MediaMonkey forum

I've got a library that I think is pretty much out of control and I'm trying to bring some order to the chaos. Over the last few years, I've bought music, legally downloaded, upgraded OS's, networked home computers, used multiple online music stores, bought different MP3 players, backed-up files, used different library managent programs and now, everything is scattered across drives and duplicated (many times in some instances.)

It's time to fix this, once and for all, but I'm not sure the best place/way to start.

My goal is to have a singular directory that my wife can also access on a shared network drive. I've located knowledgebase articles on how to properly change the default database location, as well as how to change MM to recognize multiple users.

Should I route the auto-organizer to this destination and then re-scan my drives for tracks not currently in the library? Vice-versa? I know I'm going to be in duplicate hades, but what is the best way to start this process? It seems pretty overwhelming so I'm trying to manage it bit by bit.

Any advice is appreciated!

Hi!
My library was totally out of control at the end of last year... so I understand how you feel. Here is how I did it:
All my tracks were on one HD, so it was a little bit easier for the first step...
1. I scanned the drive(s) to find all the files.
2. I checked all the songs which had missing artist and album, which luckily were in a folder with at least the artist name. I filled the information as accurately as I could but in a fast way.
3. I deleted the library, and rescanned with auto-sort. It moved all the files in folders according to artist name and album name.

That is when the real nitty-gritty work began.

4. Then I moved all the artists in alphabetical folders, changing the names if needed, to allow me to scan only a part of the library at a time. Like only artists beginning with A or S, and I put all the compilations in one separate folder. Made also a filing system by record label.
I also put all the tracks by format, mp3, aac, flac, ogg, ... in a different part of the library, dealing first with mp3s.

5. I deleted the library again, and scanned letter by letter, deleting it after each letter. I used the auto-tag from web for each album, filling the blanks and adding manually the album art if needed. - very useful to use the "clean Id3vxx tag" function. -I had also contradictory information there.

6. I checked in Mp3tag that all the tags were written in the same format, also removing comments and things I hadn't taken care of, and checking that I didn't have twice the album art embed in the tag.

7. I rescanned the whole thing many times, looking for unknown artist-unknown year and so on until it looked... extremely well organised.

I am REALLY happy I did it... it took me approx. 6 weeks doing it a little bit every evening, I really felt overwhelmed at the beginning... (20k files to process!).
Now I am using an auto-sync program which makes automatic updates of the modified tracks only on a second hard-drive. - could be useful if you are multi-users. It is also in case the first drive crashes! I couldn't imagine doing it again.

Well, I would be really interested in how other people would do it.

I wish you good luck!

That's fantastic and good advice. I too would be interested in how other people get their libraries under control and then keep them together.

Thanks for the advice!