Create Playlist for each folder, any program for that? Options

[PlaStiK]

I have my music collection organised into folders for each album. What I would like to do is automatically create a playlist for each of these folders and have them all stored in a "Playlists" folder, to be read by my MP101 player. I will need to make a playlist file for each of about 250 folders/albums. Is there an easy way to do that? Or a hard way that comes with instructions?
Thank you in advance.

[nazgulord]

Hi,

First of all, get foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org). I suggest you get the special installer, as it contains the album list plugin and Columns UI we'll be needing.

Change the User Interface from Default User Interface to Columns UI (Foobar2000->Preferences->Display).

Enable the database (Foobar2000->Preferences->Database). Save the preferences, restart foobar2000, and tell it the folder your music is in. Hit scan, and wait for it to finish. Save the preferences, and restart foobar2000.

Seek out "album list" in the Foobar2000 preferences. Make sure that the "double-click action" is "send to new playlist". Save the preferences (no, you don't need to restart foobar2000 this time ). Go to Components->Album List. Make sure the viewing is by directory structure, and double-click on all the directory entries in the album list box (Come on, 250 double-clicks isn't much, right? ).

This will generate 250 playlists, with the titles of the playlists being the directories. Right-click on any one of the playlist tabs, choose "Save All Playlists", choose your format for the playlists and the output directory, and you should be good to go!

I hope this helps. Also, a word of advice: The guys here like it if you google around and search the forum before asking questions (I suppose they don't like having to repeat themselves ).

Good luck!

nazgulord.

[PlaStiK]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my question
I followed your instructions and it worked like a charm (I've done around 70 albums so far). I did a little variation of your instructions, since I already had foobar running with Columns UI and playlists panel view, so I drag-dropped album folders in the playlist panel and then saved all playlists like you suggested. You saved me a lot of time and needless clicking around

P.S
Trust me, I searched the board before posting, I've been a member here for years, but when your question is a bit more complicated than "lame settings", "best soundcard", "avoid clipping" etc. it's very hard to find the thread that answers your question...

Again, thank you very much and I wish a happy new year to all the nice people on this board!

[Synthetic Soul]

The following could be adapted to your needs. It seems you are happy using foobar, but just for (cross-)reference...

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=312768

This post has been edited by Synthetic Soul: Jan 2 2006, 14:14

[DARcode]

From: http://www.poikosoft.com/download.html
CreateM3U A simple tool to create an M3U playlist. Right-click a folder to create an M3U playlist from the files in the folder. Here's the source code, if you want to extend its functionality.

Anyway nazgulord's suggestion is way better.

This post has been edited by DARcode: Jan 2 2006, 14:33

[nazgulord]

Glad to be of help.

nazgulord.

[studavis]

have used CreateM3U for a while now, but i was wondering if there is a tool that could do this: Select a number of files in Explorer by shift clicking, then Right Click and select something like "Save Playlist" - that seems a lot easier and user friendly - anyone know if anything like this exists?

[jaybeee]

have used CreateM3U for a while now, but i was wondering if there is a tool that could do this: Select a number of files in Explorer by shift clicking, then Right Click and select something like "Save Playlist" - that seems a lot easier and user friendly - anyone know if anything like this exists?

Mp3Tag can do that.
Once installed, just point the directory location in Mp3Tag to the master directory (the top directory under which all your audio is stored) and then highlight the files you want to create a playlist for and then click the 'create playlist from selected files' button.

[studavis]

you can also do that in Tag&Rename and loads of other programs - what I am after is a fully Windows Explorer based solution...

[Skylined ;)~]

From: http://www.poikosoft.com/download.html
CreateM3U A simple tool to create an M3U playlist. Right-click a folder to create an M3U playlist from the files in the folder. Here's the source code, if you want to extend its functionality.

Does anyone have this program, I lost it after a hard disk crash, CreateM3U is the best! and the link is dead ;(

PS: using Google to look for it is useless, I remembered I got it from Easy CD-DA Extractor's website ages ago!

