Configuration¶
Beets has an extensive configuration system that lets you customize nearly
every aspect of its operation. To configure beets, you create a file called
config.yaml
. The location of the file depend on your platform (type beet
config -p
to see the path on your system):
- On Unix-like OSes, write
~/.config/beets/config.yaml
. - On Windows, use
%APPDATA%\beets\config.yaml
. This is usually in a directory likeC:\Users\You\AppData\Roaming
. - On OS X, you can use either the Unix location or
~/Library/Application Support/beets/config.yaml
.
You can launch your text editor to create or update your configuration by
typing beet config -e
. (See the config command for details.) It
is also possible to customize the location of the configuration file and even
use multiple layers of configuration. See Configuration Location, below.
The config file uses YAML syntax. You can use the full power of YAML, but most configuration options are simple key/value pairs. This means your config file will look like this:
option: value
another_option: foo
bigger_option:
key: value
foo: bar
In YAML, you will need to use spaces (not tabs!) to indent some lines. If you have questions about more sophisticated syntax, take a look at the YAML documentation.
The rest of this page enumerates the dizzying litany of configuration options available in beets. You might also want to see an example.
Global Options¶
These options control beets’ global operation.
library¶
Path to the beets library file. By default, beets will use a file called
library.db
alongside your configuration file.
directory¶
The directory to which files will be copied/moved when adding them to the
library. Defaults to a folder called Music
in your home directory.
plugins¶
A space-separated list of plugin module names to load. See Using Plugins.
include¶
A space-separated list of extra configuration files to include.
Filenames are relative to the directory containing config.yaml
.
pluginpath¶
Directories to search for plugins. Each Python file or directory in a plugin
path represents a plugin and should define a subclass of BeetsPlugin
.
A plugin can then be loaded by adding the filename to the plugins configuration.
The plugin path can either be a single string or a list of strings—so, if you
have multiple paths, format them as a YAML list like so:
pluginpath:
- /path/one
- /path/two
ignore¶
A list of glob patterns specifying file and directory names to be ignored when
importing. By default, this consists of .*
, *~
, and System Volume
Information
(i.e., beets ignores Unix-style hidden files, backup files, and
a directory that appears at the root of some Windows filesystems).
replace¶
A set of regular expression/replacement pairs to be applied to all filenames
created by beets. Typically, these replacements are used to avoid confusing
problems or errors with the filesystem (for example, leading dots, which hide
files on Unix, and trailing whitespace, which is illegal on Windows). To
override these substitutions, specify a mapping from regular expression to
replacement strings. For example, [xy]: z
will make beets replace all
instances of the characters x
or y
with the character z
.
If you do change this value, be certain that you include at least enough substitutions to avoid causing errors on your operating system. Here are the default substitutions used by beets, which are sufficient to avoid unexpected behavior on all popular platforms:
replace:
'[\\/]': _
'^\.': _
'[\x00-\x1f]': _
'[<>:"\?\*\|]': _
'\.$': _
'\s+$': ''
'^\s+': ''
These substitutions remove forward and back slashes, leading dots, and control characters—all of which is a good idea on any OS. The fourth line removes the Windows “reserved characters” (useful even on Unix for for compatibility with Windows-influenced network filesystems like Samba). Trailing dots and trailing whitespace, which can cause problems on Windows clients, are also removed.
When replacements other than the defaults are used, it is possible that they will increase the length of the path. In the scenario where this leads to a conflict with the maximum filename length, the default replacements will be used to resolve the conflict and beets will display a warning.
Note that paths might contain special characters such as typographical
quotes (“”
). With the configuration above, those will not be
replaced as they don’t match the typewriter quote ("
). To also strip these
special characters, you can either add them to the replacement list or use the
asciify_paths configuration option below.
asciify_paths¶
Convert all non-ASCII characters in paths to ASCII equivalents.
For example, if your path template for
singletons is singletons/$title
and the title of a track is “Café”,
then the track will be saved as singletons/Cafe.mp3
. The changes
take place before applying the replace configuration and are roughly
equivalent to wrapping all your path templates in the %asciify{}
template function.
Default: no
.
art_filename¶
When importing album art, the name of the file (without extension) where the
cover art image should be placed. This is a template string, so you can use any
of the syntax available to Path Formats. Defaults to cover
(i.e., images will be named cover.jpg
or cover.png
and placed in the
album’s directory).
threaded¶
Either yes
or no
, indicating whether the autotagger should use
multiple threads. This makes things substantially faster by overlapping work:
for example, it can copy files for one album in parallel with looking up data
in MusicBrainz for a different album. You may want to disable this when
debugging problems with the autotagger.
