Keeping Folders Organized (New User Question 3/3)

[Alonzo Mosley]

Hi, it's me. I'm the problem.

Just imported my library in from iTunes. Have three setup questions, but am splitting into separate threads.

One really neat feature of iTunes is, when I import new songs (either via the menu command, or just dragging and dropping), it automatically moves a copy of the songs into the appropriate Album folder in the appropriate Artist folder in the Library. (If said folders don't exist, it creates 'em). If you edit the tags in iTunes, it automatically makes the adjustment to the folder (e.g., if you change the album title, it moves it to the correct corresponding folder, creating as necessary).

How do I ensure MB behaves in the same way?

Thanks!

[hiccup]

Hi, it's me. I'm the problem.

Welcome to the hive Alonzo Mosley!
You have both made me smile and made the best introduction ever ;-)

I am considering that line to be my signature from now on ;-)

[Alonzo Mosley]

Did screenshot wrong. I really am the problem.

[tjinc]

Hi Alonzo Mosley,

For this you want to be looking at the library auto-organise function. (Edit Preferences>Library), It is much more powerful than iTunes and you need to set up your own required template to direct where you want your files saved and how you want them named:


You can see a preview of the new storage path before reorganising. Please be careful, all your files will be moved according to the rules you set. For unknown reasons some people seem to be very surprised (and somewhat upset) when this happens.

[Alonzo Mosley]

Thanks! Can I point it to the existing location? (I don't have enough HD space to duplicate everything, even just once).

I'm afraid to experiment until I see your answer on this...

I presume it will automatically move/copy newly-imported items to the appropriate place?

[Alonzo Mosley]

I'm guessing since it's renaming the files (hoo boy, looks like a potential Charlie Foxtrot), I would need to do this twice - the first time to remote storage, then delete the original iTunes library, then do it again to the internal hard drive. Hoo boy.



Hoo boy.

[frankz]

Why not just have it look at the folder where your iTunes library already sits, set up with a template that matches your current folder structure, and just have it move new stuff there rather than moving everything around?

Your music files can be anywhere (or even scattered in a number of places).  You don't need to move your files just because you changed to MB.

[tjinc]

I wholehearted agree with Frankz here - you don't need to do this, so unless you are absolutely certain you know what is going to happen (and that's what you want to happen) don't do it.
You can set this up later when you have a better understanding if you so wish.

[Alonzo Mosley]

Why not just have it look at the folder where your iTunes library already sits, set up with a template that matches your current folder structure, and just have it move new stuff there rather than moving everything around?

Your music files can be anywhere (or even scattered in a number of places).  You don't need to move your files just because you changed to MB.

Yeah, I don't WANT to move them. Post 5 was my own reply to my question on Post 4.

I haven't used any specific naming convention when adding music - iTunes only specifies file structure, not file protocols.

Really, all I care about:

• When I add new music to the "system", it creates a copy of the media files in the appropriate folder (i.e., Music\Album Artist\Album)
• If said folder doesn't exist, it creates it
• If I edit the file in MB (e.g., I change the album title), the underlying file structure magically corrects itself

Does that make sense? And is it do-able? (Again, I don't want to start messing if it's gonna start rewriting 21,000 files)

It doesn't seem terribly complex and needy, until I type it out...

Thanks for your patience.

[frankz]

I haven't used any specific naming convention when adding music - iTunes only specifies file structure, not file protocols.

I don't know what this means.

What I'm saying is that if iTunes has all your files in structure like <Album Artist>\<Album>\<Disc-Track#>-<Title>, then point your organization to your root folder and set your template to that and nothing (or very little) should be moved.

When I add new music to the "system", it creates a copy of the media files in the appropriate folder (i.e., Music\Album Artist\Album)

Do you really want copies, or do you want to move the files into place?  How many copies do your have of each music file right now?  There's no need for copies of files.

But yes, if you truly want duplicates of each file, MB can do this.

• If said folder doesn't exist, it creates it

Yes

• If I edit the file in MB (e.g., I change the album title), the underlying file structure magically corrects itself

Yes

You should read this. 
https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/File_Organization

You should read a lot of the wiki.  I think you'll have a clearer picture of what you want to do and how to get there afterwards.

