folder and file organization on computer

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ChipAHoy

I am on a Macbook. I went crazy with ebooks and now have about 50. Using apps like Calibre, Kindle for Mac, Kobo reader, etc. I have ebook files all over the place. Does anyone have their ebook organization on their computer set-up in a consistent and well-structured manner? I would like to try to organize all of mine and get ride of the many duplicate and unnecessary files.

I'm going to have to repeat the advice about using Calibre. I didn't switch to using Calibre until I had around 800 ebooks and realized that I needed a tool to let me search by more than the title/author or depending on my memory. I no longer worry about the ebook organization on my computer -- they live in several Calibre libraries (fiction, computer, food and temp) and Calibre worries about the directory structure. I'm now somewhere in the 4000+ ebook range and the only issue I had recently was my cookbook collection causing issues on my Kobo Aura One -- 8Gb sounds like a lot until you start storing ebooks that average 140MB each which is when I split out my Calibre library into 4 libraries (temp is where ebooks I am editing are stored, the rest are pretty self-explanatory).

As usual when you have a single point of failure, backups become critical.

As for those who find your number of ebooks humourous, we all started with small collections not realizing that ebooks grow faster than kudzu. Ignore the impolite.

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” Robert A. Heinlein Friday

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by william z

I have no idea why organizing ebooks should be a problem. It is simple to put files in a folder and then in sub-folders. I have thousands of books in a file called "EBOOKS", in it are sub folders with books arranged by author or genre. It takes up 4.35 GB, which may sound like a lot but since my computer has 1TB of storage and two external hard drives with another 1.5 TB it is not much. Even so, if you don't have room on your hard drive you can buy a memory card for a few dollars and put your books on there.

You say by author or genre. What do you do with authors who cross genres? or a book that crosses genres? or books with multiple authors?

I have to wonder, have you ever tried Calibre?

The ability to add tags, download metadata from various sources and have the links in the book details. If you have collected free or nearly free books you probably have some authors whose work you are not familiar with. Think how easy it is to go into Calibre and browse your collection by the tags you have added, by the ratings from the sites you chose for metadata, or by series.

I admit that like many I was stuck on the file structure thing but now I much prefer working within Calibre's structure. I still save my books to a directory to put on my sd card in an author/series based structure. That's just the way I like to find things on my tablet and it is so easy to do this using Calibre's save to disk feature.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

You say by author or genre. What do you do with authors who cross genres? or a book that crosses genres? or books with multiple authors?

Easy, I pick the genre I most likely read of that author unless they have a solid demarcation. Heather Graham writes 4 different categories, but I put all of her books under mystery since that is where I look first since I don't get her romance novels. Piers Anthony is split between Fantasy and Science Fiction because he doesn't have any hazy corners - it is either Fantasy or it is Science Fiction and he writes a lot in both. Books with multiple authors usually go with whoever edited it OR into Anthologies. For instance Thieves World is filed under Robert Asprin. A book of short stories all featuring horror goes into Anthologies primarily because they are short stories (other family members don't actually like short stories and aren't likely to read anyway). You could also set up Anthologies inside of your genre folder.

I use the folder system a LOT for audiobooks as there simply isn't an equivalent of Calibre for them. Sure, you could create a file with empty books and add the metadata, but you still have to store those audiobooks somewhere.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I use the folder system a LOT for audiobooks as there simply isn't an equivalent of Calibre for them.

Are these files un-DRM-ed, and in a normal audio format such as MP3, of WMA?

In that case, there are like two million programs that do for audio files what calibre does for ebooks.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Are these files un-DRM-ed, and in a normal audio format such as MP3, of WMA?

In that case, there are like two million programs that do for audio files what calibre does for ebooks.

Which one of the two million would you recommend?

[Apache]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Which one of the two million would you recommend?

Apache

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Which one of the two million would you recommend?

