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Author Topic: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?  (Read 2167 times)

Osho

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reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« on: February 12, 2007, 01:51:42 pm »

Hi,

I have just finished painstakingly correcting/adding tags for all the music files in my library. Now, I want to organize the music on my hard drive in this format

Music\Genre\Album Artist (Auto)\Album

Currently all the files are under Music directory and other directories in not so organized fashion. If I want to do this, what is the best way to do it? I would also like if the cover Art etc. are moved together with the album (as I store the cover art in the same folder as the album). It would also be nice if MC12 would delete empty directories after this process :).

Any idea what would be the best way to do this?

thanks,
Osho
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glynor

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2007, 02:32:50 pm »

The tool is called "Rename Files From Properties" (under Library Tools).  Search this forum and read the help file for details.
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Osho

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2007, 02:50:49 pm »

The tool is called "Rename Files From Properties" (under Library Tools).  Search this forum and read the help file for details.

Thanks for the pointer glynor. This worked but did not move the cover art. I had to move the cover art myself and then delete the empty directories by hand. Any way to do either of this automatically?

thanks,
Osho
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dcwebman

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2007, 05:16:04 pm »

I believe if you had imported the cover art into MC as images, had a view scheme to view both the songs and the art together, and then done the rename, they would have all moved together. I haven't done it, but that's what I keep reading.
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Jeff

Osho

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2007, 10:15:02 pm »

I believe if you had imported the cover art into MC as images...

I have not imported the convert art into MC as images as I don't want covert art to display with my personal images. In this case, there is no way to do this?

thanks,
Osho
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Jaguu

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #5 on: February 13, 2007, 01:49:04 am »

Quote
I have not imported the convert art into MC as images as I don't want covert art to display with my personal images. In this case, there is no way to do this?

You can delete the cover art from the library again after the rename operation (just from the library, not from the disk).
A better solution is to include the cover art into the audio file. Then you do not have any cover art to move around at all.
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zirum

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2007, 02:21:17 am »

What's the maximum image size one can import into tag?

I guess if theres a limit, the import and extract would degrade the picture quality if the original picture is to larger than the tag limits?
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Alex B

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2007, 06:02:18 am »

I believe if you had imported the cover art into MC as images, had a view scheme to view both the songs and the art together, and then done the rename, they would have all moved together. I haven't done it, but that's what I keep reading.

Exactly. MC can fully maintain only files that available in the database. The external cover art links are just database field values in Image File field. These links are only called when cover art is needed. The image files itself are not part of the database.

When imported the cover art files become library files that can be managed with the usual MC tools.

If the image files were originally linked from the music file folders then the Image File field contains only the filename, not the complete path. This makes possible to move the audio and image files together without breaking the association.

I have not imported the convert art into MC as images as I don't want covert art to display with my personal images. In this case, there is no way to do this?

thanks, Osho

That should not be a problem for an MC user. You would just need to change the view schemes a bit. For example, tag the cover art pictures with a certain comment, genre or a custom tag and exclude files with this tag from your standard image view schemes.

Alternatively you can add location based inclusion and exclusion rules (I assume that you keep your music files and personal images in separate locations).

You can create a new "audio & cover art" view scheme for tagging and moving the audio files together with the cover art images. I have done this since I moved my cover art files from a single common folder to the audio file folders about three years ago.

Some time ago I posted the following links. If I recall correctly some of the links contain further information about importing the cover files to the database.

... I have posted a few cover art replies. I gathered some links that may be of help:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=22841.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=23268.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24016.msg167592#msg167592
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24047.msg167833#msg167833
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=24820.msg174333#msg174333
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=25165.msg175558#msg175558
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=25269.msg175732#msg175732
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=26058.msg180765#msg180765
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=28203.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29459.msg203230#msg203230
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29703.msg204660#msg204660
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29824.msg205388#msg205388
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29935.msg205979#msg205979
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=30692.msg211400#msg211400
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=32323.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=32482
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33002.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33887.0
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33953.msg231763#msg231763
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Alex B

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2007, 06:09:55 am »

What's the maximum image size one can import into tag?

I guess if theres a limit, the import and extract would degrade the picture quality if the original picture is to larger than the tag limits?

I don't think there is a size limit. MC does not resize the cover art files.
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Osho

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #9 on: February 13, 2007, 10:15:37 am »

A better solution is to include the cover art into the audio file. Then you do not have any cover art to move around at all.

Does FLAC support embedded cover art into the audio file? Most of my music selection is in FLAC.

Thanks for all the suggestions for importing the cover art as images etc. But all of that seems just so much work for such a simple operation.

thanks,
Osho
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glynor

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2007, 10:28:28 am »

Is there a particular reason why you want to keep the cover art files along-side the music files?

I have a M:\Images\Music Art\ folder that is designated as the location for my cover art in MC's options at Options --> File Location --> Track Images Location (and I keep Store Images in tags also) selected.  Then, I just let MC manage the cover art there and don't really have to worry about it...
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Osho

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #11 on: February 14, 2007, 02:49:18 am »

Is there a particular reason why you want to keep the cover art files along-side the music files?

Yes, I browse the music files from a network computer without using MC and it is good if they are organized in Genre\Album Artist(Auto)\Album structured with the Cover Art in the album directory.

thanks,
Osho
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NickM

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Re: reorganizing music files on disk - how to?
« Reply #12 on: February 14, 2007, 03:46:49 am »

I have followed Alex's painstaking advice on Workshop Audio views which include cover art, whilst Image schemes exclude the Folder.jpg - AND it works perfectly for renaming albums with cover art stored as Folder.jpg in the same directory.   It took a while to work through the many links, so I thought I would post some screen shots :-









Hope that helps.

I am SURE that there's a better file criteria for the last one, just can't work out a neat syntax (but this works for me!).  Something that excludes *.jpg except for Folder.jpg.  Using the camera criteria would fail if you used your camera to capture cover art...
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