How to update?

Help
1

Hi

I imported my lib with no move and no copy, no write. I added new songs to my media folder so I want to import them too. When I import again, it seems to go through the import from scratch which willl take couple days again.

What is the good way to update the database with the new songs?

2

You’ll want to look at incremental mode.

3

@adrian
Thanks, I have to redo this all over, since incremental seems to require that it was done from the get go :frowning:

4

From the documentation:

“If you want to import only the new stuff from a directory, use the -i option to run an incremental import. With this flag, beets will keep track of every directory it ever imports and avoid importing them again. This is useful if you have an “incoming” directory that you periodically add things to. To get this to work correctly, you’ll need to use an incremental import every time you run an import on the directory in question—including the first time, when no subdirectories will be skipped. So consider enabling the incremental configuration option.”

Without going through the bother of reimporting your entire music collection, could you not do the following instead?

  1. New music shows up. Add it to a temporary folder.
  2. Import temporary folder into beets database.
  3. Copy contents of temporary folder into other library.

I only ask because I did not include the incremental flag when I went to import my music. I am hoping this doesn’t bite me down the road.