Can’t Keep Audio Files Sorted Correctly On A Flash Drive

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This is my 1st venture into putting audio files on a USB flash drive as opposed to the trusty ol’ CD, to play on my garden-variety Sony ghetto blaster.  I started out with simple .wma files, numbered 01, 02, etc for a total of about 60 files.  For some nutty reason the last song numbered 60 would insist on playing 1st, no matter what I did.  The “real” #1 song would then play as #2 and the rest would play in the correct order.  So when I deleted #60, #59 took its place and played as the first song exactly as before and it followed the same pattern.  Each time I removed the last numbered song the next one in line jumped up to the first song played.  So then I trundled-out my faithful Audacity program and laboriously converted them all to .mp3, even going to the trouble of correctly numbering them in the “metadata” portion (where the titles and what-not are) before saving them, thinking that might help.  But no, same as when they were in the .wma format, the last numbered song jumped to the first one and the rest played in the correctly-sorted order.  I’ve tried dropping the leading zeros (0) on songs 1 thru 9, putting a dash between the numbers and the song titles (01-Midnight Rider, etc) and everything else I can think of but nothing works.  But when I burn them to a CD they’re in exactly the correct order and play as they should.  This has got me baffled, so I know there’s a bunch of Digital Music Gurus out there who have what’s probably a pretty simple answer to this bizarre dilemma.  Thanks in advance.

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Oops, I forgot to add that I tried 3 different drives, from USB 2.0 to 3.1 and deep-reformatted them several times, just in case there was some weird file-structure problem.

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Hi guys,
I use mp3tagger to add information to the tags that allows you to order them.

Just check your Ghetto Blaster doesn’t a randomise setting burrowed in the controls, my car radio does and that has caught me out.

Greg1956

1 user thanked author for this post.

Travasaurus

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[Travasaurus]

anonymous wrote:

Hi guys,
I use mp3tagger to add information to the tags that allows you to order them.

Just check your Ghetto Blaster doesn’t a randomise setting burrowed in the controls, my car radio does and that has caught me out.

Greg1956

It does have shuffle, repeat and all that on it but I’ve got it set to the most basic setting where none of that is in effect. According to the manual it should be playing the songs in numerical order.  And as mentioned, I’ve used to Audacity, a supposedly premier program, to add the song numbers to the metadata in contained within the audio files themselves on the .mp3s.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Travasaurus.

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[Al Taylor]

I have had this same thing happen to my audio files that I keep on a flash drive.

Here is what I have read, and following it is what I have done to “fix” it.

Almost certainly the USB drive will be formatted to FAT, FAT 32 or ExFAT (but NOT NTFS).

Iv’e read that, for all FAT versions, the order the files will play in a player is dependent on the order in which they are copied onto the drive, and NOT what their file names are.

Generally when one copies files from a PC (and maybe a MAC, but I don’t know) the files you are selecting are all in one folder and listed in the order you are wanting them to be played, possibly alphabetically, but in your case, having a prefix number, you’ll see them listed numerically.

The problem comes from the following.

If you highlight ALL the files in a folder and then choose the “copy” command by right-click on the filename of the LAST FILE, for some reason that becomes the first one that will play (and I assume is then probably the first one that was copied).

Instead try this.  After highlighting the files, to choose the “copy command, right-click on the FIRST filename.  For me this file will then “properly” play first, and the rest of the songs will follow in the order I desire (i.e. as they were originally listed in the source folder).

While it works for me most of the time (but not always, and if so I just re-do the whole process), I’d be interested in whether your mileage varies.  Good luck!.

