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[Marty3d]

A while ago Matt told us that MC could find files even though the folder they resided in was renamed or if they were moved to another location.

How does MC work here? I tried it with a couple of episodes of a TV show, but MC deleted all the info about them and re-imported them, with all tags gone.

The files were in "F:\Series\Day Break\" And I renamed the folder to "F:\Series\Day Break (on)\". No biggie, I thought.

Anyone know more?

[marko]

How does MC work here?

Not very well in my experience, which is pretty much what you describe above, and also why I use MC for every aspect of my media file management.
If you'd just changed the folder name from inside MC, your library would have remained intact.

When fix broken links (which is what we're talking about here) was first introduced, I tested it by simply changing a single character in my base image folder. All the tags were there, the filenames themselves were not changed at all, neither were their sizes.
MC "fixed" the broken links by removing and re-importing, which I guess is a fix, but was not what I was expecting, so I just use MC to manage that kind of thing.
I find it much simpler that way.

-marko.

[Marty3d]

That's what I suspected. IMO it would be a really nice feature if it worked, I think file management is much easier in explorer. But you can't have everything, can you?

[marko]

I think file management is much easier in explorer. But you can't have everything, can you?

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The files were in "F:\Series\Day Break\" And I renamed the folder to "F:\Series\Day Break (on)\". No biggie, I thought.

In MC, all you would have needed to do is edit the filename field. MC would then have created the new folder, moved the files into it, offered to remove any empty directory left behind, and kept the library updated, all in a fraction of the time it's taken me to type this.

I know it's a 'horses for courses' kind of thing, and we do tend to stick with workflows that we're comfortable with. How about, next time you have a file operation to do with explorer, before doing it, take a few seconds to think about how you could do the same job using MC. I'm willing to bet you're mildly surprised at just how accomplished it has become at this stuff, and at how quick and simple it is. If you keep doing that, it won't be long before you're wondering why you used explorer for those jobs for so long

or maybe not, who knows
I'm not knocking your workflow, more advocating a side of MC that's often shunned or mis-trusted. I've made mistakes with rename jobs in the past, especially when I first started, but they're easy fixed with MC because the library is always in touch with the files. I've never lost a file to MC. Ever.

-marko.

[Marty3d]

In MC, all you would have needed to do is edit the filename field. MC would then have created the new folder, moved the files into it, offered to remove any empty directory left behind, and kept the library updated, all in a fraction of the time it's taken me to type this.

Actually, not quite. When a folder conatins files that MC didn't import, they stay in the old folder. In this case, there are subtitle files. In other cases, with MC11, I failed because MC didn't think the cover arts stored in the folder belonged so the result was a mishmash of folders :/

Also when you have like a thousand music albums, in MC the tree becomes long and difficult to overview. But otherwise I absolutely agree on that if you manage your files within MC, and know your limitations, you can't fail