SOLVED File search

[jayr69]

Hello everyone.
On linux Mint, in my music file, i have alot of different music files containing lots of songs.
What is the best way to proceed in finding specific songs without having to open all of my files one by one?
I tried entering parts of the titles in the research area of the file manager when i am inside the music file and it doesn't find anything.
I know that i have certain songs but i don't always know in what album they are stored in and i sometimes don't know the entire exact title name.
Some help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for the help

[nachlese]

Import your music library into a player. I think Rhythmbox is pre installed.
Quodlibet is another one.

[motoryzen]

jayr69...If you mean trying to find a specific music file in your Music folder...

...IF you have all of your songs inside that Music folder not sub folder-ed within it ( as in Each Artist or band has his/her their own Folder each within the Music folder)... then you can simply focus on that Music folder ( left click on it somewhere that doesn't perform any action .worst case other than highlighting something, or alt-tab to it )... then just start typing the name of the song and via indexing it will find it if that name of that music file is in that folder.

Also when in doubt... Terminal is your best friend.

use the find or locate commands


For example apparently I have more than one file with the name .. blackbird in it ( albeit one is all lower case and another is properly capitalized..which is the song of an Alterbridge song

So

locate Blackbird

If it's on more than one drive....will show me precisely where that file name in it's exact spelling is located across every drive that contains it.

I seem to have better luck with locate

[rickNS]

...

I love the find command, and this precisely is one of my big uses of it.
find also works recursively, so no need have everything in one folder. Anyway I do have most of my music in one folder.

I store music files as artist name-song title and all alphabetically using the artist's name (or band name)
There are hundreds of files in one folder.
Say I can't remember the name of the artist (or band), but I do remember the song's title or even a part of it I use find to get the whole files name.

Say, for example I'm looking for "don't fear the reaper" I type;

Code: Select all

rick@t420:~$ find -iname "*don't fear the reaper*"
./Music/Blue Oyster Cult-don't fear the reaper.mp3

And I find out the file name is Blue Oyster Cult*, so I scroll down the folder to Blue...

I HIGHLY recommend anyone using Linux to learn the basics of the find command.

[Petermint]

Which file manager? Nemo, the default in Cinnamon, easily finds everything and defaults to searching through subfolders.

[jayr69]

Yes it is nemo and it doesn't find the songs that i am looking for.
I did install Fsearch and that works.
I don't even have to write the entire song name and it will find all that contains the letters that i typed.
Worst come to worst i will work with that.
Thanks for the help everybody

[nachlese]

A dedicated audio player like those I mentioned has that built in - as well as the capability to use information contained inside the files themselves (id3-tag, for instance).
.. just saying - a file manager is not the most efficient tool to peruse a collection of audio files

It does work, of course.

[AndyMH]

I did install Fsearch and that works.

I use catfish

[jayr69]

Hello.
I just tried catfish and it works good also.
Thanks

[Petermint]

What sort of search fails in Nemo and works in the others?

[HyperBear]

SearchMonkey was apparently made to bring Windows Explorer's sophisticated searching capabilities to Linux, but it looks like it is not being developed anymore.

[jayr69]

Well just to let you know that the package Fsearch did solve the problem so for my usage i will use that instead to find my songs in my audio files.
If i want to find the song SAD SONGS by ELTON JOHN i just need to type sad and it will find all of the files containing the word sad.
I don't even need to bother with capital letters.
You just need to tell Fsearch where to start looking and then it will do the rest.
Catfish works good too but i do prefer Ssearch.
Thanks for the help people and i hope that my discoveries will help others as well.
Have a good day