
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 like "C:\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

  * library

  * directory

  * plugins

  * include

  * pluginpath

  * ignore

  * ignore_hidden

  * replace

  * asciify_paths

  * art_filename

  * threaded

  * format_item

  * format_album

  * sort_item

  * sort_album

  * sort_case_insensitive

  * original_date

  * per_disc_numbering

  * terminal_encoding

  * clutter

  * max_filename_length

  * id3v23

  * va_name

* UI Options

  * color

  * colors

* Importer Options

  * write

  * copy

  * move

  * link

  * resume

  * incremental

  * quiet_fallback

  * none_rec_action

  * timid

  * log

  * default_action

  * languages

  * detail

  * group_albums

  * autotag

  * duplicate_action

* MusicBrainz Options

  * searchlimit

* Autotagger Matching Options

  * max_rec

  * preferred

  * ignored

  * required

* Path Format Configuration

* Configuration Location

  * Environment Variable

  * Command-Line Option

  * Default Location

* 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 ".*",  "*~",
"System Volume Information", "lost+found" (i.e., beets ignores Unix-
style hidden files, backup files, and directories that appears at the
root of some Linux and Windows filesystems).


ignore_hidden
-------------

Either "yes" or "no"; whether to ignore hidden files when importing.
On Windows, the "Hidden" property of files is used to detect whether
or not a file is hidden. On OS X, the file's "IsHidden" flag is used
to detect whether or not a file is hidden. On both OS X and other
platforms (excluding Windows), files (and directories) starting with a
dot are detected as hidden files.


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 albums 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. It's also used to read messages from the standard
input. 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".


autotag
-------

By default, the beets importer always attempts to autotag new music.
If most of your collection consists of obscure music, you may be
interested in disabling autotagging by setting this option to "no".
(You can re-enable it with the "-a" flag to the *import* command.)

Default: "yes".


duplicate_action
----------------

Either "skip", "keep", "remove", or "ask". Controls how duplicates are
treated in import task. "skip" means that new item(album or track)
will be skipped; "keep" means keep both old and new items; "remove"
means remove old item; "ask" means the user should be prompted for the
action each time. The default is "ask".


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.


ignored
-------

You can completely avoid matches that have certain penalties applied
by adding the penalty name to the "ignored" setting:

   match:
       ignored: missing_tracks unmatched_tracks

The available penalties are the same as those for the *max_rec*
setting.


required
--------

You can avoid matches that lack certain required information. Add the
tags you want to enforce to the "required" setting:

   match:
       required: year label catalognum country

No tags are required by default.


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:

   directory: /var/mp3
   import:
       copy: yes
       write: yes
       log: beetslog.txt
   art_filename: albumart
   plugins: bpd
   pluginpath: ~/beets/myplugins
   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
