Beets import vs reimport and command line vs config.yaml

[adrian]

@evand

Does this imply that rerunning

beet import -A -C -p -q -l /home/x/beetsdb/beets.log /alib

is going to move my files?

No. It says that it would move your files if you have copying enabled. But you have disabled it with -C (and also in your config).

@evand

Which takes precedence? Will beets ever move files or write to them with:

import:
copy: no
write: no

in config.yaml?

The command line takes precedence.

@evand

Would running

beet import -C -p -q -l /home/x/beetsdb/beets.log /alib

kick off beets’ autotagger and write the results to the database only?

It seems so, with your configuration. But if I were you, I’d make a backup just to be safe.

@evand

Is there a way (other than perusing the log file) to identify albums that beets ignored because of the issued -q?

Nope—that’s exactly why we added the log file option, to cover this use case. The “normal” use case in this situation would be to move the files that get imported to another directory, so only the files that are left behind have been skipped. But if you don’t want that, the log file is the next best thing.