Author Topic: Automatically sweep, original location deleted.  (Read 6504 times)

Acey

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"By default, MusicBee does not move files on your harddrive" that's a load of rubbish. I haven't fiddled with any settings, and after importing for music through MusicBee, 35 bloody albums are now empty! Instead, now I have the original folders that are empty and it's all been (terribly) organized by Artists in one MusicBee folder. So when I had album folders like "Now that's what I call.." or "Clubland.." I don't have the album tracks together.

 How do I undo this?!

Pingaware

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I'm going to warn you that Steven doesn't appreciate people telling him that his program is lying. MB really doesn't move files unless you tell it to, assuming you downloaded it from this website. It's possible that an uploader on another site messed with the default settings.

Another thing is that MB pretty much always deletes folders after it's moved files, so I find it highly unlikely that MB moved your files if they're still there.

Anyway, regardless of all that - how do you want your files organised? Are they all properly tagged? If they are, then you can right click on all the affected files and use the "Send To>Organised Folder" command. This gives you a template based on the file's tags that you can modify and you'll be able to move all your files in one go.

EDIT - Although, if you used "Automatically Sweep", that command does indeed move your files. You just want to import files in future.

EDIT EDIT - It sounds like your files probably aren't fully tagged. You're probably going to have to tag the Album Artist tag in all the affected files with "Various Artists" before using the Send To command (assuming the affected files are all multiple artist compilations).
Last Edit: July 20, 2014, 11:07:01 PM by Pingaware
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Acey

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You're going to warn me? Grow up, I'm simply asking for advise on whole to correct a problem I now have because of MB.
 I downloaded this program I was told it was worth getting, and after seeing videos on youtube of it being used it DID look great.
No, I did not tell it to do the thing I'm am having troubles with now.. I wouldn't want my original directory various artists albums tracks getting all sorted into different folders.


In My Music, I have a folder "Albums" in that, are 35-40 folders labled which album they are, MB has gone into them folders, removed them, and placed them into it's program (All the tracks are playable in MB, no damage there). The folders themselves are still there.. Just, yano.. empty.
I want them organized how they were, back to normal.. but be able to play them through MB as and when I choose too.

psychoadept

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How did you add them to MB?    Because the "automatically sweep" feature DOES move files, but it's not enabled out of the box.

To reorganize them, you can use Right Click > Send To > Folder (Move).  See this page for more info: http://musicbee.wikia.com/wiki/Template
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Acey

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Have just seen the "Right Click > Send To > Folder (Move)" which is sort of what I'm after, but I have over 1.5k songs, and not all have their album tag.. Is there any way MB remembers where it took what from?

Steven

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You're going to warn me? Grow up, I'm simply asking for advise on whole to correct a problem I now have because of MB.
lets get this straight for the benefit of other new users reading this - you have a problem because of something you did, not because of musicbee doing some random action by itself. There are no auto-organise or auto-tag settings enabled by default. MusicBee has been around for 4 years and i only recall once anyone making the claim that files were moved without their knowledge and then he retracted the claim.

Acey

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So basically, you're saying I made MB preform an action that I wouldn't want done in the slightest? For what reason, annoy myself? The plan was to have my tunes on My Music, and in the libary of MB, so I can play my music at gigs in a more simpler way, not all in MB
So, again.. I'm simply here for advice. The program seemed quite nifty and definitely worth having.. But if there is now way correct the issue I've now got then it probably isn't the program for me


phred

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So basically, you're saying I made MB preform an action that I wouldn't want done in the slightest? For what reason, annoy myself?
Steven is saying that unless you changed a setting, MB couldn't do what you're claiming it did.  You're a new user.  Isn't it possible that you changed a setting, or enacted a function, without fully understanding the consequences?

Quote
... then it probably isn't the program for me
This is probably the case. 

The members of this forum, along with the user-created Wiki, have provided tons of useful information and help to both long-term and brand new users.  Perhaps someone here will have a suggestion for fixing your problem. 
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

psychoadept

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Have just seen the "Right Click > Send To > Folder (Move)" which is sort of what I'm after, but I have over 1.5k songs, and not all have their album tag.. Is there any way MB remembers where it took what from?


MB will have no record of a previous location, but it can help you fill in the album tags.
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ma_t14

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Let's all calm down for a moment.

Everything should be very easy to fix but I will need some information first so bear with me.

