Staging Mode

In staging mode, Organize does not move files to their category folders yet. It moves them into a separate staging area first. When you are happy, Commit moves them to their final folders; Revert puts them back where they came from.

How to use it

1. Sidebar → Staging → turn on Use staging mode.
2. Scan and Organize as usual — the files are now in the staging area.
3. Check the result (the Log tab lists every staged file).
4. Commit to finish, or Revert to cancel.

Commit and Revert ask for confirmation. A committed run can be undone like any other run — see Undo and History.

Where staged files are

Windows	%APPDATA%\simple_organizer\staging\
Linux	$XDG_DATA_HOME/simple_organizer/staging/ (default ~/.local/share/...)

The list of staged files is kept in staging_manifest.json next to it — see Data and Settings.

Details

• Several batches — organising more than once before committing is fine; every batch is added to the staging area.
• Failures are kept — files that cannot be committed or reverted (e.g. locked) stay staged; fix the cause and press Commit or Revert again.
• Folder gone — if the scanned folder was renamed, moved or deleted in the meantime, Commit and Revert leave those files staged with an error instead of recreating the old folder.
• Online-only cloud files (OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud) are not staged: moving them out of the cloud folder would download them. Organise without staging mode to sort them.
• Other drive — if the scanned folder is on another drive than the staging area, files are copied and the original is deleted. If the original cannot be deleted (file open in another program), the copy is removed again and an error is shown — no stray copies.
• Crash-safe — the staging list is written while files are being staged, so even after a crash every staged file can be committed or reverted.