If you're technically inclined: Foobar. Does everything.
If you want a simple program: MediaMonkey (not free).
If you're a masochist: Groove Music or Windows Media Player.

For editing tags: MP3Tag (also edits FLAC and some other formats)
If you need some very specialized functions: Tag&Rename (not free)
For ripping: Exact Audio Copy (EAC), CDex, CueTools (which is what I use)

More options

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

If you're technically inclined: Foobar. Does everything.
If you want a simple program: MediaMonkey (not free).
If you're a masochist: Groove Music or Windows Media Player.

For editing tags: MP3Tag (also edits FLAC and some other formats)
If you need some very specialized functions: Tag&Rename (not free)
For ripping: Exact Audio Copy (EAC), CDex, CueTools (which is what I use)

More options

Thanks - I'll certainly bear those recommendations in mind. At the moment, I manage all my music in iTunes (because I listen to it on my iPhone) but I'm seriously thinking about buying a higher-quality portable music player.

[william z]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

You say by author or genre. What do you do with authors who cross genres? or a book that crosses genres? or books with multiple authors?

I have to wonder, have you ever tried Calibre?

The ability to add tags, download metadata from various sources and have the links in the book details. If you have collected free or nearly free books you probably have some authors whose work you are not familiar with. Think how easy it is to go into Calibre and browse your collection by the tags you have added, by the ratings from the sites you chose for metadata, or by series.

I admit that like many I was stuck on the file structure thing but now I much prefer working within Calibre's structure. I still save my books to a directory to put on my sd card in an author/series based structure. That's just the way I like to find things on my tablet and it is so easy to do this using Calibre's save to disk feature.

Yes, I use Calibre to convert (I prefer epub) and edit books, download covers or make one if a cover is unavailable and download metadata. I do not use the Calibre library; I use the "save to disc" feature and save the books in the sub-folders in a folder called EBOOKS. As I said, I arrange them by genre and author, for example Mystery, Sci Fi, Adventure, Humor, Classics, and so on. If I have a lot of books by the same author then I will make a separate sub-folder for that author.

I do not worry about authors who cross genres; for a writer like say Fredric Brown who wrote mysteries and sci-fi I will just keep all his books together. Books with multiple authors, like a collection of short stories? I would just put such a book into the appropriate genre and tag it "various authors." For writers whose books I am unfamiliar with I usually try and read a little of their writing first before I download them (as you know, many old books are terribly dated).

I load a collection of books onto an SD card from the computer; I have two ereaders, one uses a regular SD card and the other uses a micro SD card. I find a smaller capacity one (1 or 2 GB) more practical than a larger capacity one, unless you want to put comic books on it.

That is just what I find works best for me. I read about 2 books a week. I use a desktop for most things I do on the computer; I think I would find using a tablet difficult to do things as efficiently. I do have a tablet but only use it for looking at news sites; I find reading on an ereader much better than reading on a computer or tablet, no glare.

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Easy, I pick the genre I most likely read of that author unless they have a solid demarcation. Heather Graham writes 4 different categories, but I put all of her books under mystery since that is where I look first since I don't get her romance novels. Piers Anthony is split between Fantasy and Science Fiction because he doesn't have any hazy corners - it is either Fantasy or it is Science Fiction and he writes a lot in both. Books with multiple authors usually go with whoever edited it OR into Anthologies. For instance Thieves World is filed under Robert Asprin. A book of short stories all featuring horror goes into Anthologies primarily because they are short stories (other family members don't actually like short stories and aren't likely to read anyway). You could also set up Anthologies inside of your genre folder.

I use the folder system a LOT for audiobooks as there simply isn't an equivalent of Calibre for them. Sure, you could create a file with empty books and add the metadata, but you still have to store those audiobooks somewhere.

Just curious. Do you use calibre? It seems from this post you do. As for audio books, you could rar the lot of them for each individual book and store them in calibre. Unrar them when you want to read/listen to them.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks - I'll certainly bear those recommendations in mind. At the moment, I manage all my music in iTunes (because I listen to it on my iPhone) but I'm seriously thinking about buying a higher-quality portable music player.

