Protected folders

Some folders should never lose a file, whatever a scan says about them: the originals, the client deliverables, the one copy you would not be able to reproduce.

Protect the folder and DuoBolt stops offering. Files inside it cannot be selected, by hand or by rule.

Protecting a folder

The control sits in the toolbar of both results screens, behind a shield. It reads Protect Folders… while the list is empty, the folder’s own name when one is protected, and Protected · {n} when there are several.

The protected-folders list open from the Similars toolbar, whose shield button reads Unsplash, the one folder protected. It lists Unsplash with a cross to remove it, highlighted, above a Protect a folder… entry. Behind it, two Variants groups of painted Easter eggs, and the inspector showing Easter-egg-3161.jpg.

Protection applies to everything below the folder, not just its immediate contents. Protecting Photos/Originals protects every subfolder under it, including ones that do not exist yet.

The list keeps itself minimal. Adding a folder already covered by another does nothing; adding one that covers existing entries replaces them.

The same list in Settings

Settings → Selection holds the canonical list, above the keep-rule order. It is the same list the results header opens — a folder added in either place is protected in both, in Duplicates and in Similars.

The Settings window on Selection: Protected folders — files in these folders are never marked for removal, by any rule — lists /Volumes/Archive/Photo Library/Unsplash with a minus button to remove it, above an Add folder… row, and below it Rule order with the Duplicates / Similars switch on Duplicates and the two rule rows: DuoBolt's rules, name without a copy marker, shorter path, first path A→Z, and My rules, selected, older file, shorter path, first path A→Z.

If it collides with what you have marked

Protecting a folder that contains files you have already selected is not silent. DuoBolt asks:

Protect this folder? 4 selected files inside “Originals” … and will be deselected.

with Protect & Deselect or Cancel.

What protection actually does

In the results, protected files carry a badge and their checkbox refuses:

In a protected folder — it can never be selected

Where every file in a group is protected, the group says so as a whole:

Every copy is in a protected folder — none can be selected

Bulk rules skip protected files too. Run Keep Newest File across a scan and the outcome line reports what it left alone — 128 files marked · 12 left protected.

Protection only ever adds survivors

A keep-rule marks everything in a group except the file it keeps. Protection removes files from that marking. So “Keep Newest” beside a protected original leaves two files: the newest, and the protected one.

Where the list lives

One list, shared by Duplicates and Similars, kept between scans and between sessions.

Protected, or excluded?

Protection keeps a folder’s files in the results — visible, counted, and impossible to select. If you would rather not see them at all, that is a different control: Excluded folders, on the setup screen, keeps the scan out of a folder entirely.