Android and "Delete Tracks that aren't on the Auto-Sync .."

[qaelith_2112]

Hi,

I'm a registered "MM Gold" lifetime member who has been using it since 2.something with a variety of devices, and for the first time I'm stumped. Previously, I've used MM with various dedicated portable media players, where it could have total control over what goes onto the device. Now I find myself with a new Motorola Droid, running Android 2.0, which mounts as a standard USB mass storage device (UMS) and exposes its flash memory card to the PC. That 16GB card is where a music library is to go (under /Music), but along with that is a huge variety of other files and folders that are created and used by the numerous applications that are installed on the phone.

Here's what I'd like to have happen: MediaMonkey is my conduit for syncing music to the phone, meaning I would select what to include on the phone, and if I uncheck something, MM would delete that from the phone when I sync and add the stuff I've newly selected. Here's the rub, though. I only want it managing /Music, and I don't want it messing around with any of the other folders. To have it auto-delete what I unselect, I see that I need to use "Delete Tracks that aren't on the Auto-Sync list from the device" just as I have with all of my previous devices. There is an option entitled "Exclude Foders:" which as I understand it would leave alone those things that I list. Problem is, apps are constantly adding new folders and with the large number that are there now, I just can't keep adding all of the new folders to this list to keep MM from deleting contents. Some of these folders might even have media in them, such as mp3 and other filetypes that MM knows.

The ideal would be if I could tell MM what folders it should totally control (/Music) rather than what it should leave alone. Now, maybe that "Delete Tracks..." option only works within the folder in which MM is supposed to sync, but somehow I'm believing that MM will actually look at the entire device and not restrict itself to that folder. Am I right? Is there some way of doing what I want without having to do the practically impossible task of listing all of those other folders and possibly adding more every time I go to sync?

Thanks in advance.

Chris Jones

[JakesDroidDoes]

Chris,

I just tried this myself with the confirm deletion option checked and It asked me about several other media items that it wanted to delete (ringtones, and some stuff from google nav). These were in separate folders from my music.

It appears that he have the same problem/wishes. Anyone have more information on the subject?

-Jake

[CarlG]

Me Three on this one!!

I didn't tick the delete files not on device option specifically for this reason - I feared it would delete music files from outside of my /music folder. Hopefully the devs can add the ability to limit MM's sync to a specific folder on a removable drive.

Cheers, Carl.

[Necofurtim]

I have the Droid Eris and I've had to constantly change and update the folders to exclude on the auto-sync panel as well. Its really just a pain to do, but I can see this being a great feature for other people as well. Also I have no other real option for syncing music to the Eris phone other than WMP!! there is no official software for it at all(thats why I love it!), not that I use would ever use another program for my music again anyway.

Thanks

[Moosmi]

Hi, i have the same problem and it really is a pain to exclude all folders each time!

[saltrix]

I have this same problem, for now I suppose I can go and manually tell it every folder to exclude, but if i ever install any additional apps i will have to add those folders too. It would be very nice to limit the auto sync to one root folder on the device.

[alystair]

This affects other devices as well
+1000
How about just having an "include folder" instead, would make life much easier. Also the switch to this would be painless as by default it would be blank so nothing would be deleted until an include folder is added

[qaelith_2112]

An "include" setting would work for me. My thought had been something like a checkbox next to the field where the sync path is selected (i.e., \Music) that says "Manage ONLY this folder's contents". The "include" route would get the same result for me. I'm more or less indifferent to how it's done. I'm just hoping for SOME sort of solution because at the moment a full MediaMonkey managed synchronization isn't realistic for this phone. For now I'm just doing a one-way no-delete pseudo "sync" and manually deleting the things that I want to remove as I deselect them from my sync list. That's a pain, but less painful than constantly trying to get the excludes up to date.

[Phreaker47]

This is EXACTLY my issue, so thanks OP for saving me the time.

Moto Droid here as well. Yes, we have to keep adding "exclude" folders and yes the obvious solution is to simply identify the one "include" folder so it ignores all others.

For now, we can keep the "delete tracks that are not..." option enabled ALONG WITH the "confirm" option, so when new stuff pops up on the card we'll always be able to back out and add the folder or at least uncheck the items to keep.

[mzo]

The exclude dir system is not viable due to the complexity of the filesystem on an Android phone.
I think that MM by default should try to manage and delete files ONLY inside the specified synchronization root (i.e. \Music\ as configured in the device options) without trying to do anything outside of it. That would make the sync working perfectly.

[nohitter151]

The exclude dir system is not viable due to the complexity of the filesystem on an Android phone.
I think that MM by default should try to manage and delete files ONLY inside the specified synchronization root (i.e. \Music\ as configured in the device options) without trying to do anything outside of it. That would make the sync working perfectly.

It's already planned to be implemented for MM4.
http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=2615

[MaFt]

The exclude dir system is not viable due to the complexity of the filesystem on an Android phone.
I think that MM by default should try to manage and delete files ONLY inside the specified synchronization root (i.e. \Music\ as configured in the device options) without trying to do anything outside of it. That would make the sync working perfectly.

It's already planned to be implemented for MM4.
http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=2615

awesomeness

[qaelith_2112]

I've tracked this particular issue with great interest, as this makes it truly painful to manage a decent sized music collection on my Droid. I won't be alone in eagerly looking forward to even an alpha or beta or MM4. To be completely honest I was hoping this issue could be addressed in a 3.x.x release but I'm nonetheless grateful that it was on the radar at all and that it has already been resolved in an upcoming release.