Kram

A project organiser for video editors, photo editors, and designers on Windows.

It does two things:

1. Scaffolds a project folder for the kind of work you're doing.
2. Sorts whatever you dump in that project's root into the right subfolders, as many times as you like, throughout the project.

No install, no dependencies. It's PowerShell, which Windows already has.

Why it works this way

Most file organisers watch a fixed folder. That doesn't fit creative work, where every project is a new folder and you often have several running at once. So Kram has no global inbox and no "active project" — each project is self-contained and independent. The project's own root folder is its inbox.

It also doesn't ask you to set anything up before you start working. You make your draft first, and only create the project folder once you actually have files worth organising.

The loop

1. Start working. Create nothing.
2. Draft done → run New Long project.bat (or Shorts / Photo / UI). Name it.
3. Drop everything you're working with into the project root.
4. Run Organise.bat from inside the project. It files everything.
5. Keep working.
6. More files pile up in the root → run Organise.bat again.
7. Repeat forever. Already-filed folders are never disturbed.
8. Finished → run Tidy (final cleanup).bat for a last pass before archiving.

A project mid-loop looks like this, and Kram only touches the top group:

My Video/
├── random-footage.mp4                 <- new
├── downloaded-image-weird-name.png    <- new
├── random-folder/                     <- new
│
├── 01_After_effects/                  <- already organised, left alone
├── 05_video/                          <- already organised, left alone
└── 06_audio/                          <- already organised, left alone

How it knows what's new

Managed folder names are read live from _Templates/. Anything in the project root that isn't one of them is new. That's the entire rule — no database, no timestamps, nothing that can drift out of sync. Re-running is always safe.

Right-click menu (optional)

Run Install right-click menu.bat once and you get:

• Right-click empty space in any folder → New with Kram → Long / Shorts / Photo / UI. The project is created right there, in the folder you're standing in.
• Right-click a folder → Kram → Organise / Preview / Organise + clean up filenames / Tidy.

Preview is the dry run — it prints exactly what would move and then stops without touching anything. Useful the first time you point Kram at a folder full of unfamiliar downloads.

Everything is written under HKCU, so it needs no administrator rights, affects only your user, and comes off cleanly with Uninstall right-click menu.bat. Re-run the installer after adding a project type to config.json — the New with Kram submenu is built from it.

Entries use icons already on your system (imageres.dll/shell32.dll) — nothing is shipped or downloaded, so there's no broken-icon risk if the DLLs move between Windows versions.

Windows 11: these entries live under "Show more options" (or press Shift+F10 instead of right-clicking). Appearing in the first-level Windows 11 menu requires a signed MSIX shell extension, which Kram doesn't ship. If you'd rather skip the extra click everywhere (not just for Kram), run Install classic right-click menu.bat once to restore the pre-Windows 11 full menu — it's Microsoft's own documented registry escape hatch, reversible with Uninstall classic right-click menu.bat. Both restart Explorer to apply.

Setup

1. Clone or download this folder anywhere. It's portable — everything resolves relative to the script.
2. Copy config.local.example.json to config.local.json and set projectsRoot to where you want projects created. That file is gitignored, so your paths never conflict with anyone else's.
3. Optionally drop real template project files into _Templates/<Type>/ named PROJECT.aep, PROJECT.drp, PROJECT.psd. They're renamed to the project name on creation. Kram deliberately does not create empty ones — a 0-byte .psd isn't a file Photoshop can open.

Languages

Folder names come from a language pack, so 05_video, 05_chalchitra, and 05_चलचित्र all come out of the same codebase.

Pack	Script	Example
en	Latin	05_video, 06_audio/SFX
hi-Latn	Hindi, romanised	05_chalchitra, 06_awaaj/Dhwani
hi-Deva	Hindi, Devanagari	05_चलचित्र, 06_आवाज़/ध्वनि

Script subtags follow BCP 47, so hi on its own is never used — romanised and Devanagari Hindi are separate packs with separate translations, not one pack with a transliteration step.

Templates use canonical English names. A pack renames folders when a project is created, and the choice is stored per project — so all three can coexist on one machine, and a project keeps its language forever regardless of your current default.

Set your default with defaultLocale in config.local.json, or override per project with -Locale hi-Deva.

Adding a language is one file: copy locales/en.json, map only the folder names you want changed, and leave out anything that should stay as-is. Numeric prefixes are kept ASCII in the shipped packs so folders still sort correctly in Explorer. Pull requests welcome.

Safety

Moving media that's already on an After Effects or Resolve timeline takes it offline. Kram is built around that:

• sort only ever touches loose items in the project root. Anything already inside a managed folder is untouchable.
• tidy reports misplaced nested files but never moves them — you do that by hand with the project closed.
• Files locked by another program are skipped.
• Collisions become name (2).ext. Nothing is overwritten, ever.
• Every move is logged to organise-log.json in the project.

Image sequences

Runs of 3+ files sharing a prefix, extension, and digit padding (render_0001.png, render_0002.png, …) are detected and moved together into their own subfolder. Dropped folders move intact for the same reason — flattening a sequence destroys it.

The optional -Rename flag only cleans junk from downloaded filenames — %20 escapes, exotic dashes, 200-character URL slugs — while keeping brackets and any real script, so Devanagari or Cyrillic filenames survive intact. It never appends sequential numbers, because that is exactly what would make After Effects mistake a pile of unrelated stills for a sequence.

My%20Cool%20Clip%20(final)%20v2.mp4   ->   My Cool Clip (final) v2.mp4

Project types

Type	For
Long	Long-form video. Full AE/Resolve round-trip structure.
Shorts	Vertical/short-form. Same plus thumbnails and a hooks file.
Photo	Photo editing. source / edited / export / presets.
UI	App UI design. design / references / wireframes / exports / prototypes.
App	App store & social assets. icon / screenshots / social / logo, each source + export, plus an inbox for unsorted drops and a credentials folder for signing keys/.env files.

Add your own by making a folder in _Templates/ and an entry in config.json.

Customising

• Structure — edit the folders in _Templates/ in Explorer. _Base/ is shared by all types; each type layers on top. No code involved.
• Sort rules — config.json. defaultRules maps extension → folder, and each type can override individual extensions (a .png is footage material in a video project but a reference in a UI project).

Commands

Organise.ps1 -Verb new -Type Long [-Name x] [-Locale hi-Deva] [-Here]
Organise.ps1 -Verb sort [-Path .] [-DryRun] [-Rename]
Organise.ps1 -Verb tidy [-Path .] [-Apply]

Not built yet

• archive — strip regenerable intermediates (07_export/AEtoDR, DRtoAE, 08_cache) and zip the rest.
• A top-level Windows 11 context menu entry (needs a signed MSIX shell extension).
• Localised UI messages — only folder names are translated today.