Importing a folder

If a project you already have is laid out the way you like, you do not need to rebuild it by hand. Prefab can read the folder and turn it into a template, bringing across the structure, the file contents, the Finder tags and the folder icons it finds. Tags and icons are macOS only, so on Windows they are read and kept rather than applied.

Getting a folder into Prefab

Any of these opens the same Import Folder as Template dialog:

• Drag the folder onto the Prefab window. Anywhere in the window works.
• Drop it on the Docktaskbar icon. Useful when Prefab is not in front, or has no window open.
• File ▸ Import Folder…, or ⇧⌘ICtrl+Shift+I.
• Import Folder… in Prefab's menu barnotification area item.

The Import button at the top of the library is for the other kind of import: it asks for a .prefab file, not a folder.

Drop anything that is not a folder and Prefab says so rather than guessing.

A .prefab file is a different thing: not a folder to read, but a set of templates someone exported. Double-click it, or drop it on the window or the Docktaskbar icon, and Prefab adds the templates inside rather than reading it as a folder. See Sharing templates.

Choosing how much comes across

The dialog's Import Mode decides how much of each file travels with the structure.

Windows screenshot coming soon

Folders & Files

The whole thing: every folder, every file, and what is inside each file. Text files come in as text, so you can edit them in Prefab afterwards and write placeholders into them. Anything that is not text - an image, a .psd, a .docx - is copied into Prefab's own storage and deployed byte for byte. See Files and contents.

Use this when the starter files matter: the boilerplate config, the letterhead, the session file you always begin from.

Folders Only

The folder structure, and nothing else. Every file is skipped.

Use this when the shape is the reusable part and the contents were specific to one project - a client matter folder, a shoot folder, a paper directory.

Folders & Empty Files

The folder structure, plus an entry for every file: right name, no contents.

Use this when the file names are part of the convention but the contents change every time, or when you want the layout now and will write the files later, inside Prefab.

Hidden files, tags and icons

Three switches sit under Options, below the mode. They apply whichever mode you picked.

Include hidden files brings in the items macOSWindows normally hides, which in a project folder means anything whose name begins with a dot - files and folders alike. Off by default.

Preserve folder tags reads the Finder tags on each folder and puts them on the template, so deployed folders come out tagged the same way. On by default. Tags found this way also join Prefab's tag list, which is one of the few ways it can learn the tags you use - see Colours, icons and tags.

Preserve folder icons reads a folder's custom symbol icon and keeps it. On by default.

What Prefab never imports

Some folders are not worth carrying into a template, so they are left out whatever mode you pick:

.git, node_modules, .build, build, dist, Pods, DerivedData, .swiftpm, __pycache__, venv, .venv, vendor, .cache, .next, .nuxt

Three file names are excluded the same way: .DS_Store, Thumbs.db and .gitkeep.

Size limits

Two limits apply in Folders & Files mode.

A text file over 1 MB is not read as text. It is copied whole instead, the same way an image is, which means placeholders written inside it are not filled in when you deploy.

A file over 100 MB is too large for Prefab's storage. It comes across as an entry with no contents, and the import lists it under the warnings.

What you get, and what to change first

The import creates a template named after the folder, puts it at the top of the library and selects it, and gives it a Reveal in FinderShow in Explorer action so a deployment opens where you can see it. A summary reports how many folders and files were imported, and how many were skipped if any were; if anything could not be read, a Show Warnings button lists it.

From there it is an ordinary template. The most useful first edit is to find the old project's name in the folder and file names and replace it with {{project_name}}, then define that placeholder in the Placeholders tab. That one change turns a copy of one project into a template for all of them.

Adding to a template you already have

You do not have to import a whole project to start with. Inside the editor, the toolbar's Import menu - and the right-click menu on any folder - offers:

• Import Files… picks one or more files and adds them where you are
• Import Folder… picks a folder and adds it as a subfolder named after it, with its contents

Neither shows the options dialog. Import Folder… behaves as Folders & Files does above, exclusions and all. Import Files… takes exactly the files you picked, subject to the same size limits. Each imported file remembers where it came from, so it can be re-read later - see Files and contents.

Neither reports warnings the way the full import does, so a file that could not be read arrives as an empty entry with nothing said about it. The Contents row on that entry is what gives it away.