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Support => Questions => Topic started by: Tybot on March 20, 2023, 01:42:19 AM

Title: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: Tybot on March 20, 2023, 01:42:19 AM
Hi guys! Looking for opinions and assistance on this.

Every album is currently saved in an artist folder and I'm thinking about using the releasetype tag to move them into Album/EP/Live/Anthology subfolders but I'm a bit scared I'll screw it up. Album folders also has additional, non-music files in them if that makes any difference.

I'd rather not rename the files or change anything else but I'm not sure that's possible while achieving my goal. I'm currently using Picard to relocate the files so all my naming scripts are based on and located in that application. Never used Musicbee for any type of organization on a file/folder level.

Current path:
X:\Music\#Artists [A-Z]\D\Dire Straits\[1978] Dire Straits [2010 - Vertigo - UIGY-9032] [SHM-SACD]

Goal:
X:\Music\#Artists [A-Z]\D\Dire Straits\ALBUM\[1978] Dire Straits [2010 - Vertigo - UIGY-9032] [SHM-SACD]

Thanks in advance!
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: The Incredible Boom Boom on March 20, 2023, 07:55:39 PM
If you don't care about MusicBee-specific statistics, you should just use Picard to do it.
Otherwise, you can use the File Organizer (https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/File_Organization#Organize_Files) to move them accordingly. As always, be sure to test this on only one folder, preferably with each release type, before batch migrating your files.
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: Tybot on March 23, 2023, 01:42:40 AM
I know I probably should and I'm looking at it. But even if I choose to not save tags or rename files and only select move files, that's thousands upon thousands of files that needs to be matched to their database before any action can be applied, if I understand it correctly. Some of the albums also does not have a release id. So, am I missing something or do other people have Picard set up vastly different than me? I've seen people recommend it for a lot of different actions but I've always been hesitant to use it more than once, and that's during my initial tagging process.
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: The Incredible Boom Boom on March 23, 2023, 11:48:11 PM
If I was in your situation, I would take the time to use Picard to tag and then organize the files how I'd want. Organizing files then going back to tag them may lead to more work.
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: Mayibongwe on March 24, 2023, 06:05:14 PM
For some reason, I can't get a clear understanding of your situation. Please clarify the following for me:

Quote from: Tybot on March 20, 2023, 01:42:19 AM
...and I'm thinking about using the releasetype tag to move them into Album/EP/Live/Anthology subfolders.

Goal:
X:\Music\#Artists [A-Z]\D\Dire Straits\ALBUM\[1978] Dire Straits [2010 - Vertigo - UIGY-9032] [SHM-SACD]
On the desired file path there, "ALBUM" is not a constant? (that folder name is dependent on the <releasetype> tag value for that specific file)
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: Tybot on March 25, 2023, 02:01:04 AM
Quote from: The Incredible Boom Boom on March 23, 2023, 11:48:11 PM
If I was in your situation, I would take the time to use Picard to tag and then organize the files how I'd want. Organizing files then going back to tag them may lead to more work.

Every album in my library has already been tagged with Picard correctly (except those that weren't in their database which is why some albums don't have a Musicbrainz Album ID). Picard is now configured to organize albums in folders based on their releasetype (AlbumArtist\ReleaseType\Album) from here on out, but how do I handle the 3k+ albums I already have that are currently organized according to my old scheme (AlbumArtist\Album)?

If I could just apply my Picard file naming script to every album without matching them to their database then this problem would be resolved fairly quickly. It's the scanning and matching of all those 3k+ albums I'm trying to avoid if at all possible.

Quote from: Mayibongwe on March 24, 2023, 06:05:14 PM
For some reason, I can't get a clear understanding of your situation. Please clarify the following for me:

Quote from: Tybot on March 20, 2023, 01:42:19 AM
...and I'm thinking about using the releasetype tag to move them into Album/EP/Live/Anthology subfolders.

Goal:
X:\Music\#Artists [A-Z]\D\Dire Straits\ALBUM\[1978] Dire Straits [2010 - Vertigo - UIGY-9032] [SHM-SACD]
On the desired file path there, "ALBUM" is not a constant? (that folder name is dependent on the <releasetype> tag value for that specific file)

Apologies, I'm not very good at explaining.

