Loving the program so far. Here’s the one thing on my wish list. I have a massive collection I’m trying to clean up. In order to do this, I need to load the whole thing at once. This takes over an hour to read in the tags from all the files. It would be great if there were the option to save the current session (data) so it could be easily reloaded at another time. Edits are saved as you go, so the data would stay current. The data could be exported to a file manually or before closing the program. This would save having to re-load every time.
In the meantime, I suggest splitting your "massive collection" into smaller parts.
For example, you could create four new directories named A–G, H–M, N–S and T–Z, and then move your existing data into them.
The main advantages are: Loading times will be reduced and you won't need a "session" anymore, as you can apply all your steps individually.
You could try whether the library function speeds up loading times. See the Options Ctrl-O > Library
Or check if a playlist from the currently loaded files reduces the number of files that you load in the next session.
This is something we have seen people say about collections with even just a few hundred files, or in excess of 100k+. It would help for perspective if you could share approximately how many you are actually working with.
Regardless, the library option is your best bet. My collection is now over 28k lossless files and takes under 10 seconds to open when I select the main folder for mp3tag to work on all.
Use the filter to reduce the number of active files to only action those that need to be changed.
Currently, it shows 160k+ in the corner. I copied them from the network drive to a local drive, but it only helped so much. I understand smaller parts. I’ve done many folders and groups of folders. But here’s the thing. The compilation albums is what causes most of the headaches. So many duplicates with slightly different names, wrong names, missing names or typos. They all count as different songs and artists when it’s the same one. The best way is to load the whole thing in order to sort by the different fields. This way the differences stand out. You could have a song with many variations on the title. Doing a folder at a time won’t show that as well.
While on the local drive, I’ll try the library thing and let you know.
Doesn’t seem to make any difference. It still has to load the tag data after reading the folder contents. And it goes about the same speed. Not sure I’m using it correctly since it doesn’t load like a regular folder. Usually when I start, I drag two folders to the shortcut icon and the program opens, loading the files.
File>Options>Library to enable the library. If you have a main music library folder you can define that as well, or even several if you have more locations than just one.
After this is enabled, the first time any file is loaded it will still take some time. But mp3tag will use that info and save the essentials into this new library file. When you open them again in the future it will be much faster*.
*NAS and other network locations will still be slower than local drives, but perhaps not as slow.
What do you mean by that?
In general: which other programs do you have that look at thousands of files and their data?
How long does it e.g. take your player to show modified tag data or discover new files?
As all files could be modified by other programs, MP3tag has to look at each file separately to see if it has been changed and if so, load all of the tag data again.
To put the library at its best use, do not limit it to certain folders but simply switch it on.
The initial loading with the library switched on will take just as much time as loading with the library off as the library has to be built up first. All further loading of old files be faster.
I got the library working after I made more room in my C drive. It did make a nice difference. However, it only works if you keep the computer on. I did a reboot to see what happens, and it went back to reloading everything slow. The whole point is to not have to leave the computer on 24/7. If I left the computer on, it wouldn’t be an issue. I shut it down when I’m not using it.
Whatever it stores in virtual memory while it’s working, it would be great to have it save it to a file it can easily reload instead of having to read every file again for the tags. It could be an option prompted at the end to save the current job for future editing.
And the point about having to read every file again to check for changes, in this case as I’m working on this project, this is the only program making changes to these files. So saving the data on exit would be current when reloaded later.
Just for reference, I timed the loading. It took 1:23:06 to load 159k+ files fresh. I closed and reopened MP3tag. It took 51 sec to read the folders and another 1:12 for read the tag info, for a total of 2:03 Big difference.