Moving the File Location of Songs without Losing Them in WMP and the Playlists

Hi Ginny - this 'triangulation' of files in W7 caused a lot of headaches! Thankfully in W10 the file location and music folder are one and the same which largely avoids the problem. There are a number of approaches and you just have to be methodical... I prefer to copy tracks/albums to their new location - which means WMP will then show both versions... I then delete the unwanted one directly from WMP. You have to be careful to delete the correct version so check the file path first by right clicking the track and selecting 'Open File Location' - you can then see if it's the new or old location and delete accordingly.

As regards playlists I don't know of any short-cut. You will need to re-add the file from the new location. Do that first and then you can move it to match the place of the 'lost' track within the list before deleting. - Cheers, Ric.

Thanks, Ric, for responding.  I follow what you're saying in the first paragraph, but I can't see how that approach will help maintain the additional information I've put into WMP.  And if I'm copying the files in Windows Explorer, how does WMP find them without me playing them in their entirety?  Keep in mind that I'll be doing this for hundreds of songs.

As for the playlists, I'm not really concerned about the location within the playlist.  I'm more concerned that I'll have to find those hundreds of songs out of the thousands I have in WMP, and move each individually to its playlists.   -- Ginny

If by 'additional information added' you mean items you have included in the various WMP fields/columns that should not be affected.

Also, WMP should find the new location straight away without you having to play it, unless you are locating it outside your main music folder (e.g. on an external hard-drive). If the latter is the case let me know and I'll explain what you need to do. If not just test-run my suggestion with one album to see what happens.

As far as I know, playlists will need reorganizing, unfortunately. - Ric

btw you can most easily trace songs 'lost' from checking the playlist because they should show up like those red-boxed here... (minus their details)

Hi, Ric.  I tried one song to start with.  I had previously changed the song title, and added an album title and a composer to the song in Windows Media Player, since the song was missing those elements when I initially added it to WMP.  Then I copied the song to a subfolder in its existing folder.

You were right - the new copy showed up in WMP right away.  However, for the copy, the album title and composer were  gone, the name of the song had reverted to what it had originally been, the play count was set to zero, and the date added was set to today.  And of course, the copy of the song wasn't in the playlist.

I very much appreciate your help in this puzzle, but if I can't retain the changes and additions when I move them, that's going to put a real cramp in my plans.  Do you have any other ideas I can try?    -- Ginny

Thanks for updating... I'm away for a day but I'll get back on Thursday and see if we can figure out what needs correcting. In the meantime can you put a screenshot of the track you tried (before and after) - it may help me figure it out. (Link below for help with screenshots) Thanks, R.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_other-windows_programs/how-to-include-a-screenshot-in-your-post/2594b08e-32a3-476a-85a6-b021181be7e4

Here you see two versions of Celtic Carol:

• The bottom one is the original song with the corrected album name, original play count, added composer, and original Date added.  
• The top one is the copy in its new folder.  As you can see, the album title reverted to the original one, the play count dropped to zero, the composer was lost, and the Date added changed to the date I moved it.  

Some of my songs also have sub-genres, some have contributing artists that I've changed from "Various", some have changed titles, etc.  All of this additional information is lost if I move the song.  It's just as if the song was newly added and had never been in WMP before. - Ginny

The image helps... thanks. If you like to have columns for play count and date added these would inevitably change if you create a new copy - I get that. There is another method which should retain that information which I'll explain below. What is odd is that the album and composer info is changing - if this has been applied correctly it should stick... open the file location for your original preferred version of 'Celtic Carol' - r-click and select 'Properties - Details' and look down to see what is showing there... Also could you confirm what file type these tracks are?

The alternative to copy and paste is to cut and paste and then the date added and play count should be unaffected but be careful to do this from the existing file location to the new file location (rather than in the music library) with WMP open, otherwise you may get the error message 'the file cannot be located'. Do this by selecting 'Open File Location' in WMP for the track(s) you wish to move.

Let's see if we can figure out why your album details are not sticking first, though! - Cheers, Ric.

Okay, let's summarize what we've figured out so far:

1.  Move the song in Windows Directory while Windows Media Player is open;  that is, cut and paste the file to its new location or rename the folder while WMP is open, and WMP should recognize the new location/folder without any problem.

2.  Changes made in WMP to the various columns such as Composer or Album Name should be reflected in the file's Properties > Details in Windows Directory. 

I think we've hit upon the problem, because for some songs, the changes in WMP are not reflected in the Properties > Details window.  Celtic Carol is one of those  - as you can see from the below screen print, the Album name did not change, and neither did the composer (not pictured).

Do you know how to make those details "stick"?  - Ginny

Changing the details in 'properties' may be the best bet - but rather like with the playlists there's not really a quick method. What can happen is that if changes are made in media player to how it originally 'saw' the file, it can revert to the original info if something is changed. (Even updates can cause this)... So if I want to add a file from say a 'various artists' compilation to just being a single track by that artist, I'll copy it to the 'Documents' folder (not monitored by WMP) - correct all the properties as in the example below (this track was originally on a 60's  'various' comp) and then move it to its new location in the music folder. In the end it looks like being a case of how much hassle you want to give yourself to sort things out, unfortunately.

The cut and paste method may be worth a try though. What do you think?

Also - I've just noticed that the 'Album Artist' detail is not there - that is a field that ought to be included... (either the same as 'contributing' or 'Various Artists' if it is in a compilation)

It doesn't look like we're going to find a solution to this problem.  I copied the song to the Documents folder, made the modifications as you suggested, Applied them, and said OK.  Then I moved the song back to the Music folder, and all the changes returned to the original.  The changes didn't "stick."

Here's a thought -- making the changes in the WMP database itself, and re-importing the database?  - Ginny