Keping track of anime (Cataloging Software)

[MystD]

Is there a software where I can just add folders and it automatically lists everything in the folder & subfolders? Something that tells me what I'm still missing perhaps? (Like ep 5 is missing)

[Blanchimont]

After first using dvds to archive and a treepad file to keep track of things, the dvds eventually changed to external harddrives, and once harddrives were beginning tio get bothersome to keep track with manually editing the treepad, I currently use the following method, which doesn't really need much work...;

Once an external hdd comes full, open command prompt in Windows (on Vista/7 you might have to run in administrator mode), navigate to the letter of the drive and type the following;

dir /b /s /on > contents.txt

It creates a list of all contents on the drive.
(Of course it also works if you have a dedicated folder(s) on your pc you want to create a list(s) for...)

^attributes;
b = no timestamps, just bare info, omit if you want more complete info
s = lists/writes contents of subfolders as well
on = o - sort, n - by name, ie the text will be listed/written alphabetically
"contents" = preferably rename it to the name of the drive/folder...

You can also refine this, for example if you only want a list of video files add *.mkv, *.mp4, *.avi etc, like this;

 dir /b /s /on *.mkv *.mp4 *.avi > contents.txt

Do this to every full hdd, then create a folder on your pc where you put one copy of each textfile in (leaving the original on the drive/folder in question).

Then get GrepWin (provided you're on Windows), it's a .txt, .rtf etc search app which lets you search strings inside multiple textfiles at once, list all results at once, and also is launchable from the right-click context menu.
v
Then if you search for something, launch it for the folder where you have the textfiles, put in the search string, and it will list all results from the textfiles therein.

No matter how disorganised/misplaced your files are on the drives/in the folders, you'll get pretty clean lists of everything... Simple

[Pocari_Sweat]

MALupdater perhaps?

Though it requires you to make a MAL account and it takes time setting up your "watching, completed, plan to watch etc" lists.

[Zeroryoko1974]

I track what I watch on myanimelist.net and my backup is all on an external hard drive.

[Vexx]

I use a directory printing tool called Karen's Directory Printer which creates a text file of the folders, subfolders, and files within. If you also want a *description* of the series, then yeah you're pretty much going to have to use a database or spreadsheet.

Its just a happy GUI way to do what Blanchimont describes with line commands.

[Simon]

I've started using a local install of MediaWiki, the software behind Wikipedia. It takes a little bit of setup, but with Apache and MySQL being so nicely packaged these days it's simpler than you might expect.

The advantage of using a Wiki is that it has good search, categorisation and cross-linking features built in, but unlike a traditional database the information I store in there is completely flexible. For example I can have a simple list of episodes, maybe linked to individual AnimeSuki discussion threads, or I can add whole pages of translation notes, screencaps and other random background. So it may sound like over-engineering, but as a long-term resource I reckon it's worth the setup.

[MikeyGrey]

http://www.anime-planet.com/

seriously, it helped me out a lot (especially since i frequently start/stop a series and always forget which ep i was supposed to pick it back up from). also found some additional good stuff to watch. keeps track of manga as well.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by yomg

or you can use AOM to do it for you :P

Another one using the AOM-AniDB combo here. I've been using it for years now so all my collection is there and it would be too much of an hassle to change.

Also for external archiving I have a two-fold system with a couple of 1TB external drives with content and DVDs divided per show as well (with some series obviously spanning multiple dvds).