I’ve been using Roon for over four years now and have never come across an option for creating a Folder of any kind.
I know that many of you have requested a Folder Browsing option but again, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
What am I missing, and do I even need to know about this? 
Do you have a local library?
Yes, I do have a small local library.
Do you know where it is stored?
My local files are stored in the internal SSD of my Nucleus.
I’m not familiar with how files are copied to the internal drive of a Nucleus, but I assume the Nucleus is managing the folders under which the library is stored for you. Most probably you don’t need folder browsing.
Navigating to tracks using the OS file system…
Thanks for your answer. I’ll see if anyone with a Nucleus has more information for me.
Can you expand on this, because I don’t understand what you’re telling me. I’m not the most computer literate person around and that’s why I went with a Nucleus.
Imagine that you can open a Windows File Explorer or Apple Finder in Roon (or a similar file browser built into Roon), and then you can navigate to actual folders on the hard disk (locally or remotely such as the Nucleus’s SSD).
Then you could browse to any folder with music files, even if they are not properly tagged or otherwise a mess, and start them in Roon from there. And if you have some kind of elaborate folder structure, you can use this to manage your music, in addition to Roon’s current artist/album metadata-based design.
Thanks you @Suedkiez , that makes things a little easier for me to grasp. Having said that though, I’m not convinced that this is something I need to concern myself with.
The debate concerns the (visual) presentation of (stored and streaming) music files on Roon’s (Library >) My Albums screen.
The design philosophy behind (this aspect of) Roon is that individual albums and subsets of the music which Roon stores and makes available is best handled by Focus, Filter and Tags.
Thus - if a user wants to concentrate on all the albums in Roon by, say, Franz Liszt - this is achieved by using those built-in tools Focus, Filter and Tags to pull just that subset up.
In Mac and Windows filesystems, such a selection process is more likely to be achieved by the use of folders… a folder whose (file)name is (in this case) ‘Liszt’. You click to open the folder in question and see everything which has been saved into that (in this case, Liszt) folder.
But the advantage of the way Roon does such selection, of course, is that - with careful tagging) everything by Liszt can be ‘revealed’ by Focusing/filtering/tagging in multiple places:
I initially liked the idea of folder browsing; but have come to see the advisability and wisdom of using Roon’s inbuilt Focusing/filtering/tagging tools.
If that fails to explain things, please do ask!
Thanks for taking the time, Mark. If I’m understanding you correctly, Folders are something that might mainly be utilized by the folks here that are using either a Mac or a PC as their server.
Because I’m using a Nucleus, perhaps I don’t need to concern myself with Folders at all.
My pleasure!
Forget the hardware… Mac, Windows, Nucleus. Not relevant to the user.
The folder-browser debate only has to do with the interface to Roon (although, strictly speaking, of course, if RoonLabs were ever to implement folder browsing, that would have significant implications for the structure behind the signs).
Browsing, selecting, searching for your albums in Folders at the ‘My Albums’ screen would apply no matter where your server.
This has to do with the interface to your music.
But if you’re happy tagging to pull out exactly what you want to listen to (as I, IMHO, believe to be the best way to select), then you can ignore the debate.
Others feel that to be able to organize your music/albums in the watched folder according, say, to composer, musical period, forces playing etc - and then have Roon reflect that in a way which mirrors the hierarchy of folders which you have made - is an advantage.
But this is about how you view your albums and not where you store them.
Well Mark, I really appreciate all the effort you’ve put into explaining Folders to me but I’m afraid I’m just not technically minded enough to grasp it.
I’m going to keep organizing my files the way I have been for all these years and be happy with that. Cheers!
@NipperDog - no worries.
In case this helps: I would imagine that as things stand now you don’t put a lot of thought (rightly so) into the way you organize and build hierarchies for the folders in(to) which you put your music for Roon to watch for and import, do you?
You just put a (new) Album there and Roon imports it.
Without folder browsing that doesn’t matter. You could - if you wanted - have three folders at top level in your Roon watched folder, say:
Such an organization of your Albums is not reflected in Roon’s My Album screen. You simply see all the albums - regardless of where they are ‘filed’ in that structure.
With Folder Browsing it would (could?) be.
With Folder Browsing (if it were ever implemented) you could (would?) organize a hierarchy of music, albums, composer, performers etc as you wanted. And that screen in Roon would (have to?) respect that.
Happy listening!
Mark, that link really helped!
I think I understand it better now and I’m asking myself if I really need it after all. 
The debate is around the question of whether RoonLabs would ever implement Folder Browsing.
They haven’t yet - and have advanced many (IMHO good) reasons why they will not.
So at this point none of us can use it. And it seems likely to stay that way.
Thus it’s not something you really have to consider.
BTW I grew up with (HMV) 78s 
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Well, they did just announce they’re revisiting the concept:
“We’re paying attention to neglected aspects of the product – prioritizing performance and reliability – to ensure that Roon remains rock-solid. We’ll revisit long-requested features that we’ve avoided, like folder browsing and enhancing the way Roon handles box sets.”
Please give a link