Is it possible to keep a record of the original location of a file?

Now, I have a number of files, in fact, a whole hard drive which is a data drive that contains only my data, no system.

I'd like to know if I can have a record of the original locations of all of the files e.g. E:\family_photos\2023
F:\travel_video\2023\Europe\Italy
and no matter where the files are moved, and how many times they are moved, I'll be able to move them back
to the original location at any time I want, in a batch, selective and automatic way, or at least, I'll have a record of where it was located, and then I can make it manually by myself. (Yes, this can be done by using a notepad or simply writing down with a pen, but I'm looking for an automatic way.)
Is there any such tool?

Are the files also going to be renamed or just moved to a different location?
In your data drive let's say e: you could run the following command to get a list of all file locations:

dir /a /s /b e:\*.*>>locations.txt

That would save the full path of each file in a text file called "locations.txt"

You can also save the path of each file in Alternate Data Streams within each file with a batch script

Use either ---Control Panel>File History ---or ---Settings>Update & Security>Backup ---

ricardobohner said:

Are the files also going to be renamed or just moved to a different location?
In your data drive let's say e: you could run the following command to get a list of all file locations:

dir /a /s /b e:\*.*>>locations.txt

That would save the full path of each file in a text file called "locations.txt"

You can also save the path of each file in Alternate Data Streams within each file with a batch script

I will not rename any of the files at all, but I will create new folders, delete empty folders and move (i.e. cut and paste) files from one location to another. All I want is I can always have a record of the original locations of the files no matter how many times they have been moved (but I don't need a detailed record of where they have been once moved, that would be crazy if I did)
For example, a file called A.mp4 is located at E:\Videos\Science_Experiment\ on day 1. Then it is moved around to different folders and after 100 days or even longer, it is located at E:\Temp\Biology\, I'll still be able to know that it was first located in Science_Experiment\. Of course, that will be even better if I can click to move all files back to their original locations but this is certainly not necessary. I will not likely do this.

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Callender said:

The way 'd do it is:

Make a system image backup of the drive before you move the files.

Then at some point in the future you want to move them back to the original location mount your system image backup in Explorer and use TSR Copy Changed Files to move files that exist in your backup but not in your data drive to their original locations.

Free utility or inbuilt program to compare source & destination files - Windows 7 Forums

Otherwise there's probably some other file/ folder sync software that you might use.

SimplySync Backup

Add folder pairs and make backup copies somewhere. Use the same software to move files back to original locations from backup.

SimplySync Backup

There will be lots of other folder sync software that can do that.

In that case, do I always need double the capacity to make it because you are talking about creating backup image?