I don't want to risk them! Of course I will back up my 'tree' before I flatten it out, my concern is mainly for system/drive performance or reliability issues after applying suction.
I'm running 32 bit Windows 7 on a getting-old (3+ years) pc.
Thanks for the app- it's exactly what I was looking for.
Matt,
Offhand, I do not know of a hard limit for the number of files in one single directory in Windows. If I had to guess, I would think it is the magic “65535″ limit that has affected most 32-bit MS applications in the past.
That said, I would think you could flatten out your image directories by year, under your main photos folder without much issues. You would be hard pressed to take over 65k pictures in a year.
Suction, using its default settings, will never delete any files it attempts to move – it will simply rename files that have name collisions, so you should be safe. Using some of the advanced options, Suction can check for duplicate files and delete copies based on a hash of the file contents. This comparison only occurs when file names collide, so it will not be a likely situation unless you have many files named the same way.
If you are still worried that your files might get damaged, back up the images like you mentioned, and enable the “Undo” feature of Suction. This way, Suction will remember it’s last action and you will be able to roll back your directory consolidation.
With Windows 7′s indexing features, I think you will be fine putting all your images in one, or several directories, if you happen to sort them by year.
Good luck, and thanks for using Suction!
Hi,
Thanks for the great app.
I found a problem in the app after I turn on the sorting feature while the suction target already contains folder named ‘Music’, ‘Movies’, etc.
To reproduce:
1. Create folder named ‘Movies’
2. create another folder named ‘new folder’
3. drop a avi file into ‘new folder’
4. suction these folders parent
5. Movies folder and the avi gone to recycle bin.
Thanks!
Ben,
Thanks for the feedback – I am going to do some testing to see if I can reproduce the issue, and then I will release a fix as soon as I can.
Hi Mike,
Suction kicks butt.
Just wanted to let you know that an update alert notified me to download Suction 1.3.3, but the download you have up now is still 1.3.2.
Thanks!
Best,
Anthony
Anthony,
Thanks for the praise and the heads up! I completely forgot to update the version info when I compiled and uploaded Suction, but it should be all set now.
-DrNathan
Perfect! All is good.
Thanks, DrNathan.
Suction is great. But I have a problem since 1.3.3 version. If the ‘Remove empty directories’ option is enable Suction crash without removing the directories. Is there a place to download the previous version? Thanks
Andy,
Thanks for the catch! There was a small null reference bug that popped up in the last version that I have corrected. Feel free to try 1.3.4, which should resolve your issues.
Thanks!!!
Hi, great tool. I have a feature request, can you preserve the non empty folders, while removing the empty ones.
e.g
folder1
emptyfolder
emptyfolder
folderWithContent
folderWithContent
to become
folder1
folderWithContent
folderWithContent
The functionality you seem to be describing is simply removing empty folders from a tree, rather than Suctioning or consolidating all sub-folders into a root folder.
If that is what you are looking to do, I would suggest looking into Vanity Remover – it simply removes all empty folders under the folder you specify. You can read more about it here: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/01/25/vanity-remover-quickly-find-and-remove-delete-empty-folders/
Hi, I tested Vanity Remover, it wasn’t able to remove the folder. My earlier post had a folder structure but the blog removed the spaces. The empty folder containts only 1 folder like this
folder1
+emptyfolder
++emptyfolder
+++folderWithContent
++++folderWithContent
So it becomes
folder1
+folderWithContent
++folderWithContent
The emptyFolder menas it only contains 1 folder, so to suction it upwards.
That’s really beyond the functionality of Suction. With your folder structure, Suction does the following:
folder1
+emptyfolder
++emptyfolder
+++folderwithcontent1
++++folderwithcontent2
Becomes:
folder1
+files from folderwithcontent1
+files from folderwithcontent2
Yes, Suction removes empty directories, but only after pulling ALL files from ALL sub-directories to the top. It does not selectively save folders that contain files – that would be counter intuitive to what Suction is made to do.
