MediaMonkey forum

Using "Remove from Computer," or "Auto-Organize" leaves artifacts in the old folder location.

I never use Windows Explorer to manipulate file or folders linked to my Media Monkey library. I've been re-organizing my media into separate folders using "Auto-Organize" on an album by album basis. I happened to look through the file structure of my music, and there are lots of folders with files in them, but no music.

How do I configure Media Monkey to move or delete all files in a folder, whether linked or not, when I select "Remove from Library and Computer," or use "Auto-Organize" to manipulate files?

Removing from library/computer only removes MM eligeable files (not .jpg, .doc., etc.).
When you move with auto-organize it should have a popup dialog that asks if you want to move other files.
Also, you must check the little box at the bottom left that mentions deleting empty folders.

What types of artifacts are you talking about and are you not getting the dialog popup for other files?

...to clarify, on "Remove" are you selecting remove "all" from Lib. and Computer

MMFrLife wrote:Removing from library/computer only removes MM eligeable files (not .jpg, .doc., etc.).
When you move with auto-organize it should have a popup dialog that asks if you want to move other files.
Also, you must check the little box at the bottom left that mentions deleting empty folders.

What types of artifacts are you talking about and are you not getting the dialog popup for other files?

• These are almost exclusively .jpg files.
• The popup dialog box always comes up and asks if I want to move other files, and I always click "Move" or hit "Enter."
• The box at the bottom is checked to delete empty folders.
• The "Move and rename files to new destination based on file tags" radio button is selected.
• When I compare files in both the old and new folder, some of the files are in both locations. For example; cover.jpg. A file compare shows the files as identical.

Some of the remaining folders were from media files deleted in Media Monkey. Makes sense that not all files in a folder would be deleted now that I reflect on it. That increases my workload in streamlining my folder structure, and that makes me sad. I expected it to work like other software that manipulates files, and I was wrong.

MMFrLife wrote:...to clarify, on "Remove" are you selecting remove "all" from Lib. and Computer

I Right-click on the files in question, then select "Delete form Library and Computer." I've never seen an "all" option. Is there another way to delete files?

If you remove from the tree's Location node there should be 3 options in the remove dialog, the third of which is remove all from library and computer.
When you bring the files up, before removal, what method are you using (search, tree, etc.)?
An easy way to bring the tree location up from the dialog list, after selecting, would be to use the toolbar button for find library location > then remove from the tree.

Inside a self-created collection which uses file locations for criteria. Most of the criteria are like; Path/Filename, doesn't contain, \music\good.

I use the "Show column Browser" view, and the three columns are; Genre, Album Artist, Album.

Try testing out the suggestion on my last post. I edited as you were in the middle of replying.

That works exactly as you describe. That will work great when I am deleting the contents of a single folder. I'll just have to remember to only delete one folder at a time.

Still doesn't explain why not all files are moved when using Auto-organize. It seems like I only have problems when I'm moving many files at once, because it won't do it when I'm sending form / to one folder at a time. Just tested with a Microsoft Publisher document, and it moved over just fine.

I'm looking at a folder that I followed the same procedure on a group of 100-odd files, and the old location for one of the groups has 6 .jpg files, and the new location only has 1.

Just realized for a lot of the folders like this, I changed the name of the album before auto-organizing.

I cycled through a list of about 20 albums, and fixed the tags on all of them using "Auto Tag From Web." Some of these changes included changing the album name. Once done, I selected "All albums" from the third column, sorted by Album name, selected all the albums I had finished, and then performed the "Auto-Organize."

If that procedure is the reason, that makes me very sad. It is a seeming correlation, however.

If you're willing to test,
1. Disable the column browser
2. Move some files in Auto-Organize scenario typical to the way you would do the move but without column browser, of course.
3. Report Success rate.

MMFrLife wrote:If you're willing to test,
1. Disable the column browser
2. Move some files in Auto-Organize scenario typical to the way you would do the move but without column browser, of course.
3. Report Success rate.

Disabling the column browser makes things quite inconvenient.

I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Also, does the location of where you store your music only have a single top level folder, like D:\Music\Artist\Album as opposed to
D:\Music1\Artist\Album
D:\Music2\Artist\Album

That was painful.

• Can't auto move back to the same location. Drive scan returns no errors. Security is no different from any of the other folders it can write to. "Everyone" has full access to the file structure and files.
• Moving files back with File explorer. Auto Organize works fine without Column Browser.
• Moving files with Column Browser again, no prompt to move extra files, but all files moved as expected. All Folders deleted automatically.
• New location, renamed Album back to original name. Auto-Organize prompted to move files, everything worked as expected. Including extra text file I added to the file structure.
• To address the post before I posted this, none of the file names in question violate the Windows limit for file names. In fact, the group in question is not my longest file name structure. Don't know for certain, but I bet "D:\Music\Processed\Original Canadian Cast Recording\Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1992 Canadian Cast)\Original Canadian Cast Recording - Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.log" was probably my longest file name that worked. But I haven't addressed the Classical music yet.

So the only difference, as I've been racking my brain, is that previously I had kept Media Monkey open for a long period of time. Before testing, Media Monkey had been restarted several times. That makes me a very sad Panda. The computer is set to never sleep when plugged in, and that is exactly how it behaved. No wait for the external drive to spin up, and no login requirement. In fact, the screen never blanked out (set to 20 minutes.)

My folder structure is currently as follows;
D:\Music\Broken\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Albums missing files)
D:\Music\Christmas\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Christmas music)
D:\Music\Classical\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Classical Music)
D:\Music\Comp\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Compilations)
D:\Music\Done\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Albums with no rated files)
D:\Music\Good\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Albums with at least 1 rated file)
D:\Music\Live\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Live albums)
D:\Music\Processed\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (The Old file structure which contained all files)
D:\Music\Singles\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Maxi Singles, and single tracks)
D:\Music\Temp\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title> (Incoming music)

All files were originally copied form "Processed." All official testing was done with the same folders. Additional testing was performed with different folders, but produced the same results.

"Processed" is the old file structure used to contain the entire 800GB+ of files, over 5,000 + folders. I'm trying to flatten that out. I'm down to just over 2,000 folders under "Processed."

*Edit to add that all file permissions were applied at the root of the drive, and then again at the root of Music. Auto Organizing to folders outside of the music structure behaved the same as other folders in current testing session.

NewtonBoy wrote:Auto Organize works fine without Column Browser.

So, no problems without column browser?
Do you have "D:\" by itself Monitored in Folder Monitoring "scan continuously" only?