Convert every new file in a folder by itself
Choose one folder, a format, and a quality, and the Converter converts each new video or sound file in it once it is finished. Originals are never touched.
01Find WATCH A FOLDER
Open Converter in the sidebar. On its first step, Source, the WATCH A FOLDER card sits below the place where you choose or drop files. Click Choose folder… and pick the folder. ClipHearth watches one folder, and only the files directly in it: folders inside it are not looked into.
02Pick the format and the quality
INTO lists every video and sound format of the Converter, with MP4 (.mp4) to start with. QUALITY has Balanced, Small file, and High quality, the same profiles as a conversion you start yourself, with Balanced to start with. These two choices are all the folder uses: Advanced mode, a file size to fit, MY PRESETS, and the Converter's other steps do not apply to it. A video can become a sound format and keep only its sound, while a sound file is left as it is when INTO is a video format.
03Switch it on
Tick Convert new files in this folder. Whatever is in the folder at that moment stays as it is, so only files that arrive from now on are converted. The line under the card says it is watching and which format new files become, and once files come in, how many were converted so far and at what time the last one was.
04When a file counts as new and finished
ClipHearth looks into the folder every three seconds and takes a file once two looks in a row see the same size and the same time of its last change. A file that is still being copied, downloaded, or recorded therefore waits until it is complete, and on Windows it also waits while another program still holds it open. Names that programs give unfinished files, such as .part, .crdownload, or .tmp, names starting with a dot, empty files, and files that are not video or sound are never taken. Files already in the format you chose are left alone, so a converted file is never converted again. A file replaced by a new one under the same name counts as new.
05Where the converted files go
Each new file becomes a conversion in the Queue, next to everything else, and at most two conversions run at a time. The result goes where converted files go: the Output folder in Settings › Downloads, named by Name of a converted file ({name}_converted out of the box). It shows in Completed as Converted, like any other conversion, and the original in the watched folder stays exactly as it was.
06In the trial, new files wait for a click
Every conversion is a task, and the free trial has three, so a watched folder never spends them on its own. Without a license the card says that new files wait for a click, and a button such as Convert the 2 new files sends them to the Queue, each one using a task. From 1.7.7 those files still wait after you quit and start ClipHearth again, as long as they are in the folder, and when the tasks run out, the file it stopped at and the ones after it wait on. With a license, new files convert by themselves.
07While ClipHearth runs, also in the tray
The folder is watched while ClipHearth runs, also when its window is closed and it sits in the tray (the menu bar on a Mac). After you quit, nothing is watched, and at the next start the files that came in meanwhile count as new. To have the folder watched from the moment you sign in, tick Start ClipHearth with the computer in Settings › Downloads: ClipHearth then starts with only its icon in the tray.
08Switch it off or change the folder
Untick Convert new files in this folder and the card says it is switched off. Conversions already in the Queue go on, and you can cancel them there. Tick it again and the folder starts afresh: what is in it at that moment stays as it is, so files that arrived while it was off are not converted. Choose folder… moves the watching to another folder in the same way. If the folder is gone, for example on a drive you unplugged, the card says so, and the watching goes on when the folder is back.
Didn't solve it? Write to us - attach a diagnostics log if you have one. Missing a feature? Tell us what you would use it for; several of the recent ones started as a suggestion.