This is my first post at the MP3Tag community forum, and I am a brand new user of the software. My situation is that I recently had to download my entire music collection off my iPod due to a total system crash (the iPod being the last remaining copy of these files, unfortunately). There are tens of thousands of tracks on my iPod, so doing anything manually or one-by-one is out of the question. Basically, I've managed to recover all the ID3 data from my tracks, so all the artists, albums, years, et al. are intact. In the process of moving everything off my iPod, everything ended up in one large directory. However, I like to organize my music collection into folders based on the following format: D:\ Music \ [Artist] \ [Year] - [Album]. This makes it easier for me to access my files from my explorer (I'm on Windows 11).
I downloaded MP3Tag because a Google search recommended it as a good tag editor to organize my files. I am running into a bit of a snag, however, with understanding how to actually move files automatically from one folder to another. I first used the Convert > Tag-Tag tool to move batches of files to a different directory. Under Tag-Tag, the Field was _DIRECTORY and the Format String was D:\ Music \ %artist% \ %year% - %album%. Doing this only succeeded in moving all files to the same folder (based on the first file in the list). I read a few topics about using the Action tool to change based on _DIRECTORY, and I tried creating an action to do the following: Format value "_DIRECTORY" D:\ Music \ %artist% \ %year% - %album%. When I check the box for this action in my Action Groups window and hit Apply, nothing happens--no files move and there is no message on the screen to indicate any change. I realize I am probably doing something wrong or missing a step, so if anyone would be able to walk me through the process step-by-step, I would be very appreciative for the help.
You can't use _DIRECTORY for that as it will always only move or rename the directory the songs are in. And if all songs are in one directory, that directory may be moved or renamed, but the individual files are not sorted into new directories like you want.
Instead use Convert → Tag - Filename for this and enter your absolute path pattern there. Be aware tho that this leaves for example .jpg, .log, .cue etc. files behind.
Another snag you might hit is that this might split compilation albums where each track has a different artist into many 1-song folders.
Try a string like this to get what you are looking for (based on your example above plus some additional suggestions): D:\Music\%albumartist%\%year% - %album%\$ifgreater(%totaldiscs%,1,$left(%discnumber%,2)-,)$num(%track%,2) %title%
You can also use the Action>Format Value with this same string.
Use the AlbumArtist field instead of Artist to help prevent this from happening. You may also want to reconsider including the Year field in the directory if you have used different year values within any single Album.
This could be a problem in some cases. But given this particular issue is restoring info from an iPod it is unlikely to have any impact. Those folders only contain music files that have been renamed. But fortunately the metadata remains intact.
I appreciate the assistance, everyone. I used the Convert > Tag - Filename function and moved all the files this way. There aren't many compilation albums on my iPod, and the ones that I do have are organized by artist name anyway rather than album (resulting in more than one instance of said album). I'm happy with the result, so thank you very much!
I'm sorry, you lost me. What would I select to put that string into? I have been using a program I recently found called Tags to Folders. I would like to do it within MP3Tag if possible.
Okay, my last post to this thread. I can't tell you how thankful I am. I had a DJ business with multiple backups. I am putting all the songs on my server, but am sorting by "artist/year album/artist - title" in A-Z folders. With your help, I am able to load all of the A artists and move them to the A folder without going through the hassle of looking into each folder to see if it has the album already in there. You have saved weeks of work. Thank you, Than you, Thank you.
