Flac Organization - Big Mistake

I have been using Hazel to batch move a large amount of music files into folders based on the encode scheme - FLAC, AIF, MP3 etc, successfully I might add. However, I made the mistake of not realizing there was a folder of FLAC files inside the main folder Hazel was monitoring and in the rule asking it to move files into the Automatically Move To ITunes folder. Well, what happened is that iTunes disjoined my FLAC files from their parent folders (Album Name) so that now I'm left with one messy folder with all of the .flac files, cover art, etc. Does anyone know how I can Hazel to move back the FLAC files into a folder with the album name by using their inherent tags? I'm confident all the files are tagged properly as I can see them in Spotlight. Any help greatly appreciated.

Use "Sort into subfolder" using "Album"?

Tried but nothing seems to be happening.

Rule is:

If all of the following conditions are met for the files or folder being matched
Extension is FLAC

Do the following:

Sort into subfolder with pattern Album.

?

If Flac file tags aren't recognizable by Spotlight, is there any reason why this fix would work?

You'd need to get that info indexed by Spotlight otherwise you'll have to use a Script.

You might try changing the "Extension is FLAC" condition to "Kind is audio/flac" in your rule. Selecting Other as the Kind displays a popup where flac can be entered in the "Select a type": field, which should match at least audio/flac (it does here).

The problem here is he wants to access the album info. If there isn't a Spotlight importer for flac files, then Hazel won't be able to access that info.

Doing a quick google turns up this: http://sbooth.org/importers/

Haven't used it but it looks promising.

Thanks for the find! Will test and let everyone know if it works.

Ahh, that makes sense. My bad.

I've tried to install the SBooth Flac importer that Mr. Noodle recommended, but to no success. I can't tell if it's user error or if he never updated it to work with 10.7.5? It says to put the MDImporter into the Library/Spotlight folder, but I don't see one anywhere.

lgoler wrote:It says to put the MDImporter into the Library/Spotlight folder, but I don't see one anywhere.

What says? You can create the /Library/Spotlight folder if it doesn't already exist. Its contents on my 10.8.3 system:

Code: Select all: % ls -l /Library/Spotlight total 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 27 2011 Microsoft Office.mdimporter drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 20 2012 iBooksAuthor.mdimporter drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 20 2012 iWork.mdimporter

The mdimport command can do various things related to Spotlight plug-ins.

Quick update. I have tried to use the SBooth's Spotlight Importer which did manage to reveal some metadata for FLAC files, but only for a select group of albums, not all. I've been troubleshooting with Stephan who built that and Max and can't seem to get it to work fully. Something seems to be amiss with the UTI/default program that is specified for FLAC. I've tried Max and a few others and none seems to work.

Have a question about sub folders and the "sort into subfolder" option with naming conventions. Is there a way, now that I have my FLAC metadata seen by Spotlight, to have a folder created first with the Artist name, then a subfolder underneath with the Album name and have the files moved into this subfolder? What rule would I use for that? If I define the sort into subfolder with "Artist" & "Album" it only created a folder with the Album name. Thanks.

That should work. Can't say more without seeing your rule.

Remember, what I'm trying to do is have Hazel first sort into a master "Artist" folder then a sub-folder for the album with the FLAC files. The metadata is there, just need to know how to configure the rule:

If 'any' for the 'file or folder being matched'.
Extension is flac.
Sort into subfolder with pattern 'album'.

The above works, but I want Hazel to first create an Artist folder, then sort the files into an Album folder.

Thanks.