I would like to split my huge database into smaller databases, by separating some collections into new databases.
Ideally, the annotations should be preserved and setlists if possible, but this is not mandatory.
Is this is possible, what is the easiest way to do it?

Would saving a collection in txt enable me to import this as a collection, or as a setlist, then converting to a collection.
I am a bit confused as to how to do this.

All help will be appreciated.

Sincerely,
Dan

Create a setlist containing all of the songs to move to the other library. Long press that setlist on the Setlists tab, and tap Share->Export setlist (.msf). Now switch libraries and import that .msf file. Very it all loads correctly and has everything you want. You can then delete that setlist and all songs in it from the first library. You may want to backup the library first under Settings->Backup and Restore->Backup Library to ensure everything is preserved.

Mike

Mike, just to confirm, an msf includes all the song data and the source PDFs and can be use to copy from one library to another?

That is correct, it includes all of the files and song data.

Mike

Thanks Mike,

If both collections' files are on the same computer, will that not make an extra copy of the original files?
Or if a copy is already there, MS will not create another?
 
I manage my own files but have had MS creating extra copies of some of my songs at different places in my folders before and would like to avoid that.

In this case it is not important, but does that also save annotations?

Dan

If you manage your own files, this will not work well. MobileSheets will want to extract the files from the .msf and place them in the default storage location. You lose access to a lot of features if you manage your own files. So you'll have to manually recreate the songs in the second library, add them to a setlist and then delete the songs from the first library.

A .msf file does transfer annotations, but manually recreating the song will not unless you embed the annotations in the underlying PDF before importing that file in the second library.

Mike

That has been an annoying problem to me since MS has been available for iOS with its restrictions, especially since I'm changing back from iOS to Android/Windows and can't transfer annotations and keep my folder structure with a msf transfer. Swapping files doesn't help either. I'd really appreciate if you'd supply an option to manually move a file within the storage location to another place/subfolder from  within MS fpr "manual managers" which keeps the annotations. It would still be a lot of manual work to keep the file structure after transferring MSfs but at least you wouldn't have to recreate all annotations. Even a manual "fix path" for individual songs (to the wanted location where the file could be moved manually) would help immensely.

You can make a copy of your database file (on Android that would require to set "Expose Database File" = ON) and delete what you don't want any more.
The workflow is 1.) create the new (empty) library, while doing that decide if "Store library files in separate directory" shall be ON or OFF
2.a)  with "Store library files in separate directory" ON make a backup of your existing library, switch library to the newly created one and restore the backup
2.b)  with "Store library files in separate directory" OFF just copy the database file of your existing library and rename it to the filename of the newly created one
3.) Open the libraries one by one and delete what you don't want it to contain. The filter and multi-select features of MobileSheets make that pretty easy

Don't forget to make a backup before in case you need a second try to get what you want. I did similar steps a while ago with my scores and just recalled the steps from memory wihout redoing it again. 
I keep all files in the same relative folder structure within the MobileSheets Storage Location ("Store library files in separate directory" OFF), so copying database files between Android and Windows works fine as long as the score files are the same. During my last re-organization I skipped the default database mobilesheets.db and use only herbert.db (my "active" library for stage, sessions, rehearsals and so on, different bands and line-ups managed via Collections), allfakebooks.db (for an overview of my fakebook collection, I don't edit much in MobileSheets in this library, almost all metadata are imported via CSV files) and msptest.db (for testing and experimenting, I apply "Clear Library" pretty frequently to start from scratch).  mobilesheets.db still exists on my devices, but I just ignore it.

I figured that out last night and got it to work.

Thanks all for your input, it is greatly appreciated.

I haven't been using MS for almost 6 months because of of a computer problem other than MS.
It has been missed it very much. I should be back to another computer sometime this week.
Goodbye paper sheets....

Sincerely,
Dan

Hi Mike, I guess my question/suggestion was a bit hidden in my comment above.

But I'd like your help/suggestion for the solution of the underlying problem.

As I mentioned before I manage my sheets myself and keep them in structured folders, It's essentially my sheet folder and structure before I started using MS more than 10 years ago.

This has worked fine for me at first with my 1st tablet (Android), dito when you provided the Windows version on several PCs and Surface tablets, all this with my own syncing and backup with mirroring through the cloud with syncing tools (and if needed copying the database).