This post has been edited by Skylined ;)~: Sep 9 2009, 00:09

[Skylined ;)~]

From: http://www.poikosoft.com/download.html
CreateM3U A simple tool to create an M3U playlist. Right-click a folder to create an M3U playlist from the files in the folder. Here's the source code, if you want to extend its functionality.

Does anyone have this program, I lost it after a hard disk crash, CreateM3U is the best! and the link is dead ;(

PS: using Google to look for it is useless, I remembered I got it from Easy CD-DA Extractor's website ages ago!

OK no bother, I got it from the Internet Wayback Machine...

http://web.archive.org/web/20060101015618/...M3U_Install.exe

[crawler009]

Finally got THE SOLUTION
I was searching for so long for this question "Create Playlist for each folder", and all the
solutions are so tricky and dificult, sorry folks.

Here is a very simple solution, and it works great.

create a batch with following strings, eg "playlistgenerator.bat" and edit for your music & playlist directory. For simplicity, i use c:\music and C:\playlists

md C:\playlists
del C:\playlists\*.m3u
echo off
cls
echo Thanx to crawler009
pause
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "C:\Music" /ad /b ') do echo C:\Music\%%a>> C:\playlists\%%a.m3u

OR

md C:\playlists
del C:\playlists\*.m3u
echo off
cls
echo Thanx to crawler009
pause
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "c:\Music" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "c:\Music\%%a\*.wma" "c:\Music\%%a\*.mp3" >> C:\playlists\%%a.m3u


Only tested with winamp, working really fine.
Please comment.

This post has been edited by crawler009: Aug 19 2010, 06:31

[Brand]

There's also Mp3ListShellEx, which I've been using for a while: http://www.gasanov.net/Mp3ListShellEx.asp

I think you can only set it to one extension (like *.MP3) at a time, tho. Either that or it makes the playlist out of all the files in the folder (*.*).


So I'm also still searching for something that could scan my music folder and save playlists into the albums' folders, together with the songs. That, plus eventually create separate playlists and save them to a separate location (with the absolute song location info). It would have to know to only take the music files into account and it has to support unicode.


crawler009: Correct me if I'm wrong, but your solution saves playlists separately from the songs, right? Will files with non-english (ę,é,č) characters cause any problems?

This post has been edited by Brand: Aug 25 2010, 21:27

[crawler009]

@Brand

I´ve tried the MP3ListShellEx, but i had a big problem with that software.
Or i have to create each playlist separatly from context menu, what i dont wanna do,
or it create to many playlist with the option "process subfolders recursively and separate list for each folder",
cause my music is organized the following way:

Music -> Genre -> Artist -> Album -> Songs

I eigther want a playlist for every Genre, or for every Artist, but not for every Album, because that are to many playlists.

The batch-script there makes a playlist for every Genre, with all songs included in the subfolders.

Yes, you´re right, the generatet playlists are stored in the folder "C:\playlists". Tomorrow i have more time,
so i´ll edit the script, to store every playlist in the first subfolder (in my case Genre,
or if you have "Music -> Artist -> Album", it would be in the Artist folder).

I also will make a script that makes more playlists, with following name and content. "Genre.Artist.m3u", so i have a playlist for every Artist´s music.
In case of "Music -> Artist -> Album", it will make a playlist for every album, called "Artist.Album".

If you have any suggestions, fell free to coment, and ill se what i can do.

The playlists generated in the 2. Script only include .wma and .mp3 files. If you want another format, just tell me.

While you asking, i noticed that it has problems with non-english characters, i´ll see what i can do about it.

This post has been edited by crawler009: Sep 1 2010, 05:04

[Jalan]

I was searching for so long for this question "Create Playlist for each folder", and all the
solutions are so tricky and dificult, sorry folks.

Isn't this functionality built-in to Mp3tag? It's a simple syntax and path set up and one or two clicks from the file menu. Seems fairly untricky, IMO.

[crawler009]

I was searching for so long for this question "Create Playlist for each folder", and all the
solutions are so tricky and dificult, sorry folks.

Isn't this functionality built-in to Mp3tag? It's a simple syntax and path set up and one or two clicks from the file menu. Seems fairly untricky, IMO.