Yes I know. Currently Suction destroys the folder hierarchy. Which is why I hope to ask for this feature, to preserve the hierarchy but removing the empty folders within
This has been a very useful tool in keeping the clutter down on my computer and helping with organising, but one major thing I have noticed is that files that you want will get deleted after a suction if the pathway is really long. I usually need to resolve this by first renaming the folders to something smaller before I try a suction again.
I don’t know if this has been mentioned, apologies if it has – i have not been able to find it in the comments or history.
win7 x64 suction v1.3.5 cant drag any folders……. get the “NO” symbol. tried running as admin & also non-admin. neither works. help?
Luke,
I am running Win7 x64 at home and have no issues with Suction. Do you have UAC enabled? Are you ever prompted for elevation when running the app? Personally, I have UAC disabled at home and it works fine. I would be interested in hearing more about your configuration.
John,
Glad the tool has been helpful, and I am sorry to hear you are having issues with it. By chance, can you elaborate a bit more on the problem? Are files disappearing when you have a very long folder path, or when one folder name in that path is particularly long? Either? Both?
I would love to see what the log looks like after a Suction where this occurs.
Hi sorry for the delay in getting back to you, i was just waiting for the files I normally get that this happpens on so I can try and recreate it again.
Here are the logs you requested. I thought the problem might have been the long pathway issue that Windows has (260 characters IIRC) but the files furthest in the sub-folder didn’t get renamed liked during some other tests I did probably suggesting it didn’t reach the limit but it still got deleted. Whilst those that were truncated to short filenames worked fine. I still think the issue is connected to the length of characters involved but that one that got deleted may have been because I somehow bypassed the character limit without realising it.
http://rapidshare.com/files/354183415/SuctionLogs.rar
Here are some test and results i got:
Main root folder is moved to:
X:\Americas.Best.Dance.Crew\New Folder
Avi file is now located at:
X:\Americas.Best.Dance.Crew\New Folder\Randy Jackson Presents Americas Best Dance Crew S05E04 WS DSR XviD
DVSKY\randy_jackson_presents_americas_best_dance_crew_s05e04_ws_dsr_xvid-dvsky_par2\
and renamed to RANDYJ~1.AVI
Suction is done on “New folder”
Suction = FINE. 7 Files Present, 0 Folders (albeit files still retain the short name).
X:\Americas.Best.Dance.Crew\New Folder\Randy Jackson Presents Americas Best Dance Crew S05E04 WS DSR XviD
DVSKY\randy_jackson_presents_americas_best_dance_crew_s05e04_ws_dsr_xvid-dvsky_par2\
contains:
randy.jackson.presents.americas.best.dance.crew.s05e04.ws.dsr.xvid-dvsky.avi
Suction deletes
I’m trying to install suction in a XP professional, without .net or any programing soft, and doesn’t works. Give me a message “Application can’t be inicializating corretly (0xc0000135)………….
What is necessary to run Suction?
obligatorily needs .net 3.5? because before format my computer I hadn’t .net 3.5 and It works fine.
Thanks,……….
And sorry for my english, because I’m spanish.
German,
At a minimum, I .Net 2.0 is required for Suction, but some newer features rely on v3.5. You should install v2.0 if you want basic functionality. Suction is only fully supported with v3.5.
I first run Suction in windows vista without any problems.
I’m trying to used in Windows 7 and it doesn´t work. I try with different folders.
I downloa version 1.3.5.
Sergio,
You need to ensure that you have .Net installed, preferably .Net 3.5. I use Suction on Windows 7 (x86 and x64) all the time, so you should be able to as well.
Check the status of your .Net install and let me know what happens.
I have a situation where Suction is diving into my archives such as rar, zip, 7z, etc and pulling EVERYTHING out. It’s not pretty. I had over 36,000 files show up in my folder. Is there some way to prevent that? Is a compressed file treated as a folder? How about if I created a new FOLDER in which to place my zippable files into and then zipping it? Would that stop it?
Thanks,
jujdred,
Your issue must be somehow related to how Windows itself is handling archives for you. What applications do you use for managing archives on your machine?
