Media Management with Beets

Setting Up Beets for Organizing Your Music Library

Introduction

Beets is a flexible command-line music manager that allows for precise control over your music library. This guide will help you set up Beets to import and organize your music files with the configuration you provided, enabling automatic tagging, moving files, and managing duplicates.

Steps

Step 1: Install Beets

If you haven't installed Beets yet, follow these steps:

1. Install Beets via pip:

   pip install beets

   You can also refer to Beets documentation for platform-specific installation instructions.

2. Install Optional Plugins: Some features like fetching album art and managing duplicates require additional plugins. Install them by running:

   pip install beets[fetchart] beets[embedart] beets[duplicates]

Step 2: Create a Beets Configuration File

Here is the configuration that defines how your Beets instance will handle music imports:

directory: B:\Documents\Music\Beets\music
library: B:\Documents\Music\Beets\data\musiclibrary.db

import:
    move: yes
    copy: no
    write: yes
    autotag: yes
    resume: yes
    quiet: yes
    quiet_fallback: asis
    log: B:\Documents\Music\Beets\data\beets.log
    timid: no
    default_action: apply

paths:
    default: $artist/$album/$track - $title
    singleton: $artist/Non-Album/$title
    comp: Compilations/$album/$track $title
    albumtype:soundtrack: Soundtracks/$album/$track - $title

plugins: fromfilename fetchart embedart duplicates ftintitle

duplicates:
    duplicate_keys:
        album: albumartist album
        item: artist title
    duplicate_action: merge

ftintitle:
  auto: yes
  drop: no

1. Explanation:
   • directory: The root directory where your organized music files will be moved.
   • library: The path to the SQLite database where metadata for all tracks will be stored.
   • import:
     • move: Move files to the Beets directory, rather than copying them.
     • autotag: Automatically tag files during import.
     • quiet: Run without prompts for a smoother batch process.
   • paths: Defines the folder structure for organized music.
     • default: Organize files as $artist/$album/$track - $title.
     • singleton: Files without albums will go to $artist/Non-Album/$title.
   • plugins: Plugins for advanced functionality (fetching album art, managing duplicates).
   • duplicates: Controls how Beets handles duplicates, with keys based on album artist and title.

Step 3: Running Beets to Import Music

1. Run Beets Import: Use the following command to import your music library into Beets:

   beet -c "B:\Documents\Music\Beets\data\config.yaml" import "B:\Documents\Music\Artists"

   This will move the music files to the specified directory structure and apply the configuration settings from the config.yaml file.

2. Pause: Optionally, add pause at the end of your script to keep the command prompt window open after the process completes:

   beet -c "B:\Documents\Music\Beets\data\config.yaml" import "B:\Documents\Music\Artists"
   pause

Additional Considerations

1. Managing Duplicates: The duplicates plugin is configured to automatically merge duplicate files based on the artist and title. If you encounter duplicates, Beets will resolve them according to the specified rules.

2. Fetching and Embedding Album Art: The fetchart and embedart plugins automatically download and embed album art into your music files.

3. Logs: Check the beets.log file in the B:\Documents\Music\Beets\data\ folder for any issues or summaries of the import process.

Conclusion

Following these steps will allow you to efficiently organize and manage your music collection using Beets. Your music files will be tagged, moved to the correct directories, and automatically handled based on the configuration.

For more information on Beets and its plugins, refer to the official Beets documentation.