How does one get a list of media files in my hard disk Media Folder that are not yet in RM11? I need such a list so I can finish putting in the remaing files.
There’s a subtle nuance about your idea of Media Folder, as far as RootsMagic is concerned. It was designed to NOT limit WHERE media files can be on the storage device. Instead, the Settings>Folders>Media folder is:
“…to be the DEFAULT folder when looking for media.” (capitalized emphasis mine)
So, RM doesn’t restrict or assume that only/any one folder would relate to media files and thusly can’t just somehow calculate which in a particular folder hasn’t been linked yet and report those filenames.
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Do take the remarks by kbens0n to heart. RM doesn’t really have a media folder per se, and that’s not what RM’s option for “default media folder” means.
RM doesn’t store any media files at all in it’s database. It merely links to them wherever you as the user have stored them on your computer. You might have put them into one big folder, or you might have put them into a variety of different folders across your hard disk. And you may even have put them across multiple disks if your computer has multiple disks.
That being said, let’s suppose you have chosen to put all your media files into one big folder and that you have made that folder be the “default media folder” for RM. In that case, it’s very easy to link all the media files in that folder into RM all in one fell swoop. Here’s how to do it.
- Make sure that your RM window is not full screen,
- Open the folder with all your media files in Windows File Explorer if you are on Windows or in Finder if you are on a Mac. This window also must not be full screen.
- Arrange the RM Window and the window with your files so that both are visible on the screen at the same time.
- In RM, click on the main media tab and choose the Add > Drop New Media option. You will get a windows that says Drop New Media Here.
- Go to the window with your files and highlight them all. On Windows, you can do a Ctrl+A. I don’t know how to do it on a Mac, but it is surely very easy.
- Drag the block of highlighted files into the box in RM that says Drop New Media Here. (By the way, I misspelled “highlighted” the first time through and spellcheck changed it to “lighthearted”. I think we all need more lighthearted files.)
- You are done. Close the window with the list of files and make your RM window full screen again.
Ah, but you ask: won’t dragging all the files in the folder into RM create duplicate links for any files that were already linked into RM? Actually, it will not. It’s a cool feature of the Drop New Media tool that it will not create duplicate links. The Add New Media links unfortunately can create duplicate links.
So you are done and it was easy and you are happy. But you really are not done and you really haven’t done much of anything. That’s because media files in RM have two kinds of links. The first kind of links are called “links” and they link from RM to where the files actually are located on your disk or your disks. Those are the links we just created. The second kind of links are called “tags” and they link from the media file links in RM to where the media file is actually used in RM. For example, media files may be tagged to items in RM such as people, facts, and citations.
This bulk addition of all your media files into RM in one fell swoop doesn’t create any media tags at all. If you think about it, it can’t because RM has no way of knowing where you want the tags to go. But you do get one big benefit of bulk linking all your media files into RM. That’s because after the files are linked into RM, you can see which files don’t have any media tags. And that’s probably the information that you are really after.
You find the unused media via Tools > Enhanced Properties List and run the tool. Then look at Media Items > Unused Media.
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There are many styles of working with media files and RM. I have my media files in many, many folders. And many of those folders serve dual purposes, for example as a source of media files for RM and as a source of media files for my Web site. That way I don’t have to have two copies each media file. But it does mean that I don’t really have the ability just by looking at my disk with Windows File Explorer to be able to see which files are linked into RM and which are not.
For whatever reason, that has never seemed very important to me. But I usually do link a particular file into RM and tag it where it needs to be tagged immediately after having stored it on my hard disk in the first place. And at the same time, I link the same media file to my Web site if appropriate. So I tend to deal with media files one at a time, and to do everything I need to do with that one media file all at the same time.
I don’t claim that my style of dealing with media files is any better than any other style. Indeed, my style has some obvious disadvantages. But it is what works for me. I always encourage users to do what works best for them rather than copying somebody else’s style that might not work as well for them.
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Excel Power Query can pull a list of files in folder(s) and/or subfolders.
You could then compare path/file to that in RM. I would compare the two via Excel Powery Query / ODBC SQLITE connector if I were to do that. This requires some programing outside of RM which RM does not support.
what might be easier –is to do – simply drag N drop all media from the folder and ADD to the RM media gallery - this will NOT create duplicates. You then could review the UNLINKED media report in RM. Note that if you have the same filename in two subfolders its might create some confusion though what I suggested will not create duplicate media.
as others have pointed out – RM only tracks location of media when it was attached.
It does not really monitor you file system.
Kevin
Thanks, Jerry, your process worked very nicely.
As a further enhancement, I clicked on the Print button at the top of the “Unused media” screen that RM generated. The resulting RM List Report allows me to either physically print the unused media file list, or save the list to a non-RM csv file, which I can then sort or manipulate as I wish, as well as easily check off each file as “completed” once I tag link them to a Person or a Fact in RM.