Organizing Files and Folders

Moving Tracks Manually

Tracks can easily moved from one folder to another:

1. First select any group of Tracks in the Track list of the MediaMonkey Explorer.
2. Drag and Drop the selected songs into another folder contained within the Locations or My Computer node. Alternatively, right-click and use the Send-to Folder command.

All of the songs will be moved from their original location to the new location, and the Library will be updated.

Changing Filenames Manually

Tracks can easily be renamed by clicking the Filename or Path column for any Track in the Track list, and then changing the filename.

Alternatively, Tracks can be renamed from within the Info tab of the Properties dialog.

Auto-Organize Files

Tracks can also be automatically organized into a directory structure and filename format of your choice. This is done via the Auto-Organize Files function, which uses existing Track properties to move and rename files according to a specified format. For instance, you could organize all of your Tracks in the following format: C:/Music/<Artist>/<Album> - <Title>.xxx . To do this:

1. Select the Tracks that you wish to reorganize/rename, and click Tools > Auto-Organize Files.
2. Choose the Directory, directory format, and filename format to be used for the Tracks. For example to achieve the format of. C:/My Music/U2/The Joshua Tree/U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name.mp3:
   -Choose a specific destination directory of C:\My Music\ using the directory browser button on the right
   -Choose the subdirectories of '\<Artist>\<Album>\' to move Tracks to the \U2\The Joshua Tree\ path
   -Choose the filename of '<Artist> - <Title>' to rename the filename to U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name
   Yielding a Destination format of: 'C:\My Music\<Artist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title>'
   
   Advanced Masks:
   - To change the format within the existing directory, use '.\' (e.g. in the example above, '.\<Artist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title>' would re-organize selected Tracks within their current directories instead of moving them all to C:\My Music\
   - To force a particular text field to a specific length, use <Field:n> . e.g. for 'Abba', \<Artist:2>\ yields '\AB\' (if n > # characters in the Field then the field is padded with spaces; if n>0 then the string is right aligned, if n<0 then the string is left aligned)
   - To force a particular numeric field to a specific length, use <Field:n> e.g. for '2004', <Year:2> yields '04' ((if n > # digits in the Field then the field is padded with zeros; if n>0 then the string is right aligned, if n<0 then the string is left aligned)
   - To use masks conditionally, depending on whether or not a field is empty, use '$if(field isn't empty,use this,else use this)'. Make sure to precede all control characters such as [')', ',', ...] with '$'. Some examples:
   --- D:\My Music\$If(<Artist>,<Artist:1>,None)\<Artist>$If(<Album>, - <Album>\,)<Title>
   --- \$If(<Artist>,<Artist> - ,)$If(<Album>,<Album> - ,)$If(<Track#>,<Track#> ,)<Title>
   - To use masks conditionally depending on whether or not 2 fields or a field and a string are equal, use '=' . An example of how this can be useful is in the case of an Album Artist differing from the Artist in which case both should appear in the path:
   --- \<Album Artist> - <Album>\<Track#> $If(<Artist>=<Album Artist>,,<Artist> - )<Title>
   - Note that spaces automatically disappear in case they are in the begining or end of a filename regardless of the mask used.
   
3. A list will be generated showing the current directories/filenames and the new directories/filenames (changes are highlighted in yellow). If any of the new directories/filenames are incorrect, edit them as needed by clicking the path and editing it, or uncheck them.
4. Click Ok to commit the changes to all the checked Tracks.