The VideoLAN Forums

I have a bunch of discography folders, and other folders which contain CD1, CD1, CD3, etc.. is there any way to enable a Hierarchy view which just shows the main folder instead of BAND - ALBUM - CD1.. BAND - ALBUM - CD2, etc. If so would somebody please tell me how to enable the feature.

Thanks

I don't want to see album titles in the list either. I type them myself when ripping, and may even mistype them.

In the audio section, in Songs, the top button with 3 horizontal lines of different length opens a pulldown menu with sort basis. Selecting "Name" eliminates the grouping by album.

However, selecting "File name" actually sorts by full pathname, so your list will still be grouped by directory (by album, usually).

In 3.3.3, it stil I've found no way to change the down-triangle after "Date". Down or Up should attach to the currently chosen sort basis.

With "Name" sorting for small lists, the single-letter section headings are unneeded and a waste of screen space.

Im on my laptop right now.. but will try your suggestions shortly.

Thanks

The first screenshot is VLC album list sorted by name. The second two are screenshots from the music player I use instead of the YT music player that came preinstalled on my Note 20 Ultra. It is called Musicolet and have found it to be the absolute very best totally free (NO ADS) music player from the play store. I literally have 226GB of music on my micro SD card and not having the ability to essentially have folders inside of folders.. is deal breaker for me simply because I have to scroll forever to find what I want. Tho I still love VLC for video.. I'll probably just have to stick with Musicolet for now.
Thanks

I didn't understand that aspect of your problem report. But I too have folders within folders. In my opinion, VLC (on a Refresh operation) scans all files in all directories you have allowed it to search. What "album" it lists for any song depends on tags within the file and not on where VLC found the file. In Settings / Media library folders, be sure you understand how to enable directories; one can include a folder but exclude some of its subfolders.

I have only 12.3 Gb of music and VLC refresh takes a long time. A possibility is that it hasn't found the song you want...yet...

when i select micro SD (external) all folders are checked by default and none can be unchecked for some reason.. the only folder i need to scan is music, which is checked like all the others, but like i said I cannot uncheck any of the other folders. which really isnt a big deal because the all folders are empty except for DCIM and MUSIC.

We don't use the folder hierarchy to sort your audio tracks but id3 tags. To have only one album with multiple discs, just edit your tags to have the same album name and set the Disc tag for each tracks.

One album:


Multiple discs


Tags:

thank you for the helpful advice.. i will try that tomorrow (this) morning lol when i wake up and will report back.

thanks again!

That does work.. However, it would literally take days if not weeks to go through each folder and repeat that process for every folder that contains other folders within, as i have over 2,000 folders. lol. Is there any chance this may change in a future update?

Thanks again for the advice.

The problem is that VLC Developers have made the conceptual decision to sort songs by what they say they are. This is not without problems; album names with "&" versus "and" are two separate albums, and I've had to go into dozens of songs and edit tags to prevent songs "disappearing" when in reality they appear somewhere else in the sort. So you are not just asking for a bug fix in the next version but a reversal of concept!

@Spike1 is right. We made that choice (as all the music apps in fact) and changing that would be kind of impossible to do.
However, there are some desktop apps that can ease the process of tagging for you. For example, you can use https://picard.musicbrainz.org/ that will tag your files by batch.

I'm telling you Musicolet is to music what VLC is to movies.. it is entirely free (NO ADS) and is highly customizable. You can get it straight from the play store.

I am not sure about the purpose of your answer. Musicolet may be good (I don't know it), but it's not open source, so it's not like VLC.
If you really want a folder organisation, just use the embedded browser of VLC.

@Spike1 is right. We made that choice (as all the music apps in fact) and changing that would be kind of impossible to do.
However, there are some desktop apps that can ease the process of tagging for you. For example, you can use https://picard.musicbrainz.org/ that will tag your files by batch.

You are correct, it is not open source.. but the point of my reply is that it is obviously not impossible to do!!

Hey Blitzzer, have you tried the VLC browser? (It's Browse, next to Audio in the pull-up pane sometimes at the bottom of the screen.) Not a solution but a workaround, should let you pick and play even files that don't have tags. Also, if a song is playing, "Browse parent" is now under the song's three-dots. Seems VLC has accommodated directory-based song organization like yours.

Thank you for the advice.. I will try that when I get home and report back.

I will admit that VLC is a very powerful program with many customizable options and have found it to be the very best movie player available, paid for or otherwise.. but by no means would I even remotely consider myself to be a power user. Yeah I add fast forward buttons to the main video playback interface and little things like that, but on PC when I go into options and check the "all options" button.. I don't have a clue as to what 99% of those options do or what they even are. So all that to say, I wasn't able to figure out how to enable the how to enable the browser mode or whatever on my phone.. could you please just be a little more specific as to how I enable it?

If it matters I'm on a Samsung Note 20 Ultra 5G running Android 11.

Thanks again for the help!

Android 11 has gotten bossy about apps having access to directories, "For your protection." I don't know if it's giving new obstacles to running VLC. For me running Android 8 and 9, Browse doesn't have to be "enabled," it just is.

when you say "browse doesn't havve to be enabled"... i am assuming thats what you mean by the "VLC browser"?

please forgive me for my ignorance VLC as much as i love it for movies because it just works with everything i throw at. most of the options are way over my head.. now if you need any advice on Windows in general, or especially car audio.. i'd be willing to bet I could teach you a few things you didn't know! lol

Play a song in VLC 3.3.3.
Touch the three-dot legend to the right of the playlist entry.
Tap "Browse parent".
Voilà, you are in the browser!
Access to main directory is available at the top of the screen, works like this Forum.

I checked the play store to make sure I was running the latest version of VLC.. but this is all I see when I play a song and tap the 3 dot legend.

Am pretty sure you aren't running 3.3.3. "Progress" legend is missing.

get.videolan.org/vlc-android/3.3.3/

I've completely uninstalled whichever version I had. But another n00b question is which one should I download?

Again.. Note 20 Ultra 5G / Android 11

I have a much cheaper Samsung and use armeabi-v7a.

If you pick the wrong one, it won't install and won't harm anything.

In the future, don't uninstall. VLC knows it's an upgrade and may preserve more of your settings. Will not delete your music.

Well I went ahead and downloaded the v8 version simply simply because at this point there really aren't too many phones that are more powerful than this one. I installed it, let it run its scan.. and without even using the browser or whatever it's called or adjusting any settings whatsoever... it automatically put all of my folders in a Hierarchy format BY DEFAULT!!. So know my problem has officially been miraculously solved all by itself.. or at least by downloading the new version directly from this website.

So thanks again for all the help.. I really do appreciate it!!