How can I get a Sansa MP3 player to recognize folders?

July 15, 2011 1:25 PM

How can I get a Sansa MP3 player to recognize folders? Using the MSC option, it is recognized as a virtual drive and I can copy MP3 files (podcasts) to its podcasts folder, but it seems to disregard the subfolders I have created under that folder. This is for a new Clip, but it does the same thing (if I remember correctly) on my Fuze.
posted by yclipse to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

You can browse via "Folders", and then navigate into the PODCASTS folder, but in the PODCASTS view the MP3s are organized by their ID3 tags (contained within the MP3 files), not as they are on disk.
posted by straw at 1:30 PM on July 15, 2011

Response by poster: Aha! A Folders item under the Music selection. How counter-intuitive.
posted by yclipse at 1:41 PM on July 15, 2011

Yeah, it means that half of my "Escape Pod" MP3s are currently shown in an "Unknown" folder because of weirdness in the ID3 tagging. Sigh. Dealing with metadata is hard.
posted by straw at 1:53 PM on July 15, 2011

Yeah, you have to run around and tag things to get stuff to show up where you expect on the Sansas.
posted by pharm at 2:25 PM on July 15, 2011

By the way, you may be interested in replacing your Sansa's firmware with Rockbox, which will give you more features (and perhaps a more user-friendly interface). I Rockboxed my current Sansa, an old E200 series, and I never looked back. The install process is dead-simple and (apparently) easily reversible.
posted by Simon Barclay at 5:13 PM on July 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I will look into Rockbox.
posted by yclipse at 7:21 PM on July 17, 2011