Focus on folders

I know this topic has been posted many times and is curiously not supported by the Devs. As a slight deviation however, even if it is not currently (nor ever will be) possible to browse my music by folder, is there any way of applying a focus on album view by folder path (ie. deliberately including or excluding all music stored in a specific folder or sub folder of the watched folders)?

Thanks

DDJ

Yes. Focus/Inspector/Storage Location will Focus on a top level Roon storage directories. So say you have ten top level directories, instead of making the parent folder the watched storage directory, you can make each of the top level directories separate storage locations and Focus on them. You can also have storage directories in different hierarchies altogether. This is only for top level directories, you can’t Focus on subdirectories of Storage folders.

I’ve changed the title of this post, which is about Focus filters, not folder browsing.

Ah OK…thanks Andy. It’s only a horizontal focus then, not a vertical one? As a way of example I have a folder titled “CD Singles” and within this I have about 30 subfolders (Human League, Soft Cell etc). If I understand you correctly I cannot set the focus on the “Soft Cell” folder unless I move it out of “CD Singles” and make it it’s own top level folder? Seems a missed opportunity not to allow focus on subfolders as I would think a lot of users would have a vertical folder structure as opposed to a flat one.

DDJ

Yes, horizontal is a good way of describing it.

The thinking is that folders are an arbitrary restriction that ultimately limit rather than enhance searching for music.

What I encourage new users to do is use the Storage Location filter to create Tags that help them keep track of groups of things, regardless of where they are stored.

So in your case, by all means make CD Singles a top level folder, but you can add all those Tracks to a Tag called CD Singles and keep track of them that way.

You can also bookmark a Focus on Album Type/Single which will dynamically pick up new singles wherever stored rather than needing to be maintained like a Tag.

I’m having problems with some ‘bad’ metadata from some files I bought from HDTracks recently. I bought the ‘Eagles Legacy’ 24/192 set, but the metadata is all wrong.
Prior to using Roon, I knew which folder the files were located in on the NAS, and I could just access the folder via the Lumin app to play them.
Now using Roon, I can’t actually locate the files manually in this way, and they appear basically ‘lost’ in the library.
Is there a way in Roon to help me locate these files? A folder feature sure would be useful here, unless I’ve missed it? I’m a new Roon user and have only been using it for a month or so.

Thanks again Andy…I’ll play around with the Roon tag options to see if that works for me but it will unfortunately involve a fair bit of work as I have 1 top level folder (Music) then about 8 subfolders (Comedy, CD Singles, Soundtracks, Compilations etc.) with a load of folders in those as well…

DDJ

1 Like

Yes. If you search for an affected track then in the Tracks browser you can see the search path and even copy it. I did a search for “Life in the Fast Lane” and selected show all tracks. The three dot menu shows the following options:

View File Info shows the following:

Path to File is the lower line and can be copied to Clipboard at the top right.

Edit: Note to self; never let Andrea see these screenshots. She hates the Eagles.

1 Like

Andy…thinking lazily…is there a way of mapping a custom metadata tag to an unused Roon tag eg. if I use tagging software to create a custom “LOCN” tag for all my albums, populate each album in my collection with its path, can I then create a Roon tag (“Full Path”) and automatically map it to the “LOCN” tag in my metadata?

Thanks again

DDJ

No. There is a relevant Feature Request.

Thanks Andy. That’s extremely helpful :grinning:

1 Like

Thanks Andy…much appreciated

1 Like

Another thing you can do, if you notice that you cannot find the album/tracks right as you added them, is to go to the Overview page and then look at Recently Added. This will help you see what Roon thinks you’ve added and correct it. As an additional point, if this album is a duplicate or new version of an album you already had, it may not show up in Recently Added unless you configure Roon to show duplicates.

1 Like

If we talk about tracks (files) and not albums then check this out:
FAQ: How can I find tracks by path?

1 Like