Author Topic: Natively Bulk export internal playlists  (Read 1980 times)

SonicRings

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I would like for there to be a way to natively bulk export/import all internal playlists from one install to another. For example, I want to import all the playlists on my desktop to my laptop. My laptop's library is a network share of my desktop's, so the libraries are identical. I would thus need to specify the new library path and that would be it.

I know you can automatically export a normal/auto playlist as a static playlist. That's not what I want. I don't want to do this one by one for hundreds of playlists, and I want to literally import the autoplaylist itself, as well as playlist mixers, complete with all their settings, to be used on another machine.

I've already done this manually via notepad++ by find+replacing the location of the library file and the path to the library in every file in the Library>(library name)>Playlists folder, and all works well on my laptop, but it would be nice to be able to do this natively.





For anyone wondering what exactly I did, I'll explain it below:

Navigate to your new copy of your Musicbee install (on your new machine), Library\[FLAC]\Playlists ([FLAC] is the name of my library)

Open an .xautopf file in notepad++, which is the format for auto playlists.

Go to Search > Find in Files

Select the directory of your new install of Musicbee (Library\[FLAC]\Playlists in my case)

Where it says "MusicLibraryPath" ("C:\Users\Master\PortableApps\MusicBee 3.3 Update4\Library\[FLAC]\">" in my case)
Find what: C:\Users\Master\PortableApps\MusicBee 3.3 Update4\Library\[FLAC]\
Replace with: change the path to that of your library
Click Replace in Files

Where it says "<SourcePath Location=" ("D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\ChilledCow Albums [FLAC]\" />" in my case)
Find what: D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\
Replace with: change the base path to how it looks over the network (in my case, I replaced "D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\" with "\\master\flac\"
Click Replace in Files
Last Edit: January 07, 2022, 09:53:09 AM by SonicRings

frankz

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I have the same playlists available on all my installs with no extra work needed.  My library and music files are both in network shares, and my musicbee install is portable and also opened from a network share on the central machine on each remote machine.  All file references in my library are network (i.e. \\DESKTOP\Music\ALBUMNAME\FILENAME.ext) references rather than local (i.e. C:\Music\ALBUMNAME\FILENAME.ext) references.

With some more information about your setup I can probably help you set it up properly, but I think you could have saved yourself a bunch of work by just using the file rempapping native in musicbee to change the references.
Last Edit: January 07, 2022, 01:02:18 PM by frankz

SonicRings

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I have the same playlists available on all my installs with no extra work needed.  My library and music files are both in network shares, and my musicbee install is portable and also opened from a network share on the central machine on each remote machine.  All file references in my library are network (i.e. \\DESKTOP\Music\ALBUMNAME\FILENAME.ext) references rather than local (i.e. C:\Music\ALBUMNAME\FILENAME.ext) references.

With some more information about your setup I can probably help you set it up properly, but I think you could have saved yourself a bunch of work by just using the file rempapping native in musicbee to change the references.

I've already given the paths to my library on my desktop (D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]) and network share (\\master\flac\) so I'm not sure what other information you'd like me to provide I'm afraid.

Can you explain how the file remapping works?

frankz

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To eliminate this step...
Navigate to your new copy of your Musicbee install (on your new machine), Library\[FLAC]\Playlists ([FLAC] is the name of my library)

Open an .xautopf file in notepad++, which is the format for auto playlists.

Go to Search > Find in Files

Select the directory of your new install of Musicbee (Library\[FLAC]\Playlists in my case)

Where it says "MusicLibraryPath" ("C:\Users\Master\PortableApps\MusicBee 3.3 Update4\Library\[FLAC]\">" in my case)
Find what: C:\Users\Master\PortableApps\MusicBee 3.3 Update4\Library\[FLAC]\
Replace with: change the path to that of your library
Click Replace in Files

...you could have just done "File->Library->Create New Library...or choose an existing library that no longer appears in the selection list" and then opened the library (*.mbl) from the network folder rather than the local folder

and to eliminate this step...
Where it says "<SourcePath Location=" ("D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\ChilledCow Albums [FLAC]\" />" in my case)
Find what: D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\
Replace with: change the base path to how it looks over the network (in my case, I replaced "D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\" with "\\master\flac\"
Click Replace in Files
...you could have done File->Library->Relink Music File Paths...
Map Music From: D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\
To: \\master\flac\

Then you open the library from the networked location on each machine ( "File->Library->Create New Library...or choose an existing library that no longer appears in the selection list") and everything is exactly the same.

If you have MB portable installed and in a shared folder, you can even open the MB executable from that location on each machine (not at the same time) and that way you only have to update one install when you want to change a font or a layout. You can't do that with the installer version because the cache files etc are in another folder under your user account.  

But with just the two steps above you will have the same library and playlists on discreet separate installs on your network.
Last Edit: January 08, 2022, 04:28:58 AM by frankz

SonicRings

  • Sr. Member
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  • Posts: 277
To eliminate this step...
Navigate to your new copy of your Musicbee install (on your new machine), Library\[FLAC]\Playlists ([FLAC] is the name of my library)

Open an .xautopf file in notepad++, which is the format for auto playlists.

Go to Search > Find in Files

Select the directory of your new install of Musicbee (Library\[FLAC]\Playlists in my case)

Where it says "MusicLibraryPath" ("C:\Users\Master\PortableApps\MusicBee 3.3 Update4\Library\[FLAC]\">" in my case)
Find what: C:\Users\Master\PortableApps\MusicBee 3.3 Update4\Library\[FLAC]\
Replace with: change the path to that of your library
Click Replace in Files

...you could have just done "File->Library->Create New Library...or choose an existing library that no longer appears in the selection list" and then opened the library (*.mbl) from the network folder rather than the local folder

and to eliminate this step...
Where it says "<SourcePath Location=" ("D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\ChilledCow Albums [FLAC]\" />" in my case)
Find what: D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\
Replace with: change the base path to how it looks over the network (in my case, I replaced "D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\" with "\\master\flac\"
Click Replace in Files
...you could have done File->Library->Relink Music File Paths...
Map Music From: D:\EVERYTHING\[FLAC]\
To: \\master\flac\

Then you open the library from the networked location on each machine ( "File->Library->Create New Library...or choose an existing library that no longer appears in the selection list") and everything is exactly the same.

If you have MB portable installed and in a shared folder, you can even open the MB executable from that location on each machine (not at the same time) and that way you only have to update one install when you want to change a font or a layout. You can't do that with the installer version because the cache files etc are in another folder under your user account. 

But with just the two steps above you will have the same library and playlists on discreet separate installs on your network.

Thanks a lot for the explanation!

I think I prefer having 2 separate instances of MusicBee so I wouldn't have to worry about making a change on one machine that I don't want to be done on the other, but running a networked shared portable instance does sound very interesting! Who knows, I might end up going that route after all. I appreciate the help!