 sh c for f in folders recurse fast do sortm f done thanks tom and jacob the above works but without the double quotes i e sh c for f in folders recurse fast do sortm f done i may have a different version of sh than you do the double quotes around the backticks work for my sh in the more than you really wanted to know category you re probably safe without the double quotes the only reason i put them in is that i have some pathologically named folders including folders whose names contain spaces if all your folders have safe names you don t need special quoting jacob _______________________________________________ exmh users mailing list exmh users URL URL 