First of all, unless you downloaded MusicBee from an unofficial source, by default there is absolutely no setting that moves or modifies your files without your knowledge. I've been using MusicBee and been on these forums for more than 4 years and I can guarantee you that this is the case. Now that we got that out of the way let's deal with your problem.

I will need you to provide screenshots for me to better understand what is going on before I can help you. Please provide screenshots of the following:

-Your library settings (edit>preferences>library)
-The folder containing the empty folders where files used be before they got moved
-The folder where your files reside now.

Last Edit: July 21, 2014, 05:05:35 PM by ma_t14


Pingaware

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You have "Auto-Organise Media Files" ticked. That's why the files have all moved.

Now trying to return your files to their original state. The first thing you have to do is untick "Auto-Organise Media Files". After this, identify all the files that have moved in your library.

For any that have their album tags correctly filled out, select the files, right-click on them and then click on "Send To>Folder (Move)>Move to Organised Folder" command. In the dialogue that pops up, you will have to replace the path given in the "To Folder" box, with the path of your Music/Albums folder. Easiest way to get that is probably pasting it from the Windows Explorer address bar. Then, in the "Naming Template" box, use the template <Album>\<Disc-Track#> <Title>. That should hopefully solve most of them.

For any without the album tags filled, it's going to be much more difficult to do. Anyone else got any ideas on how to cope with any files like that?
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ma_t14

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Expanding on what Pingaware said, yes the problem stemmed from the fact that you, probably inadvertently, enabled the "auto-organise media files" option. What that option does is, it automatically organizes your files based on a naming template defined in its settings, which is what happened in your case. I highly advice against enabling that option unless your whole library is correctly tagged, which yours is not, and you are 100% percent sure about what you are doing. So for now you need to disable that option.

From your screenshot of where the files were originally, it is evident to me that it will be virtually impossible to return the files in the exact same manner they were originally before being moved. The reason for this is, there was no coherent folder and naming structure that the folders/files followed. You probably placed them there unaltered from various sources, am I right?

The good news are, now you get the chance to actually structure your files in a far better way than it was before. This can be achieved very easily with tools already available within MusicBee but will require some work and time on your part depending on the size of your library. I can see that your library is not that big, from the screenshots your provided, so it's not going to take too long to get everything sorted once you get the hang of it.

Now let's get started. What you definitely want to do first is to make sure that everything is tagged correctly. This may or may not prove to be complicated depending on how badly tagged your tracks already are.

Here are some basic guidelines:

1. I recommend that you change the view to "Album and Tracks" as I find that it is visually the most coherent to get some tagging work done. To change to this view press the "Configure Layout" button which is located right next to the search bar.

2. Change the sorting to something sensible like Album Artist/Year (right-click on a column header to change it)

3. I suggest you select everything and drag and drop it to the "Inbox" node found in the left sidebar and only drag and drop back to the library anything that has been tagged correctly. This is basically the main use of the Inbox node, it provides a way to listen, edit, tag and organize files before they meet a certain standard and are allowed to enter your library. Note that moving files between Inbox/Library does NOT physically move the files, it all happens visually within MusicBee.

3. Right-clicking on an album art in the main view will select the whole album and you can also choose to "Auto-tag by Album" from the context menu. In the dialog that opens as long as you are able to input the correct album name and album artist you will almost definitely get a good result provided that the selection is an actual release. You can probably figure out the rest from there as the interface is kinda self explanatory.

4. For tracks that are missing tags entirely (or missing an album tag), you can either right-click>auto-tag by track and choose "identify track and update tags" which will try to retrieve tags based on a sound signature of the file but is hit or miss sometimes or you can more optimally use the "infer tags from filename" given that the filename is something sensible. In your case there will probably be many track whose filename might not make much sense since you have already changed it based on the tags.

5. Ignore retrieving album artwork for now, as it's better to perform it once your files are well organized depending on whether you choose to save the artwork inside the files or inside a folder.

6. You may probably need to use google for extreme cases where no correct tags can be retrieved and use your wits to figure it out

That's all for now, once you are done with tagging you can move on to organizing the files into folders. Just let me know when you are done and feel that everything is tagged correctly.

If you need any help feel free to ask here. I may even be able to help you remotely with a utility like Teamviewer if you hit a dead end, just drop me a PM.
Last Edit: July 22, 2014, 01:37:18 AM by ma_t14