What you wrote in parentheses is exactly right. The value of <releasetype> tag differs from album to album. So, for example:

"Revolver" by The Beatles would go in: The Beatles\Album\Revolver
"Help" by The Beatles would go in: The Beatles\Soundtrack\Help
"1+" by The Beatles would go in: The Beatles\Anthology\1+

Currently, these are all located in a single folder named "The Beatles". I'm looking to create new subfolders and then bump every album folder one branch deeper.

The tags to make this happen already exists but I need an application that can take tag information and then organize the files on a folder level. Picard's file naming script does exactly this and will do it the way I'd like from now on, but I already have a lot of albums in my music folder that are organized the old/wrong way,.
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: Mayibongwe on March 25, 2023, 08:26:54 AM
Absolutely no need to apologize. Thanks for clarifying.

Before you experiment with the following:
- preview the results
- work with a small number of files. Only apply this method to the whole library once you are satisfied with the try outs.

Steps:
1. Select the track you mentioned in your start post.
2. Go to Tools > Organise Files... > Filename Char Mapping...
3. Set the replacement character for the backslash (\) to the reverse solidus operator (⧵)
4. Tick or enable "to folder" and "naming template"
5. Set "to folder" to X:\Music\#Artists [A-Z]\
6. Set the "naming template" to $RxReplace(<Path>,".*⧵.*⧵.*⧵(.*)⧵(.*)⧵.*⧵","$1\$2")\<releasetype>\$RSplit(<Path>,⧵,2)\<Filename>

Preview the results and click Reorganise if the new file path showing up is what you want.

Edit: You might also want to check the "move remaining non-media files" box since you mentioned that you've got those typa files as well.
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: Tybot on March 26, 2023, 04:31:17 AM
Quote from: Mayibongwe on March 25, 2023, 08:26:54 AM
Absolutely no need to apologize. Thanks for clarifying.

Before you experiment with the following:
- preview the results
- work with a small number of files. Only apply this method to the whole library once you are satisfied with the try outs.

Steps:
1. Select the track you mentioned in your start post.
2. Go to Tools > Organise Files... > Filename Char Mapping...
3. Set the replacement character for the backslash (\) to the reverse solidus operator (⧵)
4. Tick or enable "to folder" and "naming template"
5. Set "to folder" to X:\Music\#Artists [A-Z]\
6. Set the "naming template" to $RxReplace(<Path>,".*⧵.*⧵.*⧵(.*)⧵(.*)⧵.*⧵","$1\$2")\<releasetype>\$RSplit(<Path>,⧵,2)\<Filename>

Preview the results and click Reorganise if the new file path showing up is what you want.

Edit: You might also want to check the "move remaining non-media files" box since you mentioned that you've got those typa files as well.

That seems to work perfectly in the majority of cases. Thanks a lot! :D I did some experimenting though and realized I used a bad example in my first post as some albums have sub folders if they consist of more than 1 CD. Is there anyway to modify the template to account for that?

Here's an example of what I'm looking at:
https://i.imgur.com/6zYUBcu.jpg
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: Mayibongwe on March 26, 2023, 02:10:28 PM
Have a go at this one:

Code
$Replace($RxReplace(<Path>,".*?⧵(.*?⧵.*?⧵){1,2}(.*)","$1"<Release Type>\"$2"\<Filename>),⧵,\)

Edit:
Please first filter your library to exclude tracks whose <Path> already contains the <Release Type> tag.
The above formula cannot (at its current state) differentiate between tracks that are correctly structured and those that are not.
Title: Re: Possible to move albums into subfolders without further re-organization?
Post by: Tybot on March 27, 2023, 12:21:47 AM
Quote from: Mayibongwe on March 26, 2023, 02:10:28 PM
Have a go at this one:

Code
$Replace($RxReplace(<Path>,".*?⧵(.*?⧵.*?⧵){1,2}(.*)","$1"<Release Type>\"$2"\<Filename>),⧵,\)

Edit:
Please first filter your library to exclude tracks whose <Path> already contains the <Release Type> tag.
The above formula cannot (at its current state) differentiate between tracks that are correctly structured and those that are not.

I've only previewed some examples so far without making any actual changes so your edit shouldn't be a concern as I'm planning to do the whole library in one go. It seems to work just fine now with multi-CD releases. Thank you very much once again. :D You've been a huge help!