[frankz]

Quick note on the file organization wiki - there's a note at the bottom of the auto-organize section that says automatically copying files isn't officially supported and gives instructions about adding it back in.  I think that's wrong as of these later versions - it's there in the interface and no additional work is required to use it.

I don't use auto organize because I'm a control freak, so I don't know enough to give good auto-organize advice beyond knowing the bare bones of how it works.

[Alonzo Mosley]

OMFG - I typed a really long explanatory (and grateful) reply. I hit "Post" and it deleted it because "another reply was posted". I've NEVER had that happen in BBS before! Argh!

Long story short - I name my files however I want, and let the tags do the heavy lifting on how they display (on my PC, on my players).

I couldn't find the info before posting my first question - so "RTFM" wouldn't have helped, if I don't know what I'm looking for or where to find it. Then, once I saw the "Be afraid, be very afraid" reply, I thought, well, I better confirm a few things with real-life users before trying it myself.

If I read the wiki correctly, it appears I can allow MB to use my existing filenames and manage the folder structure. I just don't want it rewriting a significant portion of 21,000 media files.

Thanks everyone for your advice.

[NPZwar]

Greetings... I add to this thread rather than open a new one because it is certainly a related "problem" (or better said "question"), and like Alonzo I do consider myself the problem. :-)

I have some 80,000-90,000 music files, all ALAC. Most of them from my own CD collection (including many albums not available digitally or for streaming, such as many specialty label film score releases), as well as a number of downloads, including thousands of high-res files (from Qobuz, Hyperion, etc.).

I still use iTunes to curate the collection, mostly because that is the program I started with years ago and I have found if I use the (few) tags available in iTunes to tag my (mostly classical music) collection, it will work in any other system I set up.

All my music is on an external hard drive, and from there, it is copied to my NAS from where my hifi-system is playing it.

I am now considering ditching iTunes (which doesn't get updated anymore anyway) and moving to MusicBee (which has far more options and I really like it, though it requires a bit of a learning curve).

All my music files are sorted according to iTunes:
Album Artist/Album Title/Title (wich is (disc-)track-number title)

iTunes has the strange issue of shortening file names of music to 40 characters or less. I don't know why, but that's the way it is. I am now worried that if I switch to MusicBee and use it to organize my files, it will re-name the files according to the longer actual track titles. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so many files, plus the backup copy, plus the NAS (so all the files would have to be re-named at least three times, which would take a lot of time).
It would be easier if there were a way to set MusicBee up to use the same (or almost the same) name convention for files as iTunes. But is that even possible? I know I can set up MusicBee to name files "<Album-Artist>\<Album>\<Disk-Track-Nr.> <Title>, which would be great in principle. But iTunes uses "disc" only for multi discs albums (otherwise just track number) and as I said, "title" is never more than 40 characters.
I suppose it may not be possible to achieve what I want, because even though MusicBee has more options than iTunes, the latter just has some strange idiosyncrasies which may be difficult to duplicate.

Regards
Nick

[hiccup]

…But is that even possible?…

Welcome to the forum NPZwar.

Yes, that can be achieved.

For restricting the length of the title you can use the $Left function.

For not showing disc numbers for albums that are not multi-discs albums, I would assume these albums would not have the disc# tag populated at all to begin with. (what would be the use?)
And if that tag is empty, it will obviously also not be used for renaming.

[frankz]

I am now worried that if I switch to MusicBee and use it to organize my files, it will re-name the files according to the longer actual track titles. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so many files, plus the backup copy, plus the NAS (so all the files would have to be re-named at least three times, which would take a lot of time).

Just on this point...you do not have to let musicbee reorganize your old files in order to have it organize any future files.



As long as you keep the setting in the green box off, it will not touch your old files (provided they're not in a folder set to monitor in the blue box).

To automatically organize your future files, you'd set your "holding" or "intake" folders (where you put new rips and downloads) in the blue box and then turn on the setting in the red box.

But you don't even have to do that.  I don't.  You can manually choose what to organize and when yourself by keeping the blue box empty and the setting in the red box off.