Folders and Tags

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

macOS
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Description Of Issue

I have hundreds of playlists in iTunes and I want to get rid of iTunes and switch completely over to Roon. But there are 3 reasons why this is not practical for me:

  1. Roon doesn’t have folders or subfolders for playlists, which I use extensively. I’ve tried to use Roon Labels as folders, and that is not as good as a folder, but basically works. However, subfolders don’t work. Is there any plan to add folders and subfolders to Roon? Or is there an ideological reason why the development team at Roon is fundamentally opposed to the concept?

  2. The tags all have this huge graphic that takes up a ton of screen space, so it’s impossible to find the playlist you are looking for when you try to use tags instead of folders because there are only a handful of tags on screen at a time. Any plans to have a preference that gets rid of the tag graphic?

  3. Because of the lack of real estate on the tag screen, the name of the tag is not allowed to be very long. However, since there are no subfolders I would have to include the name of the parent folder in the name of the tag, but you can’t do this easily because there are not enough characters allowed. Any plans to allow longer tag names to show up?

  1. No
  2. No plans have been announced TMK.
  3. No plans have been announced TMK.

Yours are all feature requests in disguise and should be posted there instead of support.

There are several threads and a KB article on migrating your library.

As a matter of general policy, Roon does not comment on its future plans.

Good luck to you, JohnV, average user

Hi @Jack_West,

For issue #1, please see the following thread regarding folder structure in Roon:

For issues 2 and 3, do you mind sharing screenshots of both for what you’re seeing? They do sound like feature requests, but I want to clarify.

Noris, Please see my entry on the folder structure thread you referred me to. Also, in addition to those comments I made, I would offer the following thoughts. It seems that Roon has developed an internal bias against folder structures on the grounds that it is not the best way to discover music. I agree with that. But folders are really good at one thing: allowing you to quickly store and find things that you want to find—as opposed to “discover”. Having to meticulously create complicated tags makes no sense for my workflow. I create playlists all the time for specific projects I’m working on, and I just want the fastest way to store music in them and quickly find it later without having to sit back on the couch and casually discover it after spending 10 minutes trying to remember what tags I may have used. A simple folder hierarchy is the fastest way I’ve ever seen with the least number of clicks/typed keys.

Another simple way to understand why folders are better for me is this: with a logical hierarchy of folders you don’t have to remember anything. You just quickly scan the list and find what you need. Otherwise, you have to actually remember what tags you put things under—even with your current system where you can theoretically get one level of the hierarchy via Roon Tags. But this is killed by #2 and #3. You can’t quickly scan the list because there are meaningless graphics in your way that take up most of the screen.

Please see a portion of my current iTunes folder structure. How could I replicate this in Roon?

And don’t get me wrong, Roon’s music discovery system is fantastic. It just needs to be augmented by folders and subfolders for playlists (not songs).

Lastly, see attached screenshot showing why #2 and #3 are a problem for me. Note that I had to include the highest level of the folder structure in the name of the tag, making it too long to fit (I even renamed the folder called Projects of Mine too JW Projects trying to make space, but to no avail). Also, what you see in Roon is just the beginning of me trying to implement my folder structure in Roon. I haven’t created tags for everything yet, just a handful.

Hi @Jack_West,

Thank you for sharing those screenshots. As you can see from the linked thread, we’ve been pretty clear that we are not likely to add folder browsing to Roon and generally speaking we rarely comment on future plans.

You can use tags to filter the album or track browser if your primary goal is to group tracks or albums together, and you can also apply tags there, in addition to adding them using RoonTag, more information can be found in our Tags Guide. We don’t have folders in Tags right now, but you can add your voice in the feature request section of this site.

We appreciate the great feedback here, and please do let us know exactly what you want in the feature request section as this would be the best place to voice your concerns. Since this is “working as designed” ad the current moment, you requests, while understandable, belong in the feature requests section.

Thank you!

o.k. But I’m new to this product and forum. Do you want me to just paste this whole thread into that one? Or link to it? I’d rather not have to re-explain all this stuff.

I moved the thread over for you @Jack_West, no need to re-post it.

Hi Jack,
Although Playlists don’t nest, you can Tag Playlists and Tags will nest.

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