# Reinterpret Names

Use this when a song name contains combined information, such as:

`SF285-16 - Michael Bublé - Haven't Met You Yet`

The template `L-T - R - S` extracts Album `SF285`, Track `16`, Artist `Michael Bublé`, and Title `Haven't Met You Yet`.

## Use it

1. Select songs in Library, then choose **Advanced → Reinterpret Names…** or use the context menu. In Playlists, select rows and choose **Reinterpret Selected…**, or choose **Reinterpret Visible Songs…** to process the current playlist/search results.
2. Choose **File Name** or **Song Name**, and select a template.
3. Review the preview. It stays in Song ID order, independently of the library or playlist sort. Large selections show the first 200 preview rows and check all selected songs.
4. A mismatch keeps Apply disabled. Choose a different template, or explicitly enable **Apply matching songs only** to update the matching subset.
5. Apply the changes. **Advanced → Undo Last Name Reinterpretation** restores the preceding batch; undo is saved across restarts. The last ten changed batches are retained. Later edits are protected from being overwritten by undo.

The command updates library metadata. It preserves media paths, ratings, singer preferences, Tonight lists and playlist order. Embedded file tags are handled separately by Write File Tags for supported tags.

## Fields and templates

| Letter | Field |
| --- | --- |
| L | Album |
| T | Track number, displayed with at least two digits |
| R | Artist |
| S | Song title |
| V | Rendition/version, such as backing vocals or explicit |
| I | Ignore that part |

Templates accept those uppercase letters, spaces, `-`, `|`, `(`, `)`, `[`, `]`, `{`, `}`, `.`, and `/`. Other characters are rejected with an explanation. Spaces around dashes are optional when matching; other spaces are separators. Extensions such as `.mp3` are omitted from File Name input.

Examples:

- `L-T - R - S`: disc, track, artist and title.
- `L-T - R - S (V)`: also extracts a rendition in parentheses.
- `I | T. R - S [V]`: ignores the first part and extracts a bracketed rendition.
- `/R/S`: artist from the containing folder, title from the filename.
- `/L/R/S`: album and artist from two containing folders.
- `L-T - R-R - S`: combines two artist parts with a space, for names such as Olivia Newton-John.
- `L-L-T-R-S`: combines series/disc parts into the album field.

**Edit Templates…** saves custom templates, one per line. Built-in templates remain available. The em-dash option lets `—`, `–` and `−` act as regular dashes. The underscore option converts underscores in source names to spaces.

## Original filenames

New imports retain their original name and source path, including member paths inside ZIPs. This remains available after copying or moving managed media to hash-based filenames.

For older imports whose original names were not recorded, choose **Song Name** when it still contains the combined metadata. Reimporting the original files/ZIPs backfills missing source names while retaining duplicate protection. An unchanged older ZIP may need one extraction to recover those names; its audio is not duplicated.

Track and Rendition are visible/sortable in Library and editable in Song Info. Search with `track:`, `version:` or `rendition:`.