getmusicbee.com
Support => Questions => Topic started by: gmang78 on March 23, 2015, 05:30:36 AM
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I want to move my Musicbee library. I have a small internal flash drive that boots Windows 8.1. I also have an internal terabyte SATA drive. I want to move my library to the SATA drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Edit > Preferences > Library
At the top of that tab is a button "Move Library" which does exactly what it says on the tin.
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Edit > Preferences > Library
At the top of that tab is a button "Move Library" which does exactly what it says on the tin.
Are we talking MB's library files, or the actual music files? The "Move Library" button only moves MB's files.
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I'm referring to moving all of the music files without them being disconnected to their corresponding placement and artwork and musicbee... So that I can save space on my flash hard drive.
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I'm referring to moving all of the music files without them being disconnected to their corresponding placement and artwork and musicbee... So that I can save space on my flash hard drive.
In that case, I suggest selecting all tracks in your library and using.the send to> folder(move) command. MB will move everything for you without losing track of the files. Just test with a few files first to make sure that what happens is what you expect
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That was a huge pain in the ass! I basically had to completely rebuild my whole file hierarchy doing it the way that you describe. If you don't, then MusicBee just throws all of the files into said folder together with no rhyme or reason. I hear a lot of bitching about iTunes and I have had quite a few issues with iTunes in other areas. In iTunes, all you have to do is go to preferences and you can select where ever you want your main iTunes folder to be and then it reads all of the files from there.
So far, it seems MusicBee rewards the lazy and makes the fastidious work harder. I could, just leave my files anywhere and everywhere and in MusicBee, it makes it seem like all of the files are together as one Library. Yet, if I want to do something as simple as just move my whole library over... I have to go through and type every single band name and album name out again. I'm better off just Deleting all of my songs from my "Library", then dragging my file hierarchy that was previously built wherever and then selecting all of those artist folders and clicking and dragging them over to MusicBee.
Either way, this is extremely silly and should be a lot easier.
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Ok, so I moved all of my files over to D:/Music/MusicBee
I hadn't realized that I was supposed to move my "Library", which is not in fact the Library but actually root files etc, into an "empty folder". Now, I can't move my "Library" over to my MusicBee folder on my D drive. Any suggestions?
edit: I want to iterate that I am in no way trying to minimize any of your help or efforts. I really appreciate you all getting back with my so quickly and having such helpful attitudes. I am simply frustrated with this inherent design that seems to be slightly counter-intuitive to what I'm used to. I had absolutely no complaints about MusicBee before and I am sure that it will work just as great once I get everything moved over.
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I don't know what you've done, but you should have been able to move the music folder from one drive to the other in Windows Explorer and then used the "Remap Music Folders" command to tell MusicBee "my files used to be in folder c:\def, now they're in g:\hij".
I don't use iTunes so I'm not sure about its concept of a "library", but doesn't it keep all of your music in a single root folder that it controls pretty tightly? A MusicBee library can include tracks from any number of different drives and folders, so moving it probably isn't as straightforward.
Also, the MusicBee interface typically uses the term "library" to refer to its database file and settings, not the tracks in it, hence my initial confusion as to what you were asking.
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I did what psychoadept suggested because he seemed to know what I was referring to whereas you were confused due to the wording. It seems as though you know how to move it all at once. Basically, I moved each album separately by using the send to > move to folder command.
So here is my file hierarchy on my D drive, which is where my music library is (All of the song files).
D:/Music/MusicBee/Music Files/ARTIST/ALBUM
You see now? I am trying to get what you and MusicBee are referring to as the "Library" to go where it would be. Which I am pretty sure is in the MusicBee folder along with Music Files. But, I tried to use the command that you initially suggested and it gives me the error "Folder must be empty".
edit: I suppose it's not a huge deal for the "Music Files" and the "Music Library" to be on separate drives. I just personally like that all to be in the same place to save confusion in the future.
edit: No, in iTunes you can access all of your "Music Files" by artist and album just like in MusicBee. It's just that what you refer to as the "Library" is always connected to the "Music Files" by hierarchy. Like, this situation could not happen in iTunes because it simply would not let it happen. It would create a new "Library" wherever you decided to keep your Music Files.
edit: I tried to create a folder within the MusicBee folder to move the Library... It said, "Unable to move Library."
Here is what I was trying to do:
D:/Music/MusicBee/Library Files
So, ^that's^ where I tried to place the Library and it didn't work.
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this situation could not happen in iTunes because it simply would not let it happen. It would create a new "Library" wherever you decided to keep your Music Files.
