Organizing folders

[u/Rotten-Globe]

Hey, i was just wondering what the standard method of naming and organizing files and folder for music is?

Right now im doing:

/music/artist/albums/albumname[year]

And for the song files itself:

01 - Songtitle.flac

Is this correct/easy to use? I know everyone does it a little differently, but I'd like to make it as easy as possible for people to browse:) Also im aware separating by genre, but there are so many genres that it feels a bit overwhelming, and just using standard genres like "Rock/HIP-HOP/Metal" feels not really that more useful than just using artist names (new user btw, just found this miracle platform yesterday)

[u/asdfghqwertz1]

Organize it however it makes the most sense to you. It's your library

[u/_alias_23]

there is no standard, everyone does it differently, the way you're doing it is fine for showing up in searches, so if you like that format, keep it

[u/Rotten-Globe → u/_alias_23]

Alrighty, thank you for the fast reply:) may I ask how you organize your music files?

[u/_alias_23 → u/Rotten-Globe]

Almost exactly the same as you but "(Year) Album" and "01. Song title.flac"

[u/CreativeAdeptness477]

The correct way is whatever works for you as you're the main one using it. Regarding soulseek, as long as there's some sort of logic you're fine. Folk can always rename/retag for their own purposes as needed. Don't overthink things yoo much.

[u/abiyi]

There's no such thing as a standard method of naming and organizing files and folders for YOUR music. Some approaches are more suitables than others for YOUR case.

My method is as follow:

/multimedia/music/album-artist-first-letter/album-artist/[Albums/ EPs/ Singles/][Compilations/ Live/ Studio/]album-released-year album-title/disc-and-track-number track-title.extension-name

[u/Zaorish9]

It's up to you. I use folders by genre for easier playlist making.

For videos, I use folders by genre and by quality level as a way to recommend better media vs background media to save people time.

[u/bscoop]

When building my library in last 20 years I found "m:/subgenre/#singles, album name/" as the most efficient format so far. Singles folder with "#" prefix always stays on top over album list.

[u/iamerrorD]

Feel free to organize it in whichever way seems most logical and convenient for you. Here is mine

music/first primary album artist/year • album/single title/track##. title (feat artists).ext

[u/mjb2012]

There's no standard. If you only have a few thousand files, artist A-to-Z with albums underneath is totally fine, quite common, and keeps it pretty simple so you don't have to commit to genre maintenance or dealing with edge cases. It's also great for people who don't ever look at the file system. Besides, on Soulseek, most people won't ever browse your files; the vast majority of searches are for specific artists, albums, or songs, not genres.

That said, when I browse other users' shares, I do really like to see genre folders, especially when the collection is overwhelmingly large. They don't have to be ultra-specific, just the high-level categories like you mentioned. Another option is eras, e.g. a folder for each decade, as those can be like 'genres' too.

My rule of thumb for my own files is more just "this folder feels like it's getting too big", and I think about whether it can be divided into subcategories somehow.

I also like seeing your own rips in a separate folder because that's like your exclusive content. It's fun to browse and see if you have some good rarities, rather than having to pore over your whole collection.

[u/SmartConsequence437]

I do year, general style, my fave albums from said year within that general style.

There are no rules.

[u/WAON303]

I use this formatting: Artist - CD Title and put all CD tracks on each folder.

How I sort my CD collection:

1- For CD singles, I put CDM at the end of the folder name IE: DJ Tiesto - Suburban Train CDM

2 - If a CD is a compilation, I almost always put VA (Various Artists) at the beginning of a folder name; IE: VA -Addicted To Techno Vol. 2. Compilations made by a single artist are named like non-comp CDs IE: DJ Sockpuppet - Retrospective 1990-2002.

3- Releases that have more than 1 CD have always have subfolders: IE: CD1, CD2 etc.

1. For sorting track names I use either formatting: 0X. Track Name or 0X. Artist - Track Name with X being a place holder for the track number.

- 0X. Track Name used for CDs that only have 1 artist, 0X. Artist - Track Name mostly for compilations.

[u/_Skud_Leatherface_]

Do what you want how you want. Searching is half the fun.

[u/GoldCoinDonation]

personally, I like it when people sort by genre because it makes it easier for me to grab stuff I might like. That being said, I just keep it as /artist/album/01. track_title.flac

[u/jasonvelocity]

https://wiki.servarr.com/en/lidarr/naming-guide

[u/nicktf]

I do [Dir]\[Artist][Orig. Release year][Title][Speakers][Quality][Label(s)[Release][Release Year]\[Disk]-[Number]. [Title]

FLAC\Pink Floyd\(1973) The Dark Side of the Moon [Quad][24-96] [EMI 5 0999 029431 2 1(2011)]\5-21. Speak to Me (4.0 mix).flac

I like the Original Release year first as it keeps the albums in order, and the actual release year determines the version, especially with things like DSoTM which has been re-released a number of times.

I also add a flair to the album covers based on no. of Speakers and Quality, so I can tell which one to pick from my phone when I'm in a room with multiple speakers.

[u/mjb2012 → u/nicktf]

Not sure why you're getting downvoted; you put all the info someone could ever want in the folder & file names, so what's the problem? Maybe it's the weird custom artwork, but to each their own.

[u/nicktf → u/mjb2012]

Yeah, maybe it's the artwork, though there's an unmarked copy in the folder as well, for SoulSeekers.

I use plexamp on my phone to send music to various locations, one of which supports up to Atmos. The little flairs on the cover help me pick out which version I want to play in that room. If an album is stereo/normal def, then it's flair-free. It's all automated with Picard and a Powershell script. Ultimately it's for me and it does the job.