First, dont call imo, beacause i´m cursing nobody, ok?
I tried Mp3tag, and you have to select the folders, and i have a lot of music, so i dont wanna select it every time.
2. It cant make the playlists from subfolder 2d order of your main folder automatically, as far as i know. If i'm wrong, i would
like to be corrected.

Best regards

[crawler009]

I created some new batch sripts for you Guys. Just copy the script, and save it as "somename.bat" and edit the first 2 lines to your Musicfolder and Playlistfolder

The music folder format is following:

C:\Music\Artist\Album\song.mp3

Sript 1:


set Musifolder=E:\tempMusic
set Playlistfolder=E:\playlists2

md %Playlistfolder%
del %Playlistfolder%\*.m3u
echo off
rem cls
echo Thanx to crawler009
echo pause

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a.m3u
echo on


This one create a playlist for every Artist in the Playlistfolder, like

Jon Bon Jovi.m3u
Metallica.m3u
etc

Script 2:

set Musifolder=E:\tempMusic
set Playlistfolder=E:\playlists2

md %Playlistfolder%
del %Playlistfolder%\*.m3u
echo off
cls
echo Thanx to crawler009
echo pause

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do for /f "tokens=*" %%b in ('dir "%Musifolder%\%%a" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a-%%b.m3u

echo on


This one create a playlist for every Album in the Playlistfolder, like

Jon Bon Jovi-These days.m3u
Metallica-Reload.m3u
Metallica-The Black Album.m3u

Script 3:

set Musifolder=E:\tempMusic
set Playlistfolder=E:\playlists2

echo
echo WARNING!!!
echo Never set the Musicfolder and the Playlistfolder to the same directory, or it will erase your music
echo

md %Playlistfolder%
del %Playlistfolder%\*.m3u
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Playlistfolder%" /ad /b ') do rd /s /q %Playlistfolder%\%%a
echo off

echo Thanx to crawler009


for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do md %Playlistfolder%\%%a\
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do for /f "tokens=*" %%b in ('dir "%Musifolder%\%%a" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a\%%b.m3u

echo on


This one create a playlist for every Album in the Playlistfolder\Artist\, like

Jon Bon Jovi\These days.m3u
Metallica\Reload.m3u
Metallica\The Black Album.m3u

Be carefull not to set the Musicfolder and the Playlistfolder to the same directory, because in the start of the script, every subfolder of the "Playlistfolder" and its contents are erased.

Script 4: My favorite

set Musifolder=E:\tempMusic
set Playlistfolder=E:\playlists2

echo
echo WARNING!!!
echo Never set the Musicfolder and the Playlistfolder to the same directory, or it will erase your music
echo

md %Playlistfolder%
del %Playlistfolder%\*.m3u
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Playlistfolder%" /ad /b ') do rd /s /q %Playlistfolder%\%%a
echo off

echo Thanx to crawler009

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a.m3u
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do md %Playlistfolder%\%%a\
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do for /f "tokens=*" %%b in ('dir "%Musifolder%\%%a" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a\%%b.m3u


echo on


This one combines scripts 1 and 3.
Be carefull not to set the Musicfolder and the Playlistfolder to the same directory, because in the start of the script, every subfolder of the "Playlistfolder" and its contents are erased.
It creates a playlist for every Artist in the Playlistfolder and a playlist for every Album of every Artist in the Playlistfolder\Artist\, like


Jon Bon Jovi.m3u
Metallica.m3u
Jon Bon Jovi\These days.m3u
Metallica\Reload.m3u
Metallica\The Black Album.m3u

This post has been edited by crawler009: Sep 2 2010, 00:27

[crawler009]

@Brand:
How do want you playlists?
Music organized like C:\Music\Artist\song.mp3

One for every Artist, in the folder C:\Music\Artist would be


set Musifolder=E:\tempMusic

echo off
rem cls
echo Thanx to crawler009
echo pause

for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.mp3" >> %Musifolder%\%%a\%%a.m3u
echo on



One for every Album in the folder C:\Music\Artist\Album would be


set Musifolder=E:\tempMusic

echo off
cls
echo Thanx to crawler009
echo pause


for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do for /f "tokens=*" %%b in ('dir "%Musifolder%\%%a" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.mp3" >> %Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\%%b.m3u


echo on



For your question about unicode, i cant find a simple way that the batch deals with non-english characters, im too having my problem with that, cause i use some characters (äöüßáé etc) in my music too.
If you are using Winamp, there is a workaround that can help.