Suction simply uses the Windows File.Move() function to relocate the files, so it is highly unlikely that Suction itself is the reason for this behavior.
I have tried replicating your situation by placing large numbers of archives (rar, zip, 7z, tar, bz) in a tree of folders and using Suction to pull them all to the top. As expected, the archives are moved, but no extraction takes place.
hello suction looks great and i just downloaded it but i can’t drag and drop my picture folder into it. It gives me the circle with the slash through it when I do. Am i missing something? please help me I would like to use this program ( I have windows 7 on a PC) Thanks
Natalie,
I have not experienced the problem you are reporting, so can you give me a few more details on your setup?
Are you an administrator on the machine?
Do you have UAC enabled or disabled?
What folder are you trying to use Suction on? Is it your “My Pictures” folder, a drive root (Like C:\) or something else?
What version of .Net are you using?
Thanks for the feedback,
DrNathan
Just wanted to say thank you so much for developing an awesome application! Saves me so much time .
You are quite welcome, thanks for the kudos – it is always appreciated.
Just downloaded 1.3.5 but isn’t working. I have .Netframe 3.5 SP1, it should work right? But it isn’t. Any ideas?
Thx,
Jake
Jake,
Are you running the application as Administrator?
Is UAC Enabled?
If UAC is enabled, are you prompted for permission to run the application when you start it?
DrNathan,
Yes I’m running the application as Administrator.
UAC is enabled, yes I am prompted for permission to run the application when I start it.
I am having similar problems like Natalie.
I can’t drag into the application, I get a circle and a slash.
When I use the context menu option it crashes, no matter the size of the folder.
Jake.
Vista -32 Home Premium
I have .Netframe 3.5 SP1
Let me play with Suction a bit on my computer, also Vista 32-bit, and I will get back to you soon.
Here’s the funny thing about UAC on Vista, which may or may not apply to Windows 7 as well.
When you launch an application and grant it a higher set of privileges by clicking the “Allow” dialog, you are giving that application whatever set of rights it is asking for. This can be one of three levels:
1) “asInvoker”, which basically means you right now, and the set of permissions/level of access you currently hold under UAC. This means that even though you might be an administrator on the local machine, you have not elevated your privileges, and you are restricted in the things you can do.
2) “requireAdministrator”, which requires that the application be granted administrator rights to do its job – you click allow and/or provide the system with administrator credentials to proceed, and the application runs as if you were running as Administrator.
3) “highestAvailable”, which basically grants the program the highest privileges available to you. So, if you are an administrator on the machine, it grants the program administrator rights, and so on.
Now, this setup becomes problematic due to Vista’s implementation of UAC. The system dictates that an application running with lesser privileges cannot copy data/interact with an application that has higher privileges.
Windows Explorer is not run as Administrator by default. Therefore, when you grant Suction Administrator rights, you are unable to drag files from Explorer to Suction.
There are several workarounds that I can think of offhand:
1) Turn off UAC. I do and I’m fine. If that’s not your cup of tea, you can try…
2) Changing the properties of Windows Explorer so that it runs as Administrator (right-click> Properties> Compatibility
3) Only run Suction from the context menu
4) I could change Suction to not be compliant with UAC.
I tweaked Suction to request “HighestAvailable” privileges, and will be uploading it soon. I did this because using it with the “asInvoker” privileges would render it unable to tweak the registry and add a context menu entry. However, running it as Administrator all the time isn’t required either. However, when running with “HighestAvailable” privileges, one can still use the context menu to launch the program without any issues.
I am reluctant to remove the UAC compatibility because it simply breaks Suction for anyone trying to use it with UAC enabled. However, UAC is a less than accommodating solution in itself.
Hopefully that helps. Stay tuned for the slightly tweaked version, likely to be uploaded first thing tomorrow.
DrNathan,
I’ll try running it without UAC on. But the context menu instantly crashes when I use it on Vista.
