Storing a database of listened but deleted albums in Musoc Bee

[Foliant]

Hi!
I listen to a lot of music, and some albums are listened to for reference, and then deleted from the hard drive. Years later, it happens that the album is downloaded again (due to the fact that you don’t remember everything, it is forgotten), listened to and deleted again. I would like to make it so that before downloading an album, you can enter the name of the artist and album into the Music Bee search (or in another way) and make it clear that this album has already been listened to (so as not to download in vain and waste time on listening).
It also happens that you download an entire discography, and you don’t like some albums, you delete them, and then 5 years later you forget, you download again, I think you haven’t listened to the album, and you delete it again, realizing that you didn’t like it.

Maybe there is some way for Music Bee to remember listened but already deleted albums?
Previously, I kept a list of deleted albums in a text file (it also contained albums that are located on other media). But over time, I became too lazy to write down album names in this file. It would be great if Music Bee saved the history of what you listened to but deleted.
Or maybe someone has another way of recording what they listened to?

[frankz]

Or maybe someone has another way of recording what they listened to?

Last.fm

[Foliant]

Or maybe someone has another way of recording what they listened to?

Last.fm

How will this help me? I meant the local method, without using third-party services other than Music Bee

[frankz]

How will this help me? I meant the local method, without using third-party services other than Music Bee

You asked if someone had another way of recording what they've listened to.  I am someone, and I responded with the way I record what I've listened to.

You had a local method, but said you were too lazy to use it.  

This will help you by providing an automated method.

You might also consider not deleting files you may want to listen to and evaluate again in the future.

Hope this helps.

[Foliant]

How will this help me? I meant the local method, without using third-party services other than Music Bee

You asked if someone had another way of recording what they've listened to.  I am someone, and I responded with the way I record what I've listened to.

You had a local method, but said you were too lazy to use it. 

This will help you by providing an automated method.

You might also consider not deleting files you may want to listen to and evaluate again in the future.

Hope this helps.

If I had an infinite number of HDDs, I wouldn’t delete them. At first, I rated albums that I didn’t really like with 3 stars, then I listened to them again after some time and realized that I wouldn’t listen to them anymore. Started deleting. Because new music is taking their place, and the space is getting smaller.
Probably the only thing left is to delete the files, leave the folder empty and use the search in the file manager.

[frankz]

There is also a MB history node that you can access from the navigator.  You may want to look into how that works and what it saves.  I've never used it and I can't tell from looking at it if it remembers deleted things. 

[MotleyG]

If I had an infinite number of HDDs, I wouldn’t delete them. At first, I rated albums that I didn’t really like with 3 stars, then I listened to them again after some time and realized that I wouldn’t listen to them anymore. Started deleting. Because new music is taking their place, and the space is getting smaller.
Probably the only thing left is to delete the files, leave the folder empty and use the search in the file manager.

How many albums are you talking about? Really large drives are relatively inexpensive today, even if you are using uncompressed higher resolution files. I would think that deleting entire albums isn't a common occurence for most, unless maybe replacing them with better rips from lossy to lossless versions. Like you suggested, it would be more valid to just rate them lower, like 1-star. This doesn't seem like a function that would warrant devleopment time in my opinion.

[vincent kars]

If you delete the album, Musicbee of course will forget it.
If you don't delete but use a rating like 1 or tag it as 'exclude from playback" it will occupy space.

If you use an editor like Audacity and remove the audio part or create a audio file with length zero, you still have the info but it won't consume much space.

[Foliant]

The ideal option would be if you could create a “Deleted” playlist, add albums there and delete them from the HDD. But unfortunately, after deletion they disappear from the playlist

[hiccup]

You could convert the albums that you don't want to listen to anymore (but still want to have in your library as a reference) to low quality OPUS files.
With a setting such as:
--bitrate 6 --speech --downmix-mono --cvbr --comp 0 --ignorelength - [outputfile]
a complete average album will then take up only some 2 megabytes.
Then ban them from playing and/or filter them out.

[Foliant]

You could convert the albums that you don't want to listen to anymore (but still want to have in your library as a reference) to low quality OPUS files.

Quite a good offer. But I didn’t find how to do this using MusicBee. This format is not in the list for conversion.

[hiccup]

OPUS encoding was removed from MusicBee a while back. (regrettably)
You now need to install it yourself. (e.g. look here)

B.t.w. I modified the OPUS encoding switches in my previous post a bit.
A 10-track album I tested this on now only takes up 1.4 MB ;-)

[Foliant]

You now need to install it yourself. (e.g. look here)

It’s strange, I already had the file opusenc.exe in the Codec folder, I replaced it with the one indicated in the topic, but OPUS did not appear in the list.

[Zak]

I don't think it should be MusicBee's responsibility to record details of tracks or albums that have been explicitly deleted.
That feels... wrong.

The ideal option would be if you could create a “Deleted” playlist, add albums there and delete them from the HDD. But unfortunately, after deletion they disappear from the playlist

You could do more or less the same thing with the Send to > Clipboard command.
Copy the tags you want to record for deleted albums (Artist, Album, Year etc.) and then paste them into a separate file.
An Excel/Google worksheet might be helpful because you could easily sort it by Artist name to make it easy to check against later.

[Foliant]

I don't think it should be MusicBee's responsibility to record details of tracks or albums that have been explicitly deleted.
That feels... wrong.

The ideal option would be if you could create a “Deleted” playlist, add albums there and delete them from the HDD. But unfortunately, after deletion they disappear from the playlist

You could do more or less the same thing with the Send to > Clipboard command.
Copy the tags you want to record for deleted albums (Artist, Album, Year etc.) and then paste them into a separate file.
An Excel/Google worksheet might be helpful because you could easily sort it by Artist name to make it easy to check against later.

This is good advice, thank you. Previously, I copied the name of the artist and album into a text file, and then, before downloading, I opened a search in this file. But then you had to search in the text file and also in MusicBee. This is 2 actions. I would like to make it simpler: so that you only need to check it in MusicBee once.