Add your drives and camera cards

Everything Media Organizer shows comes from the drives, folders and cards you add to its library.

Add a drive or folder

1. Click Add folder at the top of the Library panel and choose a drive or a folder on it.
2. Media Organizer looks through it and shows what it found, folder by folder, with the folders of footage ticked. See Choose which of your media comes in below. Click Add to library.
3. For a drive that is not in the library yet, say what it is for: Available for ingestion (cards and planned copies are copied there, and only copies on such drives count); a drive marked as storage that already has a MediaOrganizer folder, from copies made before, has that folder read straight away, wherever you mark it and Suitable for editing (fast enough to edit from). On a drive suitable for editing you can also tick Use this folder as a working folder, for editing-related operations. Card ingestion uses the drives you select and the application folder structure.
4. Give the drive a label, such as WD 4TB 1. Media Organizer keeps the label on the drive, so it matches the sticker you put on it: in Windows where Windows allows that, and for a storage drive also in a small hidden file, which lets another computer with Media Organizer offer the same label. USB sticks and cards take at most 11 characters, and some store the label in capitals; the library then shows the label as the drive stores it.
5. Windows lets only an administrator change the label of an external hard drive or SSD. Media Organizer labels such a drive all the same and tells you that File Explorer keeps showing the old label.
6. The folders you ticked are read at once. Files appear as they are found; you can browse and search while it runs.

Only what you add is scanned: if you add one folder, the rest of the drive is left alone. Windows' own folders, programs and software projects are skipped. See What Media Organizer takes in from a drive.

Choose which of your media comes in

Whenever you add a drive or folder that already holds photos and videos, Media Organizer first looks through it and shows what it found. It reads only the names and sizes of the files, and nothing on the drive is moved, copied or changed. On a large drive this takes under a minute.

• Each folder shows how many videos, photos, sound files and other files it holds, and a tick. Folders of camera footage, and folders that are mostly photos and videos, are ticked for you.
• Folders that hold a program or a game, caches, cloud-sync folders, app data, music libraries and folders without media are left unticked, each saying why. Windows' own folders and program folders are not looked into at all.
• Tick or untick any folder. Ticking a folder takes in everything under it; untick a folder inside it to leave that one out.
• Open a folder to see its files, 100 at a time, with a button to show the next ones.
• On a whole drive, the MediaOrganizer folder is always ticked, since your copies go there, and Removed copies (Media Organizer) is never taken in. A music folder is never ticked for you, and ticking one asks first, since a music library can add many files.
• A camera card shows a red box: cards are copied off, not kept as storage, so nothing is proposed on one.

Add to library takes in the folders you ticked. To change your mind later, open Tools > Settings…, choose Drives and click Review… on the drive's row (the drive must be plugged in). The same window opens with what is in the library ticked and marked In the library, and what you kept out marked Kept out. Untick a folder to take it out of the library (you are asked first, with how many files leave), or tick a kept-out folder to bring it back, and click Apply changes.

When you plug in a new drive or card

Media Organizer opens one window once it has looked at what is on the drive, and chooses what it thinks the drive is. Every camera card opens it, each time it goes in. A card in your computer's SD slot or in a card reader, or one with a camera's folders on it, is taken for a Camera card; anything else, such as an external drive or a USB stick, for Storage. Click the other choice if it guessed wrong. The window's title says what will happen and to which drive, such as New camera card · SD Lumix (D:) or New storage drive · WD 6 (E:).

• Storage: a drive that keeps your media. You give it a label, say whether it is used for copies (ticked for you) and whether it is suitable for editing, and press Analyze contents. Media Organizer looks through the drive and shows what it found (as above), before anything is added. There you choose:
  • Add to library adds the drive and takes in the folders you ticked. With nothing ticked, or on an empty drive, it adds just the drive, as a place for copies.
  • Keep out of the library… keeps the drive out, as below.
  • Decide later adds nothing; you are asked again the next time the drive is connected.
• Camera card: the window lists what is on the card by kind of file, Photos, Raw photos, Videos, Sound recordings and Other files, each with how many files, their size and extensions, and the days they were saved. Keep the card's label or type another, and press Analyze contents: the card is read, which takes a minute or two, and the same window goes on as the card's window, where you say which camera it was in and copy it.

If another drive or card arrives while the window is open, it waits its turn at the top of the window instead of opening a window of its own.

The same window opens when you add a whole drive yourself with Add folder or drive. When you add a folder on a drive that is not in the library, you choose what to take in from the folder, and Add to library then asks for the drive's label.

Keep out of the library… asks first, then keeps the drive out: Media Organizer does not read it or ask about it again, and nothing on it changes. To bring it back, plug it in and click Include again under Kept out of the library on the Drives page of Settings. Decide later closes the window and changes nothing; you are asked again the next time the drive is connected. The window does not stop you working in the rest of the app, and Help shows a short tour of it.

Once added, a drive is recognised whenever it comes back, even on another drive letter, and it is scanned again when it has been away for more than a few minutes.

Camera cards

A card is in the library only while it is in the reader. Once you take it out, it leaves the Library, and what you copied off it stays, listed under Card ingestions. When it goes in again it is read in full, like a card never seen, because formatting changes everything that could tell it apart.

A card's label is for you: it names the card in its ingestions and in the Activity panel, so you can tell later which card files came from. Write it on the card too, such as SD Lumix. Two cards may share a label. The label is written to the card only when you change it; if Windows does not allow it, the window says so and the card is added under the name you gave. A card that has neither a serial number nor a label, which some cameras leave, needs a label before it can be added. See Copy a camera card and know when it is safe to format.

Change how a drive is set up

Everything about how a drive is set up is on the Drives page of Tools > Settings…: its kind (Storage or Camera card), Available for ingestion, Fast enough to edit from, Change label…, and Review…, which shows what is on the drive and lets you change which of its folders are in the library. The kind and Review… need the drive plugged in. Camera cards are listed there while they are plugged in. A folder that is no longer on the drive leaves the list the next time the drive is plugged in; if files of it are still in the library, its line says how many are missing, with Show the missing files. The drive's right-click menu in the Library holds what you do often: open it, scan it, eject it and its properties.

You cannot add Two Left Wheels 360's drive or Media Organizer's own drive: they only show files built from recordings already in your library. Add the drive that holds the recordings instead.

A drive or folder you added by mistake

On the Drives page, click Remove from library… on the drive's row, or Remove… beside a folder. A folder can also be removed with Remove from library… on its right-click menu in the Library, or by unticking it in Review…. A preview says what will be removed from the catalog first. Nothing on the drive itself is touched.

What you removed is listed under Kept out of the library on the same page, with drives you chose to ignore when they were first plugged in. Include again brings it back: a folder is scanned at once, and a drive opens the window for a new drive. Its files come back as new ones, without the tags, edit packs and history they had. A removed folder that no longer exists leaves the list the next time its drive is plugged in.

Manufacturer rules identify media, supporting files and camera housekeeping. Each file keeps its own camera information; missing camera details are not borrowed from other files on the card. Housekeeping is still preserved when a card is copied.