Importing Music to Media Monkey 5.

[garycameron]

I could use a little advice, My music is all over the place including on an external hard drive. I am working to get all my music neatly onto MM5. Music that is somewhere on my external hard drive shows up but will not play when the hard drive is removed. Is there an option to remove evrything from the hard drive and just import it into MM5.
I am running the free version of media monkey 5 for windows.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Peke]

Hi,
I am not sure I understand your question.

Did MM listed external drives as Sync devices (Listed under Devices and services and listed as enabled. If yes disable each one when connected) or as External drives with Drive letter (Folders node) and listed under Music -> Location?

It is normal that not connected devices are non playable and as soon as you connect them they become playable.

Is there an option to remove evrything from the hard drive and just import it into MM5.
I am running the free version of media monkey 5 for windows.

This confuses me is as I am not sure if you want tracks on external Drive to be in MM library or you want to use as sync device so that you have copy of tracks on them. Can you please give us bit more details on your regular usage?

[Lowlander]

You can use MediaMonkey to move the files. Auto-Organize Files is a good method: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHel ... enames/5.0

[Friedrich]

Auto-Organize Files is a good method: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHel ... enames/5.0

Surely the method of choice, if one wishes to get all files neatly organized in one place.
There is good reason for the warning though:

Use this with caution!
It permanently updates your media files and there is no undo!

Most important in my experience:
-Make sure there is enough space available at the target folder/directory
-First get all tags you wish to use in the template for auto-organizing tagged correctly. Like artist, album, track#, title, etc..
-Always check the preview for problems like duplicate filenames or too long filenames etc.
-if you want to be completely safe, choose "Copy files to new destination based on file tags" and remove the unwanted files afterwards if all went to your liking.

@garycameron
Do you already have an idea how you want to organize your music?
Do you have a certain folder structure in mind?

[Lowlander]

-if you want to be completely safe, choose "Copy files to new destination based on file tags" and remove the unwanted files afterwards if all went to your liking.

This will remove them from any Playlists they're associated with though. Always be careful with removing (original) files as they're lost from Playlists as well as their Play History is lost (neither may be a problem when you just started).

[garycameron]

WoW !!
Many thanks for all the kind replies and useful advice in response to my question.
I appreciate you all taking the time to helop a great deal.

To answer Frierdrich's question. I intend to store all my music on Media Monkey as neatly as I can and then sync a mobile device. Are there many benefits to paying for the program? It seems great as it is to be honest.

I shall attempt the Auto Organise method as instructed.

Thanks again.!!

[Lowlander]

Gold benefits are mentioned here: https://www.mediamonkey.com/windows#gold

And you'd be supporting future MediaMonkey development.

[Rob_S]

Interesting wording, above:

" I intend to store all my music on Media Monkey as neatly as I can .."

I have heard often enough similar misleading terminology about pictures - "I have all my photos in Picasa..."

Song tracks (such as .mp3 files) are stored on Harddrive, flashdrive, SSD, etc in folder or subfolders. This may be observed and managed using any file manager such as "Windows Explorer"

Many use a folder structure such as "...music/author/album/song title.mp3" There are multitudes of other ways to organize the storage.

Mediamonkey among other things mainly provides an interface to work with these media files, to find and index them (wherever you tell it to look) in various ways including playlists, to tag them with additional information, and to actually play them.

The device (hdd or ssd etc) that the song files are stored on must be connected to the computer which has mediamonkey installed for them to play, even though the index may show them even when the device is disconnected

Mediamonkey is the toolbox, it does not store the raw material.

[garycameron]

Hello again.
I attempted to use the auto-organize feature as you kindly suggested lowlander.

With no luck I am afraid to say.
I followed the steps in ther link you provided but as soon as the external hard drive is unplugged the music wont play.

Is this feature for paying users only?

It wasn't my intention to be misleading rob.
Also the terminology I used was understood by everyone who read it as I was provided with advice on the issue.

[Rob_S]

I believe the reason it did not work for you is that no one fully understood the distinction that you were expecting.

You need to auto-organize or copy all your music files (.mp3 or otherwise) onto a storage medium that you do NOT unplug or disconnect.

Mediamonkey only remembers the storage location, it does not in itself store the tracks.

[Lowlander]

In that case you probably didn't move the files to a local drive. Check the Path of the files and make sure the drive letter isn't from the external drive.

If it still is on the external drive you need to set which drive Tools > Auto-Organize Files needs to move the files to when using it.

[Peke]

Hello again.
I attempted to use the auto-organize feature as you kindly suggested lowlander.

With no luck I am afraid to say.
I followed the steps in the link you provided but as soon as the external hard drive is unplugged the music wont play.

Is this feature for paying users only?

It wasn't my intention to be misleading rob.
Also the terminology I used was understood by everyone who read it as I was provided with advice on the issue.

I replied in PM but here is the copy:

Unfortunately based on your description it looks like you have misunderstood the feature and there is nothing different in free or paid version of MediaMonkey.

Auto-organize is designed to MOVE tracks from one place to another and if you move tracks from internal Drive to external drive then files will be only on external drive and once you disconnect it you can't access or play them.

If you want to make copy of files to external drive so that you can move/use that drive on other PC then you setup that external drive as sync device not as external storage device and use MM to sync your library and later new tracks once drive is connected again.

If I misunderstood your question please be more specific on what you expect from MediaMonkey?

[yarguy]

Auto-organize is designed to MOVE tracks from one place to another and if you move tracks from internal Drive to external drive then files will be only on external drive and once you disconnect it you can't access or play them.

If you want to make copy of files to external drive so that you can move/use that drive on other PC then you setup that external drive as sync device not as external storage device and use MM to sync your library and later new tracks once drive is connected again.

Surely you have noticed that one of the two options with Auto-organize is COPY FILES TO NEW DESTINATION. You can use to do than move files.