I bought an Astell&Kern AK100 II for a bit over $700 about 2 years. This is a high end FLAC player. I highly recommend it. I have it connected to my McIntosh MA-700 Integrated Amplifier and the sound is superb. (It only has one DAC, however.)

Here are some reviews from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Astell-Kern-A...kern+ak+100+ii

They also have a 380 model, but it's around $3,500, which is a couple of thousand beyond my price point for a portable player.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I bought an Astell&Kern AK100 II for a bit over $700 about 2 years. This is a high end FLAC player. I highly recommend it. I have it connected to my McIntosh MA-700 Integrated Amplifier and the sound is superb. (It only has one DAC, however.)

Here are some reviews from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Astell-Kern-A...kern+ak+100+ii

They also have a 380 model, but it's around $3,500, which is a couple of thousand beyond my price point for a portable player.

If you're looking into these kinds of players, you could also look at the Fiio X5 Mark II. I have the Mark I, and it's a very good player with a very powerful headphone amp and great sound. The only caveat is that you need to arrange your music in folders. Its tag database is crap if you want to do antyhing else but shuffle by album or genre. Maybe they have improved this with the Mark II model. I don't know.

(Oh, and it doesn't support ReplayGain, so that's possibly a dealbreaker if you like to shuffle through different albums.)

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by LadyKate

Just curious. Do you use calibre? It seems from this post you do. As for audio books, you could rar the lot of them for each individual book and store them in calibre. Unrar them when you want to read/listen to them.

I do use calibre for ebooks. I'm losing my vision, so will require help in the future. Raring the audiobooks will only confuse any helpers.

Foobar is a fine audiobook PLAYER but it doesn't help with cataloguing. I have Foobar Foobar and VLC media player on my Netbook. They are both fine players, as they play anything but neither remembers where you are if you quit and go back tomorrow. Is there a trick to that? On my main desktop, I use Itunes.

[barryem]

You might take a look at Audiobooked in the Windows Store. I tried it on a Windows 10 phone I use for audio drama and old time radio shows. It's feature set would make it ideal for audiobooks. I bought the pro version and that gave me a license for my laptop as well so I tried it and it seems just the same.

I used to listen to audiobooks a lot. I don't anymore but I really think this might be a nice player for them. It has an unusual set of features that make it a good fit. It also remembers where it left off, I think, although that's not something I've paid a lot of attention to the way I'm using it. In particular it lets you designate a folder or any group of files you choose as an audiobook, which will play as one unit and then it stops.

It's interface is a little clumsy but not bad. Just a couple of things to get used to. I'm not sure how difficult it'll be with vision problems. It's all black and white so maybe it won't be too bad.

By the way, the phone I'm using it on is a Lumia 640, which came with Windows 8.1 but updated itself to Windows 10. These are available pretty cheap these days and they're an excellent device for this. I was trying to give it away when I realized that with it's really good speaker and good battery life it might be ideal for audio files. I've been using it a lot for the couple of months since I first tried that.

Barry


Barry

[Krazykiwi]

Musicbee understands audiobooks, I've rather fallen for it and use it for all my music and audio now. Out of the box, if you add audiobooks to the Audiobook library it treats them differently when you play them, such as remembering position, turning off any shuffle/repeat settings from when you were playing music, etc) It's also one of the few players outside Itunes that understands the chapter markers properly in m4b formatted books. From there you can use a custom tag (similar to custom columns n calibre) to keep series labelled and together etc.

It's a bit calibre-like in the amount of customisation you can do, which makes it a bit intimidating to get started with, but once you have it set up to your satisfaction it's very nice. Since you mention failing eyesight, there's also a ton of customisation in the visual layout too, which you might find useful.

As far as the initial topic, it'll either calibre/iTunes style organise the files for you, or not, your choice.