This post has been edited by crawler009: Sep 2 2010, 00:39

[crawler009]

I found a bug in the scripts 3 and 4. It didnt work with space separated names like "Heavy Metal" Sorry
Now it works.
Here are the fixed ones

Script 3:


set Musifolder=E:\tempMusic
set Playlistfolder=E:\playlists2

echo
echo WARNING!!!
echo Never set the Musicfolder and the Playlistfolder to the same directory, or it will erase your music
echo

md %Playlistfolder%
del %Playlistfolder%\*.m3u
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Playlistfolder%" /ad /b ') do rd /s /q "%Playlistfolder%\%%a"
echo off

echo Thanx to crawler009


for /f "tokens=*" %%c in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do md "%Playlistfolder%\%%c\"
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do for /f "tokens=*" %%b in ('dir "%Musifolder%\%%a" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a\%%b.m3u


echo on


Script 4:


set Musifolder=E:\tempMusic
set Playlistfolder=E:\playlists2

echo
echo WARNING!!!
echo Never set the Musicfolder and the Playlistfolder to the same directory, or it will erase your music
echo

md %Playlistfolder%
del %Playlistfolder%\*.m3u
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Playlistfolder%" /ad /b ') do rd /s /q "%Playlistfolder%\%%a"
echo off

echo Thanx to crawler009
for /f "tokens=*" %%c in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do md "%Playlistfolder%\%%c"
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a.m3u
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do for /f "tokens=*" %%b in ('dir "%Musifolder%\%%a" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a\%%b.m3u


echo on


This post has been edited by crawler009: Sep 2 2010, 05:06

[crawler009]

I maked a new version of the script 4, i like it even more.

Script 5:

set Musifolder=E:\Music
set Playlistfolder=E:\playlists

echo
echo WARNING!!!
echo Never set the Musicfolder and the Playlistfolder to the same directory, or it will erase your music
echo

md %Playlistfolder%
del %Playlistfolder%\*.m3u
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Playlistfolder%" /ad /b ') do rd /s /q "%Playlistfolder%\%%a"
echo off
pause

echo Thanx to crawler009
for /f "tokens=*" %%c in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do md "%Playlistfolder%\%%c"
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a\_all.m3u
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir "%Musifolder%" /ad /b ') do for /f "tokens=*" %%b in ('dir "%Musifolder%\%%a" /ad /b ') do dir /s /b "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.wma" "%Musifolder%\%%a\%%b\*.mp3" >> %Playlistfolder%\%%a\%%b.m3u


echo on


It combines scripts 1 and 3 also, with one modification.

Be carefull not to set the Musicfolder and the Playlistfolder to the same directory, because in the start of the script, every subfolder of the "Playlistfolder" and its contents are erased.

It creates a playlist for every Artist in the Playlistfolder\Artist with the name _all-artist.m3u (the "_" ist just to place the "all"-playlist on first place of the folder
and a playlist for every Album of every Artist in the Playlistfolder\Artist\, like


Jon Bon Jovi\_all-Jon Bon Jovi.m3u
Jon Bon Jovi\These days.m3u
Metallica\_all-Metallica.m3u
Metallica\Load.m3u
Metallica\Reload.m3u
Metallica\The Black Album.m3u

[Jalan]

First, dont call imo, beacause i´m cursing nobody, ok?

...what? Where did I say you were cursing anyone? You are aware that IMO is an acronym for In My Opinion, correct? I merely added that your version of "tricky" is not exactly in line with my own, that's all. If you reasoned otherwise then that's my fault for not clarifying as well as I should have.

I tried Mp3tag, and you have to select the folders, and i have a lot of music, so i dont wanna select it every time.

