Audiobooks with multiple Cds (folders)

[StefanDorschu]

I would like to merge an audiobook that consists of multiple folder (CD1, CD2 etc.).

I can not copy the files to one folder, because then the chapters are in the wrong order as the tracks are numbered from 1 to... in each folder.

When i try to merge the parent folder this audiobook is moved to the "fix"-folder.

Best regards,

Stefan

[seanap]

This is intended behavior / a known limitation. I'm not a programmer and it's hard for me to figure out how to script this correctly. I've spent a lot of time on it and the best I could do was move it into the fix folder. This is probably very simple to script but it's beyond my level. Here are the steps that need to happen:

• Need to prefix parent folder's name to file name (eg: "CD1 - Track 1.mp3")
• Move file up 1 level

I don't run across this too much anymore, and the few times I do I just use Bulk Rename Utility to quickly do those steps manually.

[Alistair1231]

let me show you what I do. :)
I use Advanced Renamer, which is a very powerful and free-to-use renaming software.

Here are the steps with screenshots:

Adding the files

First Drag and Drop the Folder that contains the CD subfolders into the App, there select "add the files" and check to "include subfolders"

You will be greeted by a list of all files like this, in this case it would suffice to simply remove the leading index, but I will go though a general approach that will always work as long as the subfolders are correctly sorted by name e.g. CD1, CD2, ... (this should probably always be the case)

Optionally remove the preexisting index

Next, optionally, remove the index at the start e.g. "01 - ", to do that create a new "Remove" rule

In this rule we specify that starting at index 1 we want to remove 5 characters, which will remove the number and the dash. If you do not always have a leading zero e.g. "1 - " and "10 - " you can use a "Remove Pattern" rule with this Regex: ^[\d]{1,2} - , be sure to check the regex box in the rule. The regex stands for "at the start of the name remove 1-2 number characters a space, a dash and another space" (here you can play around with it if this interests you: https://regex101.com/r/AwgacT/1)

But if you always have a leading zero and therefore always 5 characters, then using Regex is not necessary.

Add a new index that keeps counting between folders

Now we add a "Add" Rule and specify this content: <Inc Nr:1> - . This will create a counting index of all files that are currently in the list.

Result

After you added the Remove and Add rules, you should see this:

Now you can go into the folder and search for * in the Windows Explorer, here simply select all audio files and move them to the directory that contains the CD folders. After moving them, the CD folders should be empty and can be removed.

I hope I didn't overwhelm you with this. 😄