#rhythmbox

OS: Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon Wine version 11.0 Winetricks version 20260125-next

MusicBee Portable (Wine)

Plus: Deletes files first Note: requires Windows .NET Framework version 4.7.2 via winetricks (you can use dotnet 48 for the prefix)

Leaves behind empty folders

MediaMonkey Portable (Wine)

Plus: Can estimate size of files to transfer vs. space left on device

Note: must be version 5 or newer (use winetricks to set prefix to Win11/Win10)

Seems slower than MusicBee?

Leaves behind empty folders

Luckily, the script to delete empty folder chains is very simple and fast! You can look up deleteZeroSizeFiles.sh for the bash script (advantage being that it creates a log for debugging), or you can run two lines through terminal:

cd "[path/to/music/folder]" find . -type d -empty -delete -print

Rhythmbox

Plus: The only case that is an actual Linux