I don't know if this question is relevant or if this is the right sub, but for those of u who still use physical music files, how do you organize your albums and playlists? (lemmy.world)

submitted 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) by Atomic_Edge@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[-] Wolf314159@startrek.website 1 points 9 hours ago

For normal albums: Artist/Year - Album [release ID if necessary for ambiguity for various versions of an album]/Disc-track - title.extension . Compilations (soundtracks, promo mixes from shows, etc.) get "Various Artist" as the album artist and sorted under "Various Artists" of the top level of my albums directory. Stuff from other sources would sometimes get their own special directory at the top level outside "albums".

Tags are everything, that's where the in-depth data is. album folders hold extra art, inserts, metadata, etc.

I don't really make manual playlists using relatively pathed m3u anymore because support is inconsistent across the apps I've used to listen to my library. These days Plex, jellyfin, ncmpcpp (tui front-end for mpd) all handle their own playlists. Those are mostly just spontaneous groupings or automated shuffles I don't really keep track of.

Back in the day I made mixtapes on actual cassettes, recorded from the radio, my CDs, and later tracks I found on Napster and soulseek. Later I moved on to making tons of playlists in foobar2000. Some of those playlists probably still litter my hard drive (now dead text because the files having long since been reorganized and moved). For the really good tight playlists I made of that era, I'd make physical mix CDs that I would master with sound forge. Had a few people that would trade these around. Make a mix, master, make many copies, distribute. Those CDs often died in cars and turned into coasters, so I'd keep the bin and cue files of the masters to make replacements. Those tracks would ultimately get turned back into mp3 or flac depending on quality and tagged with my own title, cover art, etc. and get filed away in the Various Artist folder. Then I got an mp3 player and it's been either full album listening or dynamic playlists for me ever since.

I still make yearly playlists in Spotify as I discover new stuff or rediscover old stuff, like a musical diary. Those playlists inspire library additions via the artist directly, Bandcamp flac files, or other means.

this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2026

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