...and you don't need to select them individually/per album every time. A read through the help documentation will grant you this:

Playlist (all files)
This function creates a playlist of all files listed in the file view. The filename of the playlist can be a format string and is defined at Options > Playlist

Note:
If you press the Shift-key when running this command, Mp3tag creates a playlist for every different directory.

The same applies to the other option of creating a playlist through selected files as well.

2. It cant make the playlists from subfolder 2d order of your main folder automatically, as far as i know. If i'm wrong, i would
like to be corrected.

Best regards

I'm not sure I understand your phrasing here. If you're referring to a setup, as an example, such as:

Music\Artist\Album\files.ext

then it most certainly can create the .m3u file but I will add that I think it relies on a standard folder naming scheme, so if your own personal standard deviates from a stock %artist%\%album% scenario (for example, if you were to add codec/bitrate/etc. info into your folder names) then it may not work as intended. But I could be wrong there, as I'm not fully familiar with Mp3tag's scripting extent.

Edited to add: Actually, I'll correct myself in reference to the immediate above - it doesn't rely on a standard folder scheme, as it makes use of %directory%, so I'm not seeing where it couldn't place a .m3u file in specific directories, regardless of how deep they branch off from a main music directory itself.

This post has been edited by Jalan: Sep 2 2010, 20:40

[crawler009]

@Jalan
Sorry man, i did understand you wrong, sorry. I was a little bit tired, and i tought you called my emo


About creating a playlist of every direct subfolder i was wrong, it actually can do it. I just didnt read the help file, so my fault.

But finally i´m happy that i didnt use mp3tag, because i wouldnt have created the batch-sript, and it actually that what i was
searching for, for the playlists of subfolders, and grupping the albums playlists in the artist folder. I´ll add a third level when i
have time, because some Artist have another level, like

Artist\compilations\Albums\songs.mp3
Artist\singles\Albums\songs.mp3
Artist\studio\Albums\songs.mp3

I just hope that i can find a solution to the non-english character problem.


Best regards

This post has been edited by crawler009: Sep 3 2010, 00:59

[crawler009]

@all:

Found a easy solution to the unicode problem.

Insted of unicode, i use the extended ansi, and it works for me. Hope for you too.

In the first lines of the code insert a line with following text:

chcp 1252

Like


set Musifolder=E:\Music
set Playlistfolder=E:\playlists

chcp 1252

echo
echo WARNING!!!
...


It worked for me with the following folder name:
R°^^ªöóànßçãñ)=(&¨6

This post has been edited by crawler009: Sep 3 2010, 06:43

[Jalan]

@Jalan
Sorry man, i did understand you wrong, sorry. I was a little bit tired, and i tought you called my emo

No worries.

Also, I didn't mean to make it seem like the .bat file you've worked on is pointless in light of at least one program that is capable of accomplishing what the years old OP was looking for. If nothing else, it pays to know available options and should Mp3tag ever cease to be developed (and disappear from the internet entirely) and someone stumbles onto a thread like this they can likely use your .bat file for years to come.

Also, would the non-Latin characters need to use the .m3u8 designation of the M3U format?

This post has been edited by Jalan: Sep 3 2010, 06:39

[crawler009]

@Jalan
Sorry man, i did understand you wrong, sorry. I was a little bit tired, and i tought you called my emo

No worries.

Also, I didn't mean to make it seem like the .bat file you've worked on is pointless in light of at least one program that is capable of accomplishing what the years old OP was looking for. If nothing else, it pays to know available options and should Mp3tag ever cease to be developed (and disappear from the internet entirely) and someone stumbles onto a thread like this they can likely use your .bat file for years to come.

Also, would the non-Latin characters need to use the .m3u8 designation of the M3U format?

Thanx.

Yes, its true. For me it has been also some years from the last time i played with batch programming, but i didnt want to go into C for such a small program.
And finally it works like it should.


I thought it would be so, use the m3u8, but the ansi 1252 is doing a good job with m3u.

This post has been edited by crawler009: Sep 3 2010, 07:00