# Prevent action group from running on file type and/or directory
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [January 25, 2024, 12:48pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553 "2024-01-25T12:48:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@girw1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/girw1)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 9:31pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/21 "2024-01-25T21:31:13Z")
in yor example, why would you need to filter for the beatles in the first place?
an action that writes love-titled songs in the songtype field would work on all files, wether they are from the beatles or not.
youd only filter for the beatles if you only want to have that information on your beatles files.
But: if you only want to apply that action to the beatles songs, later switch to say a iron maiden filter where you dont want to add the love song thing and, while applying a different action group, you have accidentially left the checkmark in and you now have applied "love song title" to all iron maiden songs even though you dont want it there.
If you could set the filter for beatles in the action group, you wouldnt have all the love titles in the iron maiden files now. or in any other artist. no matter if you run the action once on the beatles or if you run it daily on your entire music collection (voluntarily or accidentialy). it would only affect the beatles files where you want that info.
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 9:40pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/22 "2024-01-25T21:40:49Z")
> [@girw1](#):
>
> in yor example, why would you need to filter for the beatles in the first place?
Where did I suggest to filter for The Beatles in my example? This was the directory that was loaded in the first place. Regardless, you asked for an example and I spit one out to provide some scope.
> [@girw1](#):
>
> while applying a different action group, you have accidentially left the checkmark in and you now have applied "love song title" to all iron maiden songs even though you dont want it there.
This is up to the user to ensure they apply the correct actions. There are far more examples of this that anyone can encounter, and not just using mp3tag. If you don't intend to do something, then don't do it in the first place.
And now back to our current topic:
> [@girw1](#):
>
> I would like to request a much simpler way of preventing mp3tag to run an action group on a directory or on a file type: the ability to add one primary if statement to disable all actions within a group.
Simple solution - don't run an action group on a directory or on a file type that you don't want to action
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### Author:  [@girw1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/girw1)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 9:46pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/23 "2024-01-25T21:46:46Z")
> [@MotleyG](#):
>
> Simple solution - don't run an action group on a directory or on a file type that you don't want to action
i dont.
and in case i ever do, i have the $if$neql in there.
in every action.
and i just wanted to propose to not have to put that into every single action, but just once in the entire action group.
Why is that concept so hard to grasp for all of you?
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### Author:  [@girw1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/girw1)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 9:48pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/24 "2024-01-25T21:48:53Z")
> [@MotleyG](#):
>
> Where did I suggest to filter for The Beatles in my example?
ok sorry i missunderstood the example a bit.
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 9:53pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/25 "2024-01-25T21:53:20Z")
> [@girw1](#):
>
> Why is that concept so hard to grasp for all of you?
Not hard to grasp, but the option just doesn't exist as of today. But there is an alternative method that achieves the same result already available.
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### Author:  [@girw1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/girw1)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 9:55pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/26 "2024-01-25T21:55:59Z")
yes.
and that method is: just dont accidentialy do what you dont want to do.
and yes, the option doesnt exist. therefore i wrote a feature request/ idea. if the ootion was there i wouldnt have done that.
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### Author:  [@girw1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/girw1)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2024, 10:00pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/27 "2024-01-25T22:00:23Z")
i didnt know that
"Give feedback and discuss ideas on what you would like to see improved or added in Mp3tag."
meant
"only propose stuff that is already in the programm"
sorry
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2024, 2:06am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/28 "2024-01-26T02:06:21Z")
At no point was there any suggestion that your idea should or should not be implemented. That is up to the developer to decide.
The alternative solutions that were provided all work with what _is_ available in the program now to achieve what you had requested, just in a different way. As there often tends to be, there are many roads to get where you are going.
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### Author:  [@girw1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/girw1)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2024, 4:43pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/29 "2024-01-26T16:43:29Z")
> [@MotleyG](#):
>
> A simple example may be to look at The Beatles. They have plenty of albums, but perhaps you want to apply an action to FORMAT a user-defined value for a field called SONGTYPE with a value "Love-Titled Songs" for any of their songs with the word "Love" in the Title.
>
> 1. Filter for `%title% HAS Love` in the main window after loading your Beatles directory.
> 2. Apply the Action FORMAT VALUE for field SONGTYPE with "Love-Titled Songs"
I dont want to spam this thread with stupid questions, but after a day of thinking about this i still dont get it
Are you telling me that instead of writing an action that puts "love titled song" into the songtype field if the title field has the word love in it...
you write an action that puts "love titled song" into any songs songtype field and manually filter for songs that have love in the title everey single time before you run the action
???
WHY?
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### Author:  [@MotleyG](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/MotleyG)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2024, 6:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/30 "2024-01-26T18:57:07Z")
> [@girw1](#):
>
> Are you telling me that instead of writing an action that puts "love titled song" into the songtype field if the title field has the word love in it...
> you write an action that puts "love titled song" into any songs songtype field and manually filter for songs that have love in the title everey single time before you run the action???
> WHY?
Why to which part? There are going to be two steps involved no matter which way you do this.
The current working solution is to use a filter first to find _only_ the files from the current selected batch you want to edit (replaces the IF condition), then run the actions to these isolated files only.
What you have requested - but is currently not available in mp3tag - is to run actions that would combine these two steps, but needs at least one extra step within that includes additional IF conditions, on _all_ files in the current batch. This method counts on the IF condition to determine whether or not to apply the action to each individual file.
From an operational perspective, the working filter model can potential save considerable time when executing against a large list, as the filter first shortens the workload to only process the actions for files that are actually to be updated. With your suggested alternative _every_ file will need to be checked for the condition first during each execution of the actions.
Again, two possible ways to get to the desired end result. But as of now only one method is possible.
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### Author:  [@girw1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/girw1)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2024, 7:02pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/31 "2024-01-26T19:02:56Z")
> [@MotleyG](#):
>
> There are going to be two steps involved no matter which way you do this
for the human: no that isnt true. with the filters in the action group the human has to to only one thing: run the action
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### Author:  [@girw1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/girw1)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2024, 7:05pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/32 "2024-01-26T19:05:01Z")
> [@MotleyG](#):
>
> From an operational perspective, the working filter model can potential save considerable time when executing against a large list, as the filter first shortens the workload to only process the actions for files that are actually to be updated. With your suggested alternative _every_ file will need to be checked for the condition first during each execution of the actions.
well, from a computational pov it would be better to check the condition onceper action group, rather than checking the condition on every single action within the group as it has to do now.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2024, 7:06pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/prevent-action-group-from-running-on-file-type-and-or-directory/63553/33 "2024-01-26T19:06:20Z")
This is getting boring. Can we stop the discussion now, please. Everybody has made his point, I see nothing new has been added the last couple of posts.
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