How to sort photos by year and month on Mac

What this does

A single year folder still gets crowded if you take a lot of photos. This rule goes one level further than sorting by year alone: it files each photo into a year folder, then a month folder inside that, so a folder never holds more than one month’s worth of photos at a time. Like the year only version, it reads the capture date from the photo itself.

What you’ll build

A rule that matches any image, then sorts it into nested Year then Month subfolders based on capture date.

Open the rule editor

This walkthrough happens inside FilesAutomator itself, so install it from the Mac App Store first if you have not already, then open it. In its toolbar, choose Add, then New Automation Rule.

Name the rule and choose a folder

Name it something like “Sort my photos into year and month” and use Add Folder to choose the folder your photos land in.

FilesAutomator

Build the condition

Add a single condition: Kind is a kind of public.image, which matches every image format.

FilesAutomator

Add the action steps

Step 1: Sort into subfolder

Choose Add Step, then Sort into folder. Build the pattern in “Name the subfolder with the parts below” in three pieces:

1. Add Part, then Date, then Year: y. Click the new chip and change its source to Date photo was taken.
2. Add Part, then Subfolder separator ( / ), to start a nested level.
3. Add Part, then Date, then Month: MM. Change this chip’s source to Date photo was taken too.

The result reads as two chips joined by a separator, filing into something like 2026 then 07 inside it.

FilesAutomator

Turn it on

Select Create Automation Rule, then switch the rule on from the folder’s rule list. Every photo that lands here now files itself into its year and month automatically.

A faster way

The template gallery inside FilesAutomator already has this rule ready to install, named Sort photos into year and month.