For some time now I have used an iPad as my main tablet sheet viewer for which this folder sync doesn't work of course. Initially I made a backup from the Windows device and restored in on the iPad and worked from there. But I still kept the folder structure on my other devices as my main sheets folder. 

Now I have  switched back to an Android tablet out of frustration with iOS. But for the time of its use I have added several new sheets on the iPad without "syncing" to the rest of the devices. Also I made quite a few annotations and changes to a lot of sheets which I initially synced to the iPad.

I want to transfer the new additions and the annotations back to the Windows/Android devices since I don't want to check all it and even less to recreate all the annotations. *BUT* I want to keep the old folder structure and the database entries to the sheets in the correct folders in the folder structure.

The sync function of MS won't work for that (or would it without effecting the folder structure?).
I thought about exporting as MSF and importing to the Windows device (because if I have it in one location correctly it's easy to sync/mirror it to the other Windows/Android devices).

But MS puts the files always in the root this way AFAICS and I get duplicate files, the songs with the current annotation in the root and the old ones with the old or without annotation still in the folder structure.

What I want is the annotations of the iPad files on the (identical) PDF files in the folder structure of the Windows device.

What's the best way to achieve that without a lot of editing of single files? The suggested "manual fix path" or "manual move of files" would at least give a way to handle it from the MS GUI.

Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, but what is the best approach to achieve my goal here? Do I really have to learn sql editing of the database to get it done? Thanks for your consideration and help.

This is going to get very complicated if you want to add new files from the iPad but have them mapped to different folders on the other devices. You have to use the folder mapping option in the device sync screen. You have to create the same key/folder mapping on each device, and it will then map the folder the file is under on iOS to the folder you want on the Android or Windows device. However, if you did not create subdirectories per song, and you also did not create folders yourself on the iPad under the MobileSheets folder, then all of the files are just under the MobileSheets folder, and there is nothing you can map. So you'd have to just synchronize to get the files, then manually move the file to the location you want, and then use the swap file feature to repair the song.

I would recommend backing up all your files on the Windows device first, then try synchronizing the iPad to the Windows device. I believe MobileSheets should try to match up the files based on their name, so it's possible it will recognize that the files already exist on both devices, ignore those files and not impact your existing folder structure on Windows. It should at least pull over the new annotations and other changes you've made then.

As far as using the "Fix Broken File Paths" feature, that will only work if you need to map a bunch of files from one path to a different path. The problem is that all new files will be put in the root of the storage location, so if all of those files aren't all supposed to be in the same destination folder, this won't work well, which is why I mentioned having to use the swap file feature to fix those (and having to manually move the files yourself). 

Mike

Thanks Mike. I was aware this is difficult. Well, I should have only made changes on Windows/Android and synced them to the iPad. But I got too lazy to do that, so here I am.

But again, how do you mean to work with swap. I don't mind some manual moving but I thought swap just swaps the source PDF and doesn't swap the annotations.
So ex-/import with msf so the "new" files end up in the root? What to swap with what? The new song get's the PDf file from the old song and the old location (where it stays in its intended folder), but keeps the new annotations because the PDFs are identical and I just have to remove the song entry of the old song from the database? That could work, I guess. But that's no manual moving or did you mean that?

Quote:As far as using the "Fix Broken File Paths" feature, that will only work if you need to map a bunch of files from one path to a different path. The problem is that all new files will be put in the root of the storage location, so if all of those files aren't all supposed to be in the same destination folder, this won't work well, which is why I mentioned having to use the swap file feature to fix those (and having to manually move the files yourself). 

I'm aware of that, too. But doesn't it only change the (relative) path information for the pdf in the database? I was thinking allowing that for single PDFs (maybe from the file tab where you can display the path) would not be complicated and it would allow to move the files manually to the target destination and just fix the path for that in the database.

I mean you have to manually move the files to whereever you want them to be, then use the swap file feature to basically fix the broken file path (you are swapping the file in the new location in place of the existing file, which is missing at that point). Nothing will be changed by doing this beyond the file path used in the database.

I was recommending using the library synchronization feature over a .msf file, but either, in theory, should work.

The fix broken file paths feature lets you replace paths in the database with other file paths, or let the device search for missing files and point the database to those files. However, using the automatic option generally only works well if you let MobileSheets manage your files, as it's not going to search for files across the entire file system.

Mike