If you want MusicBee to behave like iTunes, you should enable the auto-organize feature in Preferences > Library. This page may help: http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Templates
The Send To > Folder > Move to Organized Folder works the same way, except it's only applied when you specifically run the command. This would be a good way to test templates before applying them the whole library with auto-organize.
As for moving the "Library" files, I'm not sure what the problem is if you created a new folder first. Is there anything in the error log?
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If you want MusicBee to behave like iTunes, you should enable the auto-organize feature in Preferences > Library. This page may help: http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Templates
Sorry to contradict again, but I wouldn't recommend that to someone already having troubles with their library - it makes significant changes and cannot be undone.
I believe the iTunes behaviour requested is the ability to move an entire library (including music files) from one location to another, not the ability to have MusicBee name and organise files on-the-fly automatically.
This is easy enough if all of the music lives in a single parent folder, but how do you "move" a library that could include tracks from any number of different folders or drives?
I'm not about to install iTunes to see how it handles it, but some quick googling shows that:
1. I was incorrect earlier when I suggested iTunes forces users to keep all of tracks in a single folder (although it will by default)
2. iTunes includes a command to consolidate a library so that all of the tracks are in a single folder. From there, it's a doddle to move everything at once to another drive.
In short, this is probably something that should be made easier in MusicBee. If only because of the number of people who have posted questions after trying to do it.
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@gmang78
At this stage I would close MusicBee and use Windows Explorer to move your library folder - as in the folder you specified when you created the library, which probably contains your playlists folder, musicbeesettings.ini, musicbee database files etc. - to your desired location. Probably best to keep a backup copy somewhere else, just in case.
The next time you start MusicBee it will notice that the library is missing and prompt you to create a new one or, most usefully, tell it where the old one has moved to. I forget what it's actually called - it's the last option on the new library settings screen.
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Thank you for all of your help! I ended up getting it figured out. :)
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Wow, this was incredibly easy. My hdd died, and I restored the backup library to a hdd with a different root letter.
File->Library->Remap Music Folders
Couldn't have worked any smoother. Thanks!
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Wow, this was incredibly easy. My hdd died, and I restored the backup library to a hdd with a different root letter.
File->Library->Remap Music Folders
Couldn't have worked any smoother. Thanks!
When I do this, MusicBee brings up a window with every. single. artist. folder. and asks me to fill in the new path (for every single one). There are hundreds of artist folders, so usually this eventually just goes into hang trying to populate the pop up window.
Am I seriously supposed to "remap" every single folder? Why can't I just remap the root location?
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jSQ7RumJBerHUeQTKIzqAsKYwPsT2hlp/view?usp=sharing)
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How are you bringing it up? You should definitely be able to just remap the root folder.
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How are you bringing it up? You should definitely be able to just remap the root folder.
When I open MB, if I go straight to File > Library > Remap Music Folders the a dialog box pops up and lists every single folder in my root music folder (apparently requesting me to remap every single artist folder).
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Hmm, strange. It picks the root folder for me. Are you using the latest patch? If not, I suggest grabbing that from my signature and give it another try.
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How are you bringing it up? You should definitely be able to just remap the root folder.
When I open MB, if I go straight to File > Library > Remap Music Folders the a dialog box pops up and lists every single folder in my root music folder (apparently requesting me to remap every single artist folder).
It's a confusing interface. Those are directories that have already been individually remapped. They're the same left and right, correct? The ones I originally did when I switched to MusicBee are still there in mine. Both sides show the correct mapping.
Those can be cleared out or left there (provided they are, indeed, the same on either side).
Just do a line of OLDDRIVE:\OLDBASEPATH -> NEWDRIVE:\NEWBASEPATH and run it and you should be fine.
I had worries at first that it was dynamically remapping all the time. But it's not. Once it's remapped it's remapped. You can verify by looking at the paths listed for a few of the files after the remap.
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It's a confusing interface. Those are directories that have already been individually remapped. They're the same left and right, correct?
Nope. Hundreds of directories on the left. All blank on the right.
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It's a confusing interface. Those are directories that have already been individually remapped. They're the same left and right, correct?
Nope. Hundreds of directories on the left. All blank on the right.
So I have NO idea what just happened, but suddenly, "remap" is now bringing up only one path on the left and one path on the right. I was able to correct the file paths and everything is working now (after months of frustration).
It should be noted that I did move my MB file from one place to another and back, so perhaps this updated/changed something automatically in a file structure somewhere.
I do find it incredibly frustrating that MB portable will automatically change lots of filepaths/structures if you move the program itself (instead of leaving the structures as you had them set, or at least allowing for a setting within MB that allows you to set the root).