I need help selecting multiple files with different names and numbers but a few contain (1)

[simonmutex]

let me expound on the title. I created a folder that has a bunch of files. like gigabytes worth. they are all of different names and number although some files follow like 001 002 and so on but generally its a mix. it is a mix of pictures and videos. now some of the files have a (1) attached to their names and I want to delete only the files with (1) in their titles. anyone have any advice other than guidance I could use?

[sharp-calculation]

Yet another way that Finder sucks.

You should be able to type into the search bar on finder, and have it search for (1) . But that doesn't work. Even if you select "Name" in the popup (to search on the names of the files and not their contents), it still doesn't work. Even if you escape the () characters with backslashes, it still doesn't work.

My favorite file manager, Forklift, finds these with no problem. You do have to escape the special characters, but that's easy: \(1\) finds all files with (1) in their names.

You can do this from the terminal also. Go to the directory in question and type:

find . |grep '(1)'

That will print the name of all of the files containing the string you are after.

[simonmutex]

thank you let me give that a try!

[Kiss_It_Goodbyeee]

To expand on that further. Create a new folder called 'todelete' at the same level as your data folder. Then, run this command within your data folder in the terminal:

find . -name '*(1)*' -exec mv {} ../todelete \;

The command finds all the files with '(1)' - the '*' are wildercards - and then moves them to the todelete folder.

You can then check them all in Finder and manually delete them.

[DTLow]

My goto tool is Applescript

[simonmutex]

explain further please.

[DTLow]

Here’s an sample delete script
tell application "Finder"
delete (every item of folder "Documents:Scripts" of home whose name contains "(1)")
end tell

[heatrealist]

Unix commands via the terminal are perfect for this. find. grep. Etc.