Thanks,
Jake
Jake,
I removed UAC completely from the latest release up on the site, so give it a try. As far as crashing when using the context menu shortcut, I have not been able to replicate this problem on any of my machines. Can you give me a little more info?
Are you selecting one folder? Multiple?
Have you tried unregistering and re-registering Suction in the context menu via the Configuration pane?
Are you getting any specific errors or messages from Windows or Suction when it crashes?
DrNathan,
I just gave it a try, the context menu gives error: Could not write to registry: Acess to registry key ‘KHEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\command’ is denied.
Thats prob registry error due to not having admin privileges.
When I use it without running as admin as you said on a single folder, it doesn’t work but now I can drag folders into it. Suctioned 0 files is the result it gives. Even tho there are 5 .docs and 5 .jpegs inside the folder.
Still not working.
Thanks,
Jake
DrNathan,
Where does the files go to after they get suctioned by the program?
It hasn’t actually worked for me yet, I’d like to set the output location of the files that have been sorted if possible and perhaps a status bar would be nice and how much time it takes to finish suctioning.
Can this program handle 500GB or 1TB worth of data?
Thanks,
Jake
Jake,
As far as the registry error is concerned, yes that is a permissions issue. Suction adds data to the registry, which requires administrator-level access.
As for the functionality of Suction, I don’t believe you have quite the right idea as to how the program works.
Suction is made to be run on a folder that contains other folders and files. When run, Suction will pull all of the files up from those sub folders into the folder on which you ran Suction.
For instance, imagine you have a folder called “Jake” with several sub folders, perhaps named “Documents”, “Pictures”, etc.
If you run Suction on your folder named Jake, all of the files in the Documents and Pictures folders will be moved to Jake. This includes any sub folders located within the Documents and Pictures folders.
There is no output folder to select, or anything like that. Suction simply collapses a folder tree, moving all of the files contained there into the top folder you selected to Suction. After that, Suction deletes all of those sub folders which are now empty.
As far as a status bar is concerned, I may consider that in the future. I have built something similar into another application I am releasing soon, so it should not be too tough to add to Suction. As far as a time estimate goes, that is hard to say. I’m sure it is possible, but most Suction activities take less than a minute on average, so I am not sure how useful that would be. Suction should have no problem managing many files, so 500 GB or 1 TB worth of data is reasonable. I have run Suction on a directory tree of over 5,000 files without issue.
Hopefully this clears up some of the questions you had regarding Suction’s functionality.
[...] de archivos. Tiene un aspecto menos minimalista y con algunas otras opciones que no vienen mal. 5.- Suction (180 KB) no dará muchos rodeos y absorberá en el directorio raíz a todas las carpetas rebeldes [...]
[...] de archivos. Tiene un aspecto menos minimalista y con algunas otras opciones que no vienen mal. 5.- Suction (180 KB) no dará muchos rodeos y absorberá en el directorio raíz a todas las carpetas rebeldes [...]
DrNathan,
I am now using Windows 7
I am trying to separate music and photos in one folder.
It doesn’t work, it creates the four folders and doesn’t “suction”.
Running as Admin doesn’t let me drag anything into it.
Jake,
The problem is likely due to UAC.
If Suction is elevated to Admin status, you cannot drag files from Explorer into Suction because Microsoft does not allow a non-elevated application (Explorer) to interact with an elevated application (Suction).
You could try using Suction from the context menu instead, or you could possibly disable UAC.
I am looking into getting things to work with UAC, but it may take a bit.
Jake,
I looked into it further.
Where do you have the Suction executable located? There are certain directories in Windows Vista and Windows 7 that are considered “Secured” directories. Any applications stored there will be automatically elevated when run, and thus block you from dragging files onto the interface due to the reasons I mentioned in my last reply.
Your desktop is one of these locations. If you were to move Suction to say, the root of your C:\ drive, or your Downloads folder, you should see that you are able to drag files into the application without issue.
Let me know if that works for you.
[...] Suction received updates to allow the user to specify the text they want used when renaming duplicate files [...]
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