2011-12-24

How to format your audio filenames

It has come to my attention that some of you may not properly format your audio filenames correctly. I don't want to say who does this, because that would be embarrassing to Marianne. Here is the correct format:
  Artist - Album - Track # - Track Title
Where "Artist is the name of the artist, "Album" is the album name, "Track #" is the track number, and "Track Title" is the title of the track. I probably did not need to explain that, but it's typed now, so deal with it.

And here is the reason that format is important. If a file is ever copied or moved to a folder that contains other files, this format keeps everything organized (assuming you sort folders by filename, which you should also do). I see a lot of filenames formatted as
  track_# track_title
(screw you, iTunes), and it's starting to bug me. Recently, someone who may or may not be my younger sister, moved a lot of tracks into one folder on our family's Dropbox music folder. There are 8 files that start with "01", each from a different artist. So if you want to play all the songs by Joan Baez, you have to hunt and control-click all over that folder.

If you have a large music collection, there are software tools that can rename files based on the tags already present in the music. Just do a Google search for "tagger" or "tagging" software, and pick one for your OS. I use "EasyTag" in Linux, and WinAmp in Windows. I don't have a Mac, so I have no recommendations for that OS.

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