How do I make database of files and folders existing on an external hard drive?

I have an external 1 TB hard drive with lots of media files (contained singly or in different folders), books, software etc. I would like to create a database file, maybe a spreadsheet file, which can show me a list of the files existing in the external drive. I would like to search through that file and find the media I was looking for even when the hard drive was not connected to the system.

In Windows 10 I use Easy Disk Catalog Maker for the job but I cannot find a similar software for Linux. So how do I go about it?

1

2 Answers

If you just want a list of files, you can use a simple find, like @Raffa commented.

find /PATH/TO/EXTERNAL/HDD/ -type f -follow > "/PATH/TO/SAVE/file_list.txt"

---

If you want to save metadata information of your multimedia files, you can use mediainfo, that reads information for audio, video and picture files:

find /PATH/TO/EXTERNAL/HDD/ -type f -follow \ -exec mediainfo -f --Output=XML + > "/PATH/TO/SAVE/file_list.xml"

You can then read the output with any regular xml parser, e.g. xmlstarlet:

xmlstarlet sel -t -v '/Mediainfo/File/track/Complete_name' -n "/PATH/TO/SAVE/file_list.xml"

or e.g. search only images:

xmlstarlet sel -t \ -v '/Mediainfo/File/track[@type="Image"]/../track/Complete_name' \ -n \ "/PATH/TO/SAVE/file_list.xml"

or find all images with file size > 1MB:

xmlstarlet sel -t \ -v '/Mediainfo/File/track[@type="Image"]/../track[@type="General"][File_size[1] > 1048576]/Complete_name' \ -n \ "/PATH/TO/SAVE/file_list.xml"

---

Installation:

sudo apt install mediainfo
sudo apt install xmlstarlet

Virtual Volumes View is a GUI open source and free solution:

VVV is an application that catalogs the content of removable volumes like CD and DVD disks for off-line searching. Folders and files can also be arranged in a single, virtual file system. Each folder of this virtual file system can contain files from many disks so you can arrange your data in a simple and logical way.

VVV also stores metadata information from audio files: author, title, album and so on. Most audio formats are supported.

• Download the Linux version.
• Extract the downloaded VVV-*.tar.gz file.
• In the terminal cd to the extracted directory then run bash vvv-start.sh

---

To add a launcher for VVV on your desktop:

Run in the terminal:

nano ~/Desktop/vvvapp.desktop

Copy and paste this into the editor changing /FULL/PATH/TO/vvv-start.sh to reflect the full path to vvv-start.sh on your system:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=/FULL/PATH/TO/vvv-start.sh
Name=Virtual Volumes View

Close the editor and save the file by pressing Ctrl + x then y then Enter then make the file executable by running:

chmod u+x ~/Desktop/vvvapp.desktop

2

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Sign up using Google Sign up using Facebook Sign up using Email and Password Submit

Post as a guest

Post Your Answer Discard

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy