Moving various files between folders

[fletch]

Just now getting into organizing the mess I've created the past few years. I'm not moving ALL files from one drive/path to another, just going through the couple of dozen folders I have and moving some files into folders that make sense. Drag/drop does not work and I'm guessing moving them outside of Mezzmo looses the metadata? Seems like such basic functionality should be there considering the time one might put into the metadata.

All the previous threads I could find were just moving the entire collection into a different place - and there's a feature to handle that.

[Peter]

Hi,
Mezzmo uses the path to the file as the key in the database to store and lookup all the metadata so if the file path changes it is treated as a new file. Currently the only way to restore the link between the file and the metadata if the path changes is to use the database tools http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?id=updating_your_mezzmo_library_after_mov ing_media_files&s[]=move&s[]=files and to update the path in the database. You can use this on a single file to change d:\Videos\back.to.the.future.mp4 to d:\Videos\Back To The Future Trilogy\back.to.the.future.mp4 for example, this does a search and replace on the path.

[fletch]

Someone else in one of the many other move file threads I found mentioned "signatures". I'd vote for this in the future. MD5 or whatever makes the best sense. Then you could move files at will.

During database maintenance, Mezzmo could create a list of missing signatures as missing files are encountered - including their metadata. Then as new files are found, their signatures are computed and the list of missing signatures is queried for a match. Once found, the file that was moved can be matched with its prior signature and metadata.

For now, thanks for the explanation on database tools. It wasn't obvious to me that it was a search/replace. I might setup a test machine and experiment with it. So it essentially does a text search for Original path and replaces it with New path?

Meaning I could move all the videos in a folder like this...

Original path: d:\videos\back.to.the.future
New path: d:\Movies\Favs\Back-To-The-Future

You almost need a cautionary note when someone adds any folder to the library. Something like - Caution, make sure you organize your files/folders before adding them to Mezzmo. Once added, they cannot easily be re-organized.

[Peter]

We will investigate the best method for creating a signature from files in the library then include this in a future update so that all files in the library have their metadata indexed by signature as well as path so if a file is moved when any new file is added the signatures are queried to see if the file's signature exists and the metadata can be used.

If you move a lot of files with the same path you can do as you have shown in your example. It does work as a simple text search and replace for original and replacement path.