Help / Your library
Import music from a USB drive or another folder
You have an album on a USB stick, or a folder of downloads, and you want it in your library. Import Music copies those files into a library folder and skips what you already own.
Copying in is not the same as scanning in place
Two cards on the Tools tab bring in music you already have, and they do different things.
- Add Folder ("Scan a music folder in place") registers a folder and indexes the files where they are. Nothing is copied or moved.
- Import Music ("Add files or folders to your library") copies files from elsewhere into a folder that is already part of your library. The source is only ever read.
Use Import for anything temporary: a USB stick, a borrowed disk, a downloads folder you plan to empty. Use Add Folder for a place your music will live permanently, which How scanning works covers. Either way, register at least one library folder first, because Import copies into one. With none, the Copy to list is empty and the import button stays disabled.
Step by step
- On the Tools tab, choose Import Music. A window headed Import from drive opens.
- Press Choose drive or folder… and pick your source in the picker titled Select drive or folder to import from. Any folder will do, including one on a network share.
- The app walks that folder and everything beneath it, comparing each audio file against your library as it counts up.
- Review what it found, tick what you want, choose a destination under Copy to, and press the import button, which names the file count and total size first.
- When the copy finishes, a scan of the destination folder starts on its own and the new tracks appear a moment later. If nothing needed copying, no scan runs.
One refusal to expect: point it at a folder already inside a library folder and it stops, telling you import is for external sources. Use Rescan Library for music already in place.
What the review screen tells you
Three counts sit at the top: new, possible duplicates, and exact copies.
- New means nothing in your library matches. These are ticked for you.
- Possible duplicates means a library track carries the same artist and title, with running times within two and a half seconds of each other, or with no running time to compare. It could be the same recording in another format, so the app will not decide for you. They arrive unticked, each line naming the format of the copy you already have alongside the format of the one on the drive. Tick any you want.
- Exact copies already in the library means byte for byte identical to a file you have indexed. These are never offered and never copied. They fold into a list you can expand.
A file whose contents contradict its extension, a program renamed to .flac for instance, is left out of the list entirely.
Where the files land
Each file goes to <your library folder>\<album artist>\<album>\<original file name>. The artist folder takes the album artist from the file's own tags, falling back to the track artist, then to Unknown Artist; the album folder takes the album tag, or Unknown Album. Those two fall back independently, so a file missing only its artist still lands under its real album name. Characters Windows does not allow in a folder name become underscores, and a name already in use gets (2) on the end rather than overwriting anything.
Three things travel with the audio when they sit beside it: a same-name .lrc lyrics file, a same-name .cue sheet, and the app's own .tags sidecar. One folder cover image (cover, folder or front, as .jpg, .jpeg or .png) comes too, but only when the destination album folder has none. These are best effort: they never overwrite a same-name file at the destination, and a failure among them does not fail the audio import.
Every copy is verified before it counts
Each file is written under a temporary name, compared against the source byte for byte, and only then renamed into place. If anything goes wrong, a pulled drive being the usual cause, the half-written file is removed rather than left behind and that file is reported as failed with the reason. Nothing on the source is written to or deleted at any point.
If an import is interrupted, simply run it again. A file already at the destination and identical to the source counts as already present rather than being copied twice.
If something did not come across
The closing summary names how many files were imported, plus already-present and failed counts when there are any, each failure naming the file and the reason.
If the files copied but no tracks appeared, I added music but the app does not see it works through the reasons, and Supported audio formats lists what the app indexes. If the album arrives split or doubled up, see An album is incomplete or duplicated.
For anything none of that explains, open Settings, find Report a Bug, describe what happened, and press Submit bug report. Naming the source folder and one example filename helps; your recent logs travel with the report. Is this a bug? How to report it covers what makes a report useful.