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[Enhancement]: Customizable Folder Structures #870

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opened 2026-02-20 01:11:43 -05:00 by deekerman · 4 comments

deekerman commented

2026-02-20 01:11:43 -05:00

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Originally created by @adfra on GitHub (Jan 1, 2023).

Describe the feature/enhancement

Hi there,

Loving audiobookshelf, but fixed folder structure is absolutely killing me. It's by far the No. 1 limitation I see.

Would suggest to provide a way in which the user can tell audiobookshelf what to find where. It could be as "simple" as keeping the current folder as the default setup but allowing for users to provide a simple config txt file in a folder, that specifies the structure that should be expected underneath that file.

Maybe a string with simple tags and separators for folder levels like (this example would be your current std):
[Author] | [Title] | [CD] | [Tracks]
...which could then have sections (folders) of the whole collection be read with a different naming structure which in future could also combine multiple tags on one level such as:
[Author]+" - "+[Title] | [CD]+"_Track"+[Track]
...or with multiple subfolders (eg for categories) it could look like this:
[Collection A] | [Tag] | [Collection B] | [IGNORE] | [Title] + " - " + [Author] | [Track]

In regards to the "language" to define a structure I really like how Advanced Renamer (opensource) have solved this to allow completely flexible file renaming. Just as an inspiration maybe. https://www.advancedrenamer.com/

Anything that allows us to define the structures flexibly would be amazing. Manually renaming dozens to hundreds of folders is a huge pain (apart from the fact that - once renamed - in Windows Explorer I can't judge by authors name whether I might want to read something...).

Would really love to see this feature. Thanks for the amazing software this is already today!
Frank

Originally created by @adfra on GitHub (Jan 1, 2023). ### Describe the feature/enhancement Hi there, Loving audiobookshelf, but fixed folder structure is absolutely killing me. It's by far the No. 1 limitation I see. Would suggest to provide a way in which the user can tell audiobookshelf what to find where. It could be as "simple" as keeping the current folder as the default setup but allowing for users to provide a simple config txt file in a folder, that specifies the structure that should be expected underneath that file. Maybe a string with simple tags and separators for folder levels like (this example would be your current std): `[Author] | [Title] | [CD] | [Tracks]` ...which could then have sections (folders) of the whole collection be read with a different naming structure which in future could also combine multiple tags on one level such as: `[Author]+" - "+[Title] | [CD]+"_Track"+[Track]` ...or with multiple subfolders (eg for categories) it could look like this: `[Collection A] | [Tag] | [Collection B] | [IGNORE] | [Title] + " - " + [Author] | [Track]` In regards to the "language" to define a structure I really like how Advanced Renamer (opensource) have solved this to allow completely flexible file renaming. Just as an inspiration maybe. https://www.advancedrenamer.com/ Anything that allows us to define the structures flexibly would be amazing. Manually renaming dozens to hundreds of folders is a huge pain (apart from the fact that - once renamed - in Windows Explorer I can't judge by authors name whether I might want to read something...). Would really love to see this feature. Thanks for the amazing software this is already today! Frank

deekerman

2026-02-20 01:11:43 -05:00

closed this issue
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deekerman commented

2026-02-20 01:11:45 -05:00

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@advplyr commented on GitHub (Jan 2, 2023):

There was discussion previously on custom folder patterns here https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf/discussions/774

Most of the issues I see mentioned on this are about keeping multiple audio files in a single sub-folder and have each audio file treated as a separate book.

When it comes to what metadata is pulled from the folder/file names I see that as a separate issue.

Is this the problem you are having? You want each audio file to be read as a separate audiobook? Or is the issue you are having with the metadata being filled in from the scanner?

Can you also give an example folder structure that you currently have that is not compatible with Abs?

@advplyr commented on GitHub (Jan 2, 2023): There was discussion previously on custom folder patterns here https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf/discussions/774 Most of the issues I see mentioned on this are about keeping multiple audio files in a single sub-folder and have each audio file treated as a separate book. When it comes to what metadata is pulled from the folder/file names I see that as a separate issue. Is this the problem you are having? You want each audio file to be read as a separate audiobook? Or is the issue you are having with the metadata being filled in from the scanner? Can you also give an example folder structure that you currently have that is not compatible with Abs?

deekerman commented

2026-02-20 01:11:45 -05:00

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@advplyr commented on GitHub (Jan 2, 2023):

Oh and this is a duplicate of #528

@advplyr commented on GitHub (Jan 2, 2023): Oh and this is a duplicate of #528

deekerman commented

2026-02-20 01:11:45 -05:00

Author

Owner

@adfra commented on GitHub (Jan 12, 2023):

Hi AdvPlyr,

This is not about having multiple audio-books in one folder but more about flexibility how to structure the folder hierarchy that the books reside in. My structure for instance has a category layer and then the authors underneath that but the system can't automatically cope with it (which is understandable given the variety that's possible). So I create a library per category folder. It works, but is just so clunky. Also the fact that the book titles are hidden at the lowest level is really quite bad when you have a large collection and want to be able to browse via the folders as well. All this could be easily addressed if one was able to tell the system how to read all content below a certain folder level. (That way you can also import a sizeable collection with a different folder / file structure and rather the reworking the structure for hours you just update the definition file for that newly imported folder).
See my structure attached just for reference.

@adfra commented on GitHub (Jan 12, 2023): Hi AdvPlyr, This is not about having multiple audio-books in one folder but more about flexibility how to structure the folder hierarchy that the books reside in. My structure for instance has a category layer and then the authors underneath that but the system can't automatically cope with it (which is understandable given the variety that's possible). So I create a library per category folder. It works, but is just so clunky. Also the fact that the book titles are hidden at the lowest level is really quite bad when you have a large collection and want to be able to browse via the folders as well. All this could be easily addressed if one was able to tell the system how to read all content below a certain folder level. (That way you can also import a sizeable collection with a different folder / file structure and rather the reworking the structure for hours you just update the definition file for that newly imported folder). See my structure attached just for reference. ![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/8445317/212167930-9405eb53-f009-4a12-a895-0b2444a64794.png)

deekerman commented

2026-02-20 01:11:45 -05:00

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Owner

@advplyr commented on GitHub (Mar 31, 2023):

Duplicate of #528

@advplyr commented on GitHub (Mar 31, 2023): Duplicate of #528

deekerman referenced this issue

2026-02-20 01:12:59 -05:00

[Enhancement]: Directory structure - extra layer option #963

deekerman referenced this issue

2026-02-20 01:12:59 -05:00