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[rsg]

Never really paid any attention to 'Images' in MC (part of the tree on the left), so I was surprised to find a whole lot of miscellaneous stuff...images and booklets left over from various CD downloads etc. I thought, 'I should just delete the whole lot'. What if I do? Am I gonna lose something important? Doesn't really look like it. And, yes, I tried a few deletes and didn't lose anything critical.

So, the question is... what is the purpose of 'Images'? Can I just dump the lot? I mean one album needs just the one image, right?

[JimH]

It's for organizing and playing photos.

Edit your auto import settings so you're not importing the images you don't want.  Hover over an image to discover its location.

Delete has three choices.  Read carefully.

[HPBEME]

It is used for tagging/storing all your pictures: personal, professional or otherwise. You can use the album tag like you would a photo album - e.g., an album of your vacation, your son's graduation... whatever you desire.  Pictures are just another media type that MC can manage. MC can play your personal images as a slide show (slide display duration set by the user) while music is playing. Managing pictures is yet another great thing that MC does that few other music/media players are capable, and in just the last year JRiver has substantially grown those capabilities. The attached picture shows an example from my library... I have been collecting Bing's Picture of the Day for over decade now.

You can include your covers, booklets, etc, as "images" to manage, but I personally exclude those via auto-import folder rules. MC already manages music/movie/tv art independently so you don't need to double up by including them in Images (i.e., your personal pictures). 

That said, you can display your CD booklets or other miscellaneous pix while playing a song (assuming they are stored in the same folder/sub-folder as the music file) by right clicking on the playing track and choosing "View Extras" from the context menu.  I don't personally use "View Extras", but I am sure others that do can elaborate further.

[zybex]

You can disable/hide the whole node by going into Options > General > Features and uncheck the 'Image Support' feature. You can uncheck 'Data Support' to hide the 'Documents' node too.

[HPBEME]

Hah!  Great point Zybex (as usual ).

That said, now that the Tree Images purpose has been revealed, the OP might decide to use MC to manage their own photos.  Or just nuke it via your suggestion (which to be clear, does not actually delete any images)

[rsg]

Very interesting. Thanks! I love the way there are still new discoveries to be made about the awesome potential of MC even after years of use.

To sum up, then, in clearing up my drives (music files only), I can safely delete any covers, booklets etc. in 'Images' without losing the one essential: a single album cover for each album, which is stored elsewhere and which is all I need for cataloguing/playing music.

[HPBEME]

If "clearing up your drives" means deleting cover art/booklets that are duplicates (or not wanted) in other locations, then yes. I would just be very sure that the "official" cover art location is pointed at in MC's options/file locations is not deleted.

And in the event you're unaware, you can also store/embed album art in the music file's tag directly. So you do not actually have to "store" cover art anywhere. That said, I would not recommend doing that, as having separate, dedicated cover art .jpg files (i.e. not embedded as a track tag in the FLAC, MP3, etc. file) serves as a backup in the event you delete the music file itself with the embedded cover art.

[rsg]

Yes, I am deleting unwanted and/or duplicated album covers, booklets etc. I have deleted a whole bunch of them (basically they are just taking up disk space) from 'Images' with no loss of album covers in the library. In Tools > Options > File location cover art is stored in a folder, plus I have 'Also store image in the file's tag' checked. In Tools > Options > General > Features I have 'Image Support' checked, and this all seems to be working.

[JimH]

Being in Images doesn't mean they are taking up space.  It's a reference to your files on disk. 

The safest way to proceed would be to rename directories you don't want.  Delete them later.

[rsg]

Yes, I realize that they are only listed in MC while the files themselves reside on the hard drive. I am simply using the 'delete' feature in MC to delete them easily and efficiently from the drive and send them to the recycle bin. On the drive itself, they do not show up in their own separate folder but interspersed throughout the music collection.