IDEA: Program to copy files referenced in a WMP playlist to another location

[JeffK]

I have not been able to find a program to copy the music files in my daughters Windows Media Player 10 playlist (.wpl file) to another directory while maintaining the original folder structure.  AV Media Copy from www.avsoft.nl does something similar but replaces the original directory structure with a new one based in AlbumArtist\Artist which is not what I want.

I want this so that I can get rid of all the duplicate files she has without deleting the ones in her playlist.  eg she might have three identical copies of the same file and I want to avoid laboriously checking which one is in the playlist so that I can delete the other two.

Anyone interested in programming this for me.

Thanks for listening,

Jeff

[brotherS]

The biggest problem I see here is using WMP

[JeffK]

There are worse things, like how miserable my life will be if I stuff up her playlist.

[brotherS]

Hehe... I don't know how old she is, but I imagine the worst 

[jgpaiva]

JeffK:
I think there might be a way to do this, but it would be necessary that there was soma way of exporting the playlist as a text file, i think.

[JeffK]

I think I might have found a way to do this using Media Monkey.  So don't spend any time on it.  I will post again if I need more help.

Jeff

[skrommel]

How about saving the playlist, opening it in Notepad and doing a search and replace of the paths, and then moving the files?

Skrommel

[JeffK]

The playlist files are all mixed up with other files which are not on the playlist but which she wants to keep.  And all the files are spread through many directories with many duplicates, triplicates and quadruplets.  So while I could edit the playlist file to move it to another location, I would still have to laboriously go through the many directories to indentify and move the files that are in the playlist.

Jeff

[skrommel]

Sorry, I reread you post, and it's removing duplicats you want. Are the file names accurate enough to be used to distinguish the files, or should the size/date/CRC be checked, too?

Skrommel

[Gerome]

Hi,

Sorry, I reread you post, and it's removing duplicats you want. Are the file names accurate enough to be used to distinguish the files, or should the size/date/CRC be checked, too?

Skrommel

The deal should be not very hard to resolve since Microsoft provides COM methods to its favourite player!
The following link will expose one of the branch to manipulate a WMP playlist :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmplay10/mmp_sdk/playernewplaylist.asp
There are other ones, but if you're familiar with VB/VBA or any other language that is able to CreateObject ( so does Fbsl ), then you'll be able to succed in your initial will 

[Curt]

... find a program to copy the music files in my daughters Windows Media Player 10 playlist (.wpl file) to another directory while maintaining the original folder structure.  AV Media Copy from www.avsoft.nl does something similar ...

-excellent program!  

It hasn't been updated for more than five years, (yes, this is a very old thread), but I had no problem at all, installing and using it on Vista. The GUI is logic, the procedure easy, and the copying is fast. Of course it can handle several playlist file types, including M3U playlists, not just WPL. The organization of the new folders were not important to me, so I just unchecked that option, and all 372 files from my playlist were soon gathered in a new folder.

a better link: http://www.avsoft.nl/index.php/wmp/av-media-copy-for-windows-media-player.htm
The msi installation file is merely 428 Kb

This little program made my day. Thanks for telling, JeffK  
One micro detail: The folder order is of course not AlbumArtist\Artist, but AlbumArtist\Album