In MP3Tag i have albums with 2 or more CDs in the folder.
I know how to move 1 CD with its album cover.
However when I try to use that method on a multi cd album they all move to the same folder - even though they are numbered CD1, CD2 etc in the title AND the disc Number
How do I create an action to move all the album CDs with the album cover to separate folders
Please show us your current Action and a real example of your folder structure.
I keep all my music files on my K drive. My working drive is my C drive as I try to tidy things up before moving everything to my K drive.
I have been shown by Florian how to move a single cd across but recently I have been buying multi cd music such as the example below.
I use an action format for the destination Folder - K:\2024 Master
Using
Field _DIRECTORY
Format String K:\2024 Master\%albumartist%\%albumartist% - %album%
and
Field _FILENAME
Format String %discnumber%-%track% - %title% - %artist%
This works fine for a single CD but I managed to send 3 volumes of
ABBA Gold Anniversary Edition CD1
ABBA Gold Anniversary Edition CD2
ABBA Gold Anniversary Edition CD3
Which where all in C:\Users\User\Music\ABBA\ABBA Gold Anniversary Edition
to K:\2024 Master\ABBA\ABBA - ABBA Gold Anniversary Edition CD3\ which wasn't my intention which was
K:\2024 Master\ABBA\ABBA - ABBA Gold Anniversary Edition CD1
K:\2024 Master\ABBA\ABBA - ABBA Gold Anniversary Edition CD2
K:\2024 Master\ABBA\ABBA - ABBA Gold Anniversary Edition CD3
To show the backslash in the forum software you have to enclose the path in single quotes or mark the path and press CTRL-e.
As you have all your files of the album-set in one folder you cannot use the format value for _DIRECTORY. This action renames the directory and therefore cannot move files to different folders.
You have to use the format value action for _FILENAME. The disadvantage is that you cannot move the covers too, they stay in the source folder. You have to move the covers manually. How do you name the covers?
Format string for _Filename:
K:\2024 Master\%albumartist%\%albumartist% - %album% CD$num(%discnumber%,1)\$num(%discnumber%,1)-%track% - %title% - %artist%
The rule is:
If you have a higher or equal number of source folders than the intended target folder, you can rename _DIRECTORY.
If you have fewer source folders than target folders, then you have to treat the files individually and rename the _FILENAME.
The same happens in the Explorer, BTW.
If you want to put only some files from a source folder into a new one, you have to select each file individually.
All my covers appear to be - folder.jpg
I am having a grey moment here.
I tried using your Format string for _Filename in an action and then added the K:\2024 Master etc in the format string but nothing moved.
Its obviously me but I dont know what I have done wrong. Sorry
There was a missing "%" in my format string in front of discnumber an a wrong behind CD and before $num, which I corrected now. Sorry for the typos.
But that does not fully explain that your files did not get moved at all.
What type of action do you use? Correct would be the type "Format Value" for the field _FILENAME.
To test format strings it's always a good idea to use the converter with its preview.
Converter Tag->Filename
You would have to copy and move this folder.jpg from 1 folder to several folders. This is not possible with MP3Tag-actions.
There may be workarounds with separate steps as but this would not really help to make the task faster and easier.
.
I am not sure how this magic should happen:
you start off with a folder that has the files for 2 CDs - and 1 folder.jpg.
You then put the files of CD 1 into a new folder - how should the file folder.jpg get duplicated as probably the folder with CD 2 should also contain folder.jpg.
The easiest way would be: Make sure that all audio files have an embedded picture.
Move the files to the new location. And if you still need folder.jpg save the embedded picture to disc.
That Is indeed the answer. I've tried for a long time to get to a point where a single action suffices to sort all files to new directories while taking all extra files (and subfolders) with them.
What I do now is:
I first go through all source folders that I plan on editing, inspect each cover art (Cover.jpg) at 100% and replace it if it's not up to par.
While doing that, when I encounter 2+ CD folders I move all files that belong in both in both folders (Cover.jpg for example).
If there aren't already 2+ CD folders but the filenames show that the files are from 2+ CDs, I create 2+ temp folders (cd1, cd2 or whatever, the name is irrelevant) and move the tracks of CD 1 into the first one, the tracks of CD 2 into the second one etc. + all files that should end up in all folders into all of them.
That ensures that each input folder contains the files from 1 CD which will end up in 1 output folder.
Which in turn allows me to use the _DIRECTORY tag to move the files to the final destination without leaving anything behind.
I found that to be less hassle than going the other route which is creating the new folder structure on a per file basis.
Doing that leaves related subfolders (I usually put scans etc. in an "Artwork" subdirectory), .cue, .log and other files behind. As @ohrenkino already stated you could go the file route and embed whatever you can but I'm personally not a fan of embedding stuff.
After that's done I finish the tags in mp3tag and run 1 action that sorts the albums into a new folder structure that is to my liking.
If you don't like going through each folder manually you could also as a first step load all files in mp3-tag and filter for multi CD albums (discnumber, disctotal, totaldiscs or whatever). However that assumes that the input files are already tagged correctly.
Whatever you choose to do, good luck!
Brilliant - That worked. Thankyou very much for your help.
I do try to embed my folder.jpg, but I’m afraid my age takes over and I forget at times!
It’s only when I try to run.an app to delete empty folders that I see the ones that should have gone but are still there that I realise I have more work to do. 
Load the files
Filter the files with
%_covers% MISSING
(this shows the files without embedded cover)
Create an action (quick) of the type "Import cover from file"
Set as Format string: folder.jpg
Execute the action.
Refresh the filter by pressing F3 twice.
Now, no more files should appear in the file list.
You can now move the files anywhere you like without loosing the cover.