Defaults to yes
.
format_item¶
Format to use when listing individual items with the list
command and other commands that need to print out items. Defaults to
$artist - $album - $title
. The -f
command-line option overrides
this setting.
It used to be named list_format_item.
format_album¶
Format to use when listing albums with list and other
commands. Defaults to $albumartist - $album
. The -f
command-line
option overrides this setting.
It used to be named list_format_album.
sort_item¶
Default sort order to use when fetching items from the database. Defaults to
artist+ album+ disc+ track+
. Explicit sort orders override this default.
sort_album¶
Default sort order to use when fetching items from the database. Defaults to
albumartist+ album+
. Explicit sort orders override this default.
sort_case_insensitive¶
Either yes
or no
, indicating whether the case should be ignored when
sorting lexicographic fields. When set to no
, lower-case values will be
placed after upper-case values (e.g., Bar Qux foo), while yes
would
result in the more expected Bar foo Qux. Default: yes
.
original_date¶
Either yes
or no
, indicating whether matched albums should have their
year
, month
, and day
fields set to the release date of the
original version of an album rather than the selected version of the release.
That is, if this option is turned on, then year
will always equal
original_year
and so on. Default: no
.
per_disc_numbering¶
A boolean controlling the track numbering style on multi-disc releases. By
default (per_disc_numbering: no
), tracks are numbered per-release, so the
first track on the second disc has track number N+1 where N is the number of
tracks on the first disc. If this per_disc_numbering
is enabled, then the
first (non-pregap) track on each disc always has track number 1.
If you enable per_disc_numbering
, you will likely want to change your
Path Format Configuration also to include $disc
before $track
to make
filenames sort correctly in album directories. For example, you might want to
use a path format like this:
paths:
default: $albumartist/$album%aunique{}/$disc-$track $title
When this option is off (the default), even “pregap” hidden tracks are numbered from one, not zero, so other track numbers may appear to be bumped up by one. When it is on, the pregap track for each disc can be numbered zero.
terminal_encoding¶
The text encoding, as known to Python, to use for messages printed to the standard output. By default, this is determined automatically from the locale environment variables.
clutter¶
When beets imports all the files in a directory, it tries to remove the directory if it’s empty. A directory is considered empty if it only contains files whose names match the glob patterns in clutter, which should be a list of strings. The default list consists of “Thumbs.DB” and ”.DS_Store”.
The importer only removes recursively searched subdirectories—the top-level directory you specify on the command line is never deleted.
max_filename_length¶
Set the maximum number of characters in a filename, after which names will be truncated. By default, beets tries to ask the filesystem for the correct maximum.
id3v23¶
By default, beets writes MP3 tags using the ID3v2.4 standard, the latest version of ID3. Enable this option to instead use the older ID3v2.3 standard, which is preferred by certain older software such as Windows Media Player.
va_name¶
Sets the albumartist for various-artist compilations. Defaults to 'Various
Artists'
(the MusicBrainz standard). Affects other sources, such as
Discogs Plugin, too.
UI Options¶
The options that allow for customization of the visual appearance of the console interface.
These options are available in this section:
color¶
Either yes
or no
; whether to use color in console output (currently
only in the import
command). Turn this off if your terminal doesn’t
support ANSI colors.
Note
The color option was previously a top-level configuration. This is still respected, but a deprecation message will be shown until your top-level color configuration has been nested under ui.
colors¶
The colors that are used throughout the user interface. These are only used if
the color
option is set to yes
. For example, you might have a section
in your configuration file that looks like this:
ui:
color: yes
colors:
text_success: green
text_warning: yellow
text_error: red
text_highlight: red
text_highlight_minor: lightgray
action_default: turquoise
action: blue
Available colors: black, darkred, darkgreen, brown (darkyellow), darkblue, purple (darkmagenta), teal (darkcyan), lightgray, darkgray, red, green, yellow, blue, fuchsia (magenta), turquoise (cyan), white
Importer Options¶
The options that control the import command are indented under the
import:
key. For example, you might have a section in your configuration
file that looks like this:
import:
write: yes
copy: yes
resume: no
These options are available in this section:
write¶
Either yes
or no
, controlling whether metadata (e.g., ID3) tags are
written to files when using beet import
. Defaults to yes
. The -w
and -W
command-line options override this setting.
copy¶
Either yes
or no
, indicating whether to copy files into the
library directory when using beet import
. Defaults to yes
. Can be
overridden with the -c
and -C
command-line options.
The option is ignored if move
is enabled (i.e., beets can move or
copy files but it doesn’t make sense to do both).
move¶
Either yes
or no
, indicating whether to move files into the
library directory when using beet import
.
Defaults to no
.
