Typically there is a pattern to rom file names indicating what region the files belong to. For example it might explicitly state “(USA)” in the file name. However this alone cannot be taken as confirmation that “USA” means the game is from the USA region, USA could simply be part of the game title, e.g. “Daytona USA” etc. Japanese roms often end with the letter “j” but again this could just be part of the name of the game.

So how can one go about cleaning a rom folder without destroying these roms in the process?

You can still use these string elements to move files from one folder to another. The code below will not delete the files it will just move them en masse. If you have found a game was wrongly moved you can always return it.

Note: Always backup files and folders before you manipulate them programmatically.

The code below will need to be updated to reference your specific rom folder and where you want the files to move as well as the character string you are targeting i.e. *j.zip

@echo off

REM Examples file types:
REM Move Japanese files target is *j.zip
REM Move USA files target is *u.zip
REM Move USA files target is *(USA).zip
set target="*j.zip"

set source_folder="C:\roms\"
set destination_folder="C:\roms\_j_roms"

if not exist %destination_folder% (
    md %destination_folder%
)

move %source_folder%%target% %destination_folder%

echo Files with the extension %target% have been moved to %destination_folder%