Topic: Is there a way to rename certain folders automatically? (Read 3485 times)

milehigh · « **on:** June 04, 2012, 11:16:12 am »

Hi,

In my music collection the directory is set up in the following manner:

Drive\Music Collection\Aritst\Album

The thing I want to collect is that some of my album folders are named with the artist - album (e.g. Drive\Music Collection\U2\U2 - Joshua Tree) and some of them are only listed by the album name (e.g. Drive\Music Collection\U2\Under A Blood Red Sky).

I would all the folders under the Artist to contain the Artist - Album naming scheme. I am hoping that this can be done automatically through JRiver - as I don't want to have to change these outside of the program and lose a lot of custom tags that are stored in the library. Plus my library is very big - It would take me days to go through each folder to determine which ones need to be renamed.

As for Various Artist albums - At this point I will just leave them alone as the majority of these are just the album name and that is fine with me.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you may have.

Scolex · « **Reply #1 on:** June 04, 2012, 11:28:00 am »

Yes it can be accomplished using the "rename, move & copy files" feature.
In the window select Rename (move files if directory changes) in the top drop down and then enter your rule in the "filename" section

milehigh · « **Reply #2 on:** June 04, 2012, 12:39:27 pm »

the rule is what I am not clear on. As I don't want to rename all the folders - just the ones that aren't in the format that I would like. It appears that this will rename them all and that isn't necessary (plus I don't want the date updated to change for all these folders as that will cause my backup program to recopy everything.

Scolex · « **Reply #3 on:** June 04, 2012, 01:10:35 pm »

It will only rename the files/folders that you select so renaming files that are already correct shouldn't be a concern.
As far as your backup program don't you want it to save the changes so you don't have to make them again should you have to restore from the backup.
Just for clarification is it folders or filenames you want to change and how do you want it formatted for example I use the below.
Drive \ Music Collection \ [Artist] \ [Album] \ [Track#] - [Name] (spaces added to make it easier to see)

You will want to go into options-->file location and update you naming scheme there also so future additions are named with the correct structure.

MrC · « **Reply #4 on:** June 04, 2012, 01:16:49 pm »

Caveat. It should be made clear that cover art and other non-imported files within the folders will not be moved/renamed with the Rename tool run against the library files.

milehigh · « **Reply #5 on:** June 04, 2012, 01:26:31 pm »

Thanks for your help. I see how the rename and move folders works - there are 2 issues that I am having - first would be an automatic way to figure out which ones do not meet the naming scheme that I want to use. And the other issue is that when it renames and moves the files to the new folder - it doesn't move any of the other files (folder.jpg, playlists, etc) that are in the folder. So now I would have to go back and move these files separately.

Scolex · « **Reply #6 on:** June 04, 2012, 01:32:47 pm »

For finding the ones that don't have the correct folder name you can create a smartlist with the following
[Media Type]=[Audio] -[Filename (path)]=" /- " this will catch all folders that don't contain *space*-*space*

MrC · « **Reply #7 on:** June 04, 2012, 01:33:39 pm »

We can help you accomplish this. First, are you *sure* you want this path structure?

Drive\Music Collection\Artist\Artist - Album\tracks

This can make your paths fairly long, and might cause issues when using long field name values in expressions with Rename (this area has changed a lot in MC17, and I don't know the exact current limitations).

milehigh · « **Reply #8 on:** June 05, 2012, 11:33:33 pm »

Well I am not sure but since 80% of my library is already in that format I would hate to go the other way - I do know what you are saying about length - as I have run into a few problems (mostly with VA artists albums that list artist and track in the title). I would consider just album name under artist if all the files in the folder were moved but since it doesn't appear that is the case then I probably will leave it as is - unless there is an easy way to do this (my library is pretty large > 500 gb). All the tags are correct so would hate to mess it all up just for this.

glynor · « **Reply #9 on:** June 05, 2012, 11:37:07 pm »

It is insanely easy to move all of your existing files out of their current structure into a new structure on the same disk.

Select the files in MC, right click: Library Tools > Rename, Move, and Copy files.

Be careful. Test it on a few before you do a whole big batch. But, if you set up your "rule" carefully, you can do the whole swath in one go.

My saved "music" profile looks like this:

Base Path: M:\ Directory: [Media Type]\Music\[Artist Letters]\[Artist]\[Album]\if(isempty([Disc #],1),,[Disc #]) Filename: [Track #] - [Name]

glynor · « **Reply #10 on:** June 05, 2012, 11:40:28 pm »

PS. It makes me crazy that I have to keep a separate (but otherwise identical) profile for Audiobooks since we don't have a [Media Sub Type]=Music value. But don't get me started.

MrC · « **Reply #11 on:** June 06, 2012, 12:03:37 am »

Does Media Type=Audio and Media Sub Type=<empty> mean Music, so that you can use these criteria to create a single switching rule?

glynor · « **Reply #12 on:** June 06, 2012, 12:07:44 am »

Quote from: MrC on June 06, 2012, 12:03:37 am

Does Media Type=Audio and Media Sub Type=<empty> mean Music, so that you can use these criteria to create a single switching rule?

Yeah, I know, but not always. I also have some files that fall under "Desktop" (sound clips for Windows) and "Ringtones". But asking for all of those Sub Types is going all crazy-town. I mean... Music and Audiobooks are the ones I mess with the most (the other stuff would be gravy).

It just seems crazy that we have Radio and Karaoke, but not, you know... Music.

But now we're way off topic and derailing poor milehigh's thread even further. Maybe I can bump one of the old "please, please, please" threads when I remember again.

PS Again. And, yes, I know I could craft a nifty solution based on another custom field that looks for a blank value in [Media Sub Type] and then refers to the secondary field if so, but that's troublesome and clunky.

Scolex · « **Reply #13 on:** June 06, 2012, 12:24:25 am »

Media Sub Type should be an editable field like Genre so we could create whatever sub types we want IMO.
I have thought about it and can not come up with a single logical reason for not being able to, I could be far sighted though due to bias.

milehigh · « **Reply #14 on:** June 06, 2012, 12:39:27 pm »

Thanks again for the suggestions - but it still doesn't solve the problem of moving the non mp3 files to the new folder. So I still get stuck with a folder that only has the folder.jpg in it.... Maybe an option box would be a good idea - Move all files in associated folders when renaming?

_noel_ · « **Reply #15 on:** October 22, 2012, 01:03:43 am »

Quote from: milehigh on June 06, 2012, 12:39:27 pm

Thanks again for the suggestions - but it still doesn't solve the problem of moving the non mp3 files to the new folder. So I still get stuck with a folder that only has the folder.jpg in it.... Maybe an option box would be a good idea - Move all files in associated folders when renaming?

I have the same problem: How to move all "non music" files (PDFs, additional cover images, ...) in an album folder during the "Library Tools > Rename, Move, and Copy files" task?

Is there any solution for this in MC ?

Regards
Eberhard

MrC · « **Reply #16 on:** October 22, 2012, 01:36:54 am »

The Rename tool operates on the selected files in a view. If some files are not visible in the view, Rename can't affect them. So, this means you need to create a custom view that shows all the file types, and also import all such files into MC.

Alternatively, you can use the Rename tool on files shown in a folder in Drives & Devices > Explorer, since the Explorer view shows everything.

_noel_ · « **Reply #17 on:** October 22, 2012, 01:53:41 am »

Quote from: MrC on October 22, 2012, 01:36:54 am

The Rename tool operates on the selected files in a view. If some files are not visible in the view, Rename can't affect them. So, this means you need to create a custom view that shows all the file types, and also import all such files into MC.

Alternatively, you can use the Rename tool on files shown in a folder in Drives & Devices > Explorer, since the Explorer view shows everything.

Thanks, the second part is new for me, I'll try it today in the evening

Z0001 · « **Reply #18 on:** October 24, 2012, 03:28:26 pm »

I have a rather complex expression (with ifempty) that works fine if I use the tag window, but if I use Rename, Move and Copy it populates with "Unknown[field]" if [field] is empty, whereas the expression moves to the next positive logical result when using the tagging window.

Has anyone seen this behavior? It means I can't bulk re-file.

MrC · « **Reply #19 on:** October 24, 2012, 03:37:50 pm »

See reply #6:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=75173.msg509438#msg509438

Share the expression if you need more help.

Z0001 · « **Reply #20 on:** October 24, 2012, 04:15:48 pm »

Thanks Mr C. It's not a file visibility thing. I tested it. I'll post the expression when I'm home.

Cheers

MrC · « **Reply #21 on:** October 24, 2012, 04:23:57 pm »

Ugh, complete brain damage response on my part. I gave you the wrong reply. See correction above.

You'll be adding ,0 to the fields to ensure raw mode, as shown in that example.

Z0001 · « **Reply #22 on:** October 24, 2012, 08:32:54 pm »

Thank you. I'll give it a whirl.

I'm moving big blu ray iso files across a network. Are there any known stability issues in letting a large batch run over night?
Cheers

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