The effect is similar to the copy
option but you end up with only
one copy of the imported file. (“Moving” works even across filesystems; if
necessary, beets will copy and then delete when a simple rename is
impossible.) Moving files can be risky—it’s a good idea to keep a backup in
case beets doesn’t do what you expect with your files.
This option overrides copy
, so enabling it will always move
(and not copy) files. The -c
switch to the beet import
command,
however, still takes precedence.
link¶
Either yes
or no
, indicating whether to use symbolic links instead of
moving or copying files. (It conflicts with the move
and copy
options.) Defaults to no
.
This option only works on platforms that support symbolic links: i.e., Unixes. It will fail on Windows.
It’s likely that you’ll also want to set write
to no
if you use this
option to preserve the metadata on the linked files.
resume¶
Either yes
, no
, or ask
. Controls whether interrupted imports
should be resumed. “Yes” means that imports are always resumed when
possible; “no” means resuming is disabled entirely; “ask” (the default)
means that the user should be prompted when resuming is possible. The -p
and -P
flags correspond to the “yes” and “no” settings and override this
option.
incremental¶
Either yes
or no
, controlling whether imported directories are
recorded and whether these recorded directories are skipped. This
corresponds to the -i
flag to beet import
.
quiet_fallback¶
Either skip
(default) or asis
, specifying what should happen in
quiet mode (see the -q
flag to import
, above) when there is no
strong recommendation.
none_rec_action¶
Either ask
(default), asis
or skip
. Specifies what should happen
during an interactive import session when there is no recommendation. Useful
when you are only interested in processing medium and strong recommendations
interactively.
timid¶
Either yes
or no
, controlling whether the importer runs in timid
mode, in which it asks for confirmation on every autotagging match, even the
ones that seem very close. Defaults to no
. The -t
command-line flag
controls the same setting.
log¶
Specifies a filename where the importer’s log should be kept. By default,
no log is written. This can be overridden with the -l
flag to
import
.
default_action¶
One of apply
, skip
, asis
, or none
, indicating which option
should be the default when selecting an action for a given match. This is the
action that will be taken when you type return without an option letter. The
default is apply
.
languages¶
A list of locale names to search for preferred aliases. For example, setting this to “en” uses the transliterated artist name “Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky” instead of the Cyrillic script for the composer’s name when tagging from MusicBrainz. Defaults to an empty list, meaning that no language is preferred.
detail¶
Whether the importer UI should show detailed information about each match it
finds. When enabled, this mode prints out the title of every track, regardless
of whether it matches the original metadata. (The default behavior only shows
changes.) Default: no
.
group_albums¶
By default, the beets importer groups tracks into albums based on the directories they reside in. This option instead uses files’ metadata to partition albums. Enable this option if you have directories that contain tracks from many albums mixed together.
The --group-albums
or -g
option to the import command is
equivalent, and the G interactive option invokes the same workflow.
Default: no
.
MusicBrainz Options¶
If you run your own MusicBrainz server, you can instruct beets to use it
instead of the main server. Use the host
and ratelimit
options under a
musicbrainz:
header, like so:
musicbrainz:
host: localhost:5000
ratelimit: 100
The host
key, of course, controls the Web server hostname (and port,
optionally) that will be contacted by beets (default: musicbrainz.org). The
ratelimit
option, an integer, controls the number of Web service requests
per second (default: 1). Do not change the rate limit setting if you’re
using the main MusicBrainz server—on this public server, you’re limited
to one request per second.
searchlimit¶
The number of matches returned when sending search queries to the MusicBrainz server.
Default: 5
.
Autotagger Matching Options¶
You can configure some aspects of the logic beets uses when automatically
matching MusicBrainz results under the match:
section. To control how
tolerant the autotagger is of differences, use the strong_rec_thresh
option, which reflects the distance threshold below which beets will make a
“strong recommendation” that the metadata be used. Strong recommendations
are accepted automatically (except in “timid” mode), so you can use this to
make beets ask your opinion more or less often.
The threshold is a distance value between 0.0 and 1.0, so you can think of it as the opposite of a similarity value. For example, if you want to automatically accept any matches above 90% similarity, use:
match:
strong_rec_thresh: 0.10
The default strong recommendation threshold is 0.04.
The medium_rec_thresh
and rec_gap_thresh
options work similarly. When a
match is above the medium recommendation threshold or the distance between it
and the next-best match is above the gap threshold, the importer will suggest
that match but not automatically confirm it. Otherwise, you’ll see a list of
options to choose from.
max_rec¶
As mentioned above, autotagger matches have recommendations that control how the UI behaves for a certain quality of match. The recommendation for a certain match is based on the overall distance calculation. But you can also control the recommendation when a specific distance penalty is applied by defining maximum recommendations for each field:
To define maxima, use keys under max_rec:
in the match
section. The
defaults are “medium” for missing and unmatched tracks and “strong” (i.e., no
maximum) for everything else:
match:
max_rec:
missing_tracks: medium
unmatched_tracks: medium
If a recommendation is higher than the configured maximum and the indicated
penalty is applied, the recommendation is downgraded. The setting for
each field can be one of none
, low
, medium
or strong
. When the
maximum recommendation is strong
, no “downgrading” occurs. The available
penalty names here are:
- source
- artist
- album
- media
- mediums
- year
- country
- label
- catalognum
- albumdisambig
- album_id
- tracks
- missing_tracks
- unmatched_tracks
- track_title
- track_artist
- track_index
- track_length
- track_id
preferred¶
In addition to comparing the tagged metadata with the match metadata for similarity, you can also specify an ordered list of preferred countries and media types.
A distance penalty will be applied if the country or media type from the match metadata doesn’t match. The specified values are preferred in descending order (i.e., the first item will be most preferred). Each item may be a regular expression, and will be matched case insensitively. The number of media will be stripped when matching preferred media (e.g. “2x” in “2xCD”).
You can also tell the autotagger to prefer matches that have a release year closest to the original year for an album.
Here’s an example:
match:
preferred:
countries: ['US', 'GB|UK']
media: ['CD', 'Digital Media|File']
original_year: yes
By default, none of these options are enabled.
Path Format Configuration¶
You can also configure the directory hierarchy beets uses to store music.
These settings appear under the paths:
key. Each string is a template
string that can refer to metadata fields like $artist
or $title
. The
filename extension is added automatically. At the moment, you can specify three
special paths: default
for most releases, comp
for “various artist”
releases with no dominant artist, and singleton
for non-album tracks. The
defaults look like this:
paths:
default: $albumartist/$album%aunique{}/$track $title
singleton: Non-Album/$artist/$title
comp: Compilations/$album%aunique{}/$track $title
Note the use of $albumartist
instead of $artist
; this ensures that albums
will be well-organized. For more about these format strings, see
Path Formats. The aunique{}
function ensures that identically-named
albums are placed in different directories; see Album Disambiguation for details.
In addition to default
, comp
, and singleton
, you can condition path
queries based on beets queries (see Queries). This means that a
config file like this:
paths:
albumtype:soundtrack: Soundtracks/$album/$track $title
will place soundtrack albums in a separate directory. The queries are tested in the order they appear in the configuration file, meaning that if an item matches multiple queries, beets will use the path format for the first matching query.
Note that the special singleton
and comp
path format conditions are, in
fact, just shorthand for the explicit queries singleton:true
and
comp:true
. In contrast, default
is special and has no query equivalent:
the default
format is only used if no queries match.
Configuration Location¶
The beets configuration file is usually located in a standard location that depends on your OS, but there are a couple of ways you can tell beets where to look.
Environment Variable¶
First, you can set the BEETSDIR
environment variable to a directory
containing a config.yaml
file. This replaces your configuration in the
default location. This also affects where auxiliary files, like the library
database, are stored by default (that’s where relative paths are resolved to).
This environment variable is useful if you need to manage multiple beets
libraries with separate configurations.
Command-Line Option¶
Alternatively, you can use the --config
command-line option to indicate a
YAML file containing options that will then be merged with your existing
options (from BEETSDIR
or the default locations). This is useful if you
want to keep your configuration mostly the same but modify a few options as a
batch. For example, you might have different strategies for importing files,
each with a different set of importer options.
Default Location¶
In the absence of a BEETSDIR
variable, beets searches a few places for
your configuration, depending on the platform:
- On Unix platforms, including OS X:
~/.config/beets
and then$XDG_CONFIG_DIR/beets
, if the environment variable is set. - On OS X, we also search
~/Library/Application Support/beets
before the Unixy locations. - On Windows:
~\AppData\Roaming\beets
, and then%APPDATA%\beets
, if the environment variable is set.
Beets uses the first directory in your platform’s list that contains
config.yaml
. If no config file exists, the last path in the list is used.
Example¶
Here’s an example file:
library: /var/music.blb
directory: /var/mp3
import:
copy: yes
write: yes
resume: ask
quiet_fallback: skip
timid: no
log: beetslog.txt
ignore: .AppleDouble ._* *~ .DS_Store
art_filename: albumart
plugins: bpd
pluginpath: ~/beets/myplugins
threaded: yes
ui:
color: yes
paths:
default: $genre/$albumartist/$album/$track $title
singleton: Singletons/$artist - $title
comp: $genre/$album/$track $title
albumtype:soundtrack: Soundtracks/$album/$track $title