For example, I use Soulseek to download music. After a song finishes downloading, I usually move it to another folder (my main music library). Later on, when I’m searching again, I don’t always remember whether I already have a particular song, and I end up re-downloading it.

Is there a good way on Linux to keep track of what I’ve already downloaded, even after files are moved to different folders, so I can avoid downloading duplicates? Ideally, I’d like something that doesn’t require manually searching my entire music library every time.

One idea I had was leaving a placeholder file behind in the original download directory and configuring Soulseek not to overwrite it, but I’m not sure if Soulseek even has that option.

What tools or workflows would you recommend for this?

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[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 11 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Assuming your filenames are unique, you can just run a recursive search for the file on your whole music library:

find /path/to/search -type f -name "filename.ext"

[–] krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

You could write a bash script to move the file from the download folder to the music library too.

Haven't done any bash scripting in a minute so sorry if this is off, but you get the gist:

For files in /path/downloads/*; do mv "$files" /path/musiclibrary/; done

You can also output a list of all the files in your music library with ls -alR /path/musiclibrary >> /downlaods/musiclibrary if you want a list

Which you can grep for a file name to check if it's there

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Since OP mentoned SoulSeek, they may want to consider putting each download in a directory under the username they got it from and keeping their directory structure. Sort of like a URL.

[–] sefra1@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

Amazing some people actually memorise that, I just abuse pipes and

find /path/ | grep file