Choosing what to scan

A scan starts with one folder, or several. AssetScout can also reach three places macOS keeps files in that are awkward to find in the Finder.

The scan menu

The button with the folder and the plus sign, at the right of the titlebar, opens a menu. The first item, Choose Directory…, asks you for a folder in the usual panel. File > Open… and ⌘O do exactly the same thing.

While a scan is running the menu is not available. A running scan is stopped from the titlebar, not started over from the menu.

Dragging folders on

Drag one or more folders from the Finder onto the window. A large arrow appears while something droppable is over it, and drops of several folders at once are scanned into a single list — useful for a set of yearly backup folders that belong together.

The window only offers to take the drop when what you are dragging contains a directory. Dragging a handful of loose files over it does nothing, rather than starting a scan that would find them and stop.

Known locations

Under a separator, the menu offers three places by name. All three sit deep inside the Library, where macOS puts files you have received rather than saved:

A location is only listed while it exists and has something in it, and that is checked each time the menu opens rather than once at launch. The Mail folder is missing until the Mail app has been set up; the wallpaper folder stays empty until you have used a moving wallpaper for the first time. When none of the three has anything in it, the whole section is left out — offering a place that would find nothing is worse than not offering it.

Starting a second scan

A new scan replaces what is in the window, and the result of the current one is lost. The app asks before it does that. If you scan one folder after another and the question is in your way, switch Ask for confirmation before new scan off in Settings.