[Enhancement] Ability to move files based on metadata

[SwedishGojira]

I have users uploading alot of files with incorrect or misspelled author names and I have to move and correct the file structure manually.
A function to move files to folder named after "author/title (year)" based on the metadata would be really great.

[JKamsker]

The upload feature could be improved by auto-suggesting author names, then your users could primarily use that feature.

[tomatosoupcan]

Seconding this, just in general the ability to recover from directory structure changes more easily would be appreciated. Spell something wrong and suddenly you're in for a world of hurt down the line.

[baloodusudouest]

Agree it will be nice!

[HStep20]

Definitely Agree. Small thing, but big QoL change.

Including Series on the path as well would be ideal. I've scraped all of my books, and had quite a few with series name disparity because I named the series folder as 'Stormlight Series, Mistborn Series, etc.' (for easier navigation), instead of just 'Stormlight, Mistborn, etc.'. Now my series names in the apps book metadata are different than the series name, meaning the next time a book comes out, dropping it directly into the 'old name' series folder will cause some frontend issues until It's matched.

Reorganizing by existing metadata like 'library_root_folder/Author/Series/Series# - Title/book_files' would be super useful. I can see running into issues with things like multiple authors, or multiple series as it stands.

[jeff47]

Ditto -- allow organizing of folders and renaming similar to what exists in *arr projects. I'd love to be able to have my files named in a way that makes tagging easier if something happens to my db. Eg,
{Author}/{Title} {ASIN}/{Author} - {TItle} - {Narrator} - {ASIN}.m4b
... or something!

[feerlessleadr]

Feels like the last 'big ticket' item for me that's missing and would allow me to ditch calibre completely.

[Badger1919]

Ditto -- allow organizing of folders and renaming similar to what exists in *arr projects. I'd love to be able to have my files named in a way that makes tagging easier if something happens to my db. Eg, {Author}/{Title} {ASIN}/{Author} - {TItle} - {Narrator} - {ASIN}.m4b ... or something!

I'd particularly like to see this feature for podcasts. Because podcast episodes are often named without any reference to the episode number, it's very difficult to use the files directly without going through audiobookshelf. Being able to rename the files on download (AND retroactively) so just from the filename you can tell the podcast and episode order would be a huge future in my mind.

[austinsr1]

Agreed!

A feature similar to Sonarr/Radarr for renaming and organizing directory structure would be amazing.
In Sonarr/Radarr, when you are in a view for a show, you have an option to rename the files and directory structure to match what they are expecting (c:\tv\Series Name\Season Number\Episodes).

An option similar to that would be a great addition to Audiobookshelf. I have been cleaning up the metadata and series names on my collection, but the ability to move it all into a proper directory structure afterward would be very useful. (c:\audiobooks\Author Name\Series Name\Book Name\Book.extension)

Thanks!

[allnamesaregoneallready]

oh yeah a holistic library management would be soooooo nice!!!

[portrman]

This has mostly already been implemented in pull request #1521

[Tanarion40]

Hello.
It would be great to have this functionality.

[clockwinder]

I'd particularly like to see this feature for podcasts. Because podcast episodes are often named without any reference to the episode number, it's very difficult to use the files directly without going through audiobookshelf. Being able to rename the files on download (AND retroactively) so just from the filename you can tell the podcast and episode order would be a huge future in my mind.

@Badger1919 This is absolutely my usecase! I'm loving ABS as a way to archive podcasts and insure I have access to them in the future. But what if I loose access to my ABS instance or move to another program, unordered files and a centralized database file no longer do me any good. I would love to see the ability to export chunks of the database (into something human readable), or prepend select info to the file name.

[austinsr1]

I'd particularly like to see this feature for podcasts. Because podcast episodes are often named without any reference to the episode number, it's very difficult to use the files directly without going through audiobookshelf. Being able to rename the files on download (AND retroactively) so just from the filename you can tell the podcast and episode order would be a huge future in my mind.

@Badger1919 This is absolutely my usecase! I'm loving ABS as a way to archive podcasts and insure I have access to them in the future. But what if I loose access to my ABS instance or move to another program, unordered files and a centralized database file no longer do me any good. I would love to see the ability to export chunks of the database (into something human readable), or prepend select info to the file name.

@clockwinder
You can enable "Store metadata with item" in the settings. That creates a file with the metadata from the database in it, along side your media. This is a utility I created to help organize the directory structure based on that metadata: https://github.com/austinsr1/ab_mover

[feerlessleadr]

@clockwinder You can enable "Store metadata with item" in the settings. That creates a file with the metadata from the database in it, along side your media. This is a utility I created to help organize the directory structure based on that metadata: https://github.com/austinsr1/ab_mover

This is awesome, thanks.

Will I lose book positions and listen status for moves to the underlying files?

[clockwinder]

@austinsr1 I do have that enabled, but I only see that it saves the series metadata not the per-episode metadata. Unless I'm missing something.

[austinsr1]

Things that were listed to were still marked as read. I haven't moved something I was listening to.

[feerlessleadr]

Things that were listed to were still marked as read. I haven't moved something I was listening to.

I'll do some testing and will report back

[austinsr1]

@austinsr1 I do have that enabled, but I only see that it saves the series metadata not the per-episode metadata. Unless I'm missing something.
@clockwinder
I don't listen to podcasts, so I assumed they were stored the same way as the other media, in " metadata.json". If the info isn't in there, it may handle podcasts differently internally.

[jeeftor]

I would love this feature... - I've been exposing my library to either MusicBrainz Picard and/or Readarr and using it to rewrite the lib - then scan it with audiobookshelf ... quite intensive. Considering the logic already seems to be there for the import I would think its not so hard to add.