 

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Al Taylor.
• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Al Taylor.
• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Al Taylor.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, Travasaurus

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You could be onto something there.  All the flash drives were formatted in FAT32 (as recommended by my documentation) but I did copy them all in a “bulk” file transfer to the root directory, mainly because the docs said that folders could change the order of the songs.  Looks like, based on what you said, that I may need to copy them individually, painful though that may be.  As mentioned, it’s only the last numerical file that always plays 1st but also recall that when I delete that last file then the next-to-the-last file in order does the same thing; it pops up to the #1 position and the the “real” first song (and all the subsequent ones) play in the correct order.  Still doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll give the “file-by-file” copy technique a shot, anyway.  Wonder why that doesn’t happen when I burn them to a CD?

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[Al Taylor]

Al Taylor wrote:

I have had this same thing happen to my audio files that I keep on a flash drive.

Here is what I have read, and following it is what I have done to “fix” it.

Almost certainly the USB drive will be formatted to FAT, FAT 32 or ExFAT (but NOT NTFS).

Iv’e read that, for all FAT versions, the order the files will play in a player is dependent on the order in which they are copied onto the drive, and NOT what their file names are.

Generally when one copies files from a PC (and maybe a MAC, but I don’t know) the files you are selecting are all in one folder and listed in the order you are wanting them to be played, possibly alphabetically, but in your case, having a prefix number, you’ll see them listed numerically.

The problem comes from the following.

If you highlight ALL the files in a folder and then choose the “copy” command by right-click on the filename of the LAST FILE, for some reason that becomes the first one that will play (and I assume is then probably the first one that was copied).

Instead try this.  After highlighting the files, to choose the “copy command, right-click on the FIRST filename.  For me this file will then “properly” play first, and the rest of the songs will follow in the order I desire (i.e. as they were originally listed in the source folder).

While it works for me most of the time (but not always, and if so I just re-do the whole process), I’d be interested in whether your mileage varies.  Good luck!.

 

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Al Taylor.
• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Al Taylor.
• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Al Taylor.

You definitely nailed it! This was pretty cumbersome and there may well be a better way, but when I copied them 1-by-1 in the exact order I wanted them to the USB flash drive they played exactly as I had intended. I don’t know how much attention the internal programming of the ghetto blaster  paid to the fact that I had the songs both externally numbered and internally numbered in the “metadata” part of the file when I converted it from .wma format to .mp3 (and I doubt I’ll take time to experiment with it unless I get really bored) but that little laborious manual copying technique solved my problem in short order.  I just hope somebody else can benefit from my experience as well.  Thanks a mil!
It does seem like somebody would’ve come up with an automated program to do all of this by now, though…

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Travasaurus. Reason: Correct typo

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Elly

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Try this for copying groups of sorted files from one source to another…

Click once to highlight the LAST file in your sequence first and then hold down the Shift key and click on the FIRST file in the sequence last which will highlight all of the files between them.

Once they’re all highlighted put your cursor inside the highlighted area of the FIRST file of the sequence and use your RIGHT mouse button to drag & drop them to the destination. When you release the RIGHT mouse button to drop them choose either Copy or Move from the menu that pops up.

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What if you put the number one file in the last position?

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It will be a quirk of your ghetto blaster.

Stick to MP3 files as they’re universal and smaller than WMA – a 1GB USB will fit over 100 high quality songs (320kbps).

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

Travasaurus

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I don’t need to store anywhere near that many. (Haven’t even got anywhere near that many)  I just want the ones I have to play in the correct order, that’s all…

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The best solution to this issue I found a couple of years ago, here:

https://www.techmadeplain.com/2014/how-to-sort-music-flash-drive-car-stereo/

The program recommended here is an editor that works directly on the directory in which your files are listed, and it ignores any sorting that has been applied by Windows (which is always cosmetic. I think it makes my AV concerned (it is, after all, operating at quite a low level on a drive, which is the sort of thing that tends to concern AV software!) but it works very well.

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Playing audio files from a memory stick in the correct order has always been a source of frustration for anyone involved in the production of a talking newspaper. A talking newspaper is how a sight impaired person can access local news and in the UK, there are more than 500 tn’s run by volunteers who distribute their recordings on a memory stick to their listeners. Generally each news item is produced as a single track (file) so the play order is important. Al Taylor provided the solution that we use, namely selecting all the files and then right-clicking on the first file and either sending or copying the files to the stick. Our tracks are numbered alphanumerically – Track01, Track02 etc so they are transferred correctly. Viewing the files in Windows Explorer depends on how you have chosen to sort the files. It does not take into account how the files are physically located on the hard drive. If you do not use the right click method, the files are transferred in the order they are physically located and of course looking at the file list in Explorer just sorts them automatically by file name. I believe this technique has been used since the days of Win 3.1

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From the command line you can use the “for” command to loop through the directory and copy the files one at a time in name order.

For example:

for /f %f in ('dir /b /on') do copy %f \temp

The above example assumes the default directory is the dir you want to copy from. You could specify any directory in the dir command between the single quotes. Replace c:\temp with your destination device/directory.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>for /f %f in ('dir /b /on') do copy %f c:\temp

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280363.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280364.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280365.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280366.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280367.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280368.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280369.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280370.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280371.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280372.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280373.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>copy P1280374.JPG c:\temp
        1 file(s) copied.

C:\Photos\20200613_Flan>

 

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I use free “Bulk Rename Utility” to rename audio files. I delete any numbers at beginning of files and add 000,001,002 etc to them. Has never failed in any devices to play in order.

Yeas ago I used 2 numbers which worked ok in some devices but not in other devices

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Long time mp3 guy here and have been through the wars of the very early ID3v1, early CD MP3 players, first flash MP3 player and on and on.  There have been grim grim stories ….

mp3Tag is in my opinion the go to ID3 tagging program and one you should run over any new tracks you are acquiring.  Set up a naming convention that works for you.  I use \artist\artist-album-##-title dot mp3 or flac or if its a compilation album, album\album-##-artist-title.  As long as the tags are good, any mp3 player, including my car, dvd / cd players and most pc’s will be able to play tracks as I desire.

Your issue with flash drives though throws a hook into things.  Definitely make sure your tags are good – that is just good housekeeping.  But you want to set the numbering, ie 01, 02, etc so that this is the order you want the songs to be in.  OK I get it, over the years I have wanted the same thing.  Files as viewed in Explorer are based on either name order, date created order, file type order, possibly by bit depth of the song, could be artist, album and so on based on what you are allowing Explorer to sort upon.  So you spend all this time and set out EXACTLY what you want for a play order.  Then Explorer does it own thing and you are sitting there frustrated.

I gave up on that as it frankly does not work unless you manually add a prefix to each file name ie 01, 02, and so on.

Do you understand playlists? m3u file.  A playlist acts like a list or mini script that tells most digital audio players what order you want your playback.  You make them using your favorite playlist program, honestly just google for one and mess with it. Find one you like and use it.  The playlist program scans your song list, you drag and drop to the playlist in the order you want then save the playlist to the same USB drive.  Plug it into your player and it SHOULD offer to play the playlist.

Hope it works for you, Cheers, jakester

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I use a program named CopyInOrder.exe to copy over to the USB drive.  It works great.

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Me too. CopyInOrder solved this for me. Works perfectly and that’s all it does.

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As @oblivion said, just use the DriveSort program.  Doesn’t need to be installed and allows you to sort by name or other attributes.  Works great – been using it for years on players subject to this kind of thing.

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I use drivesort http://www.anerty.net/software/file/DriveSort/.  Easy, quick and free

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Not free, but maybe Beyond Compare, by Scooter Software, could be used to do the file copies.

Powerbasic, no software bloat programming for Windows.

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Try this:

1. Click on the last file in the file folder.
2. Scroll to the top of the file list, hold down the Shift key and then click on the first file so that all of the files are highlighted.
3. Then select Copy from Explorer’s Edit menu or select Copy by right-clicking anywhere on the group of highlighted files.

By doing the above, the files will be copied in their correct numbered order to the destination drive. The above trick also works for opening and viewing photos in their correct sorted order. This “last highlighted file is the first to be copied or opened” bug has been around since at least as far back as Windows XP.

Another alternative is to use the free version of ViceVersa PRO for copying your audio files to a flash drive. This program will sequentially copy them to the flash drive in the correct order.

 

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That may work for PCs, but not for Macs. Any suggestions for Macs to order mp3s on a flash drive to play in order?

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I’ve been using USBs to play mp3s  on my Rav4. The problem is some read/play fine but others default to alphabetical order as well as occasionally beging on song 10, one of the issues mentioned above. I tried renaming them in properties, which has worked for other players, but it this time. Any thoughts?

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You may have too many files for the software to handle. Software in car audio systems tends to be built down to a price, aftermarket stuff fares better.

cheers, Paul

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bharney wrote:

Not free, but maybe Beyond Compare, by Scooter Software, could be used to do the file copies.

For my 2015 Honda Odyssey I use a USB drive for my Mp3 music files.  It contains 4,623 files organized into 141 folders.

I recently reorganized and re-copied all of the files onto the drive, and after doing so, all folders names and song titles appear in my car’s audio screen in exactly the order I see them in my Windows File Explorer.

I Have a previous post in this thread and this time I used different steps than those previously posted. Since they were very successful I have listed them below.  Note that I used two Windows programs to accomplish the steps: 1) MiniTool “Partition Wizard”, and 2) Scooter Software’s “Beyond Compare”.

1. I used MiniTool and deleted the “old” partition from the USB drive.
2. I then “wiped” the drive using “zeros”.  (For my 64GB drive this took about an hour and a half.)
3. I made a new partition that’s formatted as “Fat32” and accepted the default of the maximum size Partition Wizard would make it.  (For my 64GB drive this turned out to be about 56GB, which is possibly larger than the theoretical max for FAT32, however, MiniTool was still able to make it that size.)
4. I used Beyond Compare and copied each folder onto the USB drive and did so <u>one folder at a time</u>. (This required some patience.)

The order in which the folders and files now appear on the Odyssey screen’s audio “directory” is exactly the order in which they were copied onto the wiped and newly formatted USB partition.

As a side note, I did one additional thing which I don’t believe has any impact on the displayed file/folder order; I deleted all Mp3 tag information from all songs and reset each to the be the actual filename for the song.  (I used a freeware program called “Mp3Tag” to accomplish this.)

I hope this can help.

Al T.

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I also use a USB disk-on-key with my Pioneer media system in my car.
The USB has 6 main folders by genre like Jazz, Blues, Classic…and live video performances.
Each genre has tens of folders, a folder for single album or composer/performer..
Total ~4000 files/tracks.

I use MP3Tag to tag all albums/tracks.

The Pioneer media system keeps all data sorted.

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Hey guys,

I realize this is an old thread but maybe my reply will filter down and help. I had the exact same problem a while ago when adding files, renaming folders, etc, etc. It bugged the $%#& out of me, and I knew there had to be a quick and easy fix. I found this utility called FatSorter (latest version is 1.0.4) and it is *perfect*!! Hope it helps someone before they go to the steps of recopying everything to a fresh formatted USB .

Regards,

Marc

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Marc Beland wrote:

I found this utility called FatSorter (latest version is 1.0.4) and it is *perfect*!!

Works only on FAT format (max file size 4GB, max storage 32GB). My USB format is NTFS and I have larger than 4GB (video files).

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I have transferred all my cds in Mp3 format into my computer. they are by cd name, or artist name. I now want to be able to select a particular song from these hundreds of albums, which may be rendered by many artists. how can I select  them? I can open each album and copy/paste the songs from each album into one large folder. What next?

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I use Media Monkey (it’s free in basic form) to manage the music. I can search for anything, shuffle, add items to the queue, make play lists…

cheers, Paul

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I’ve had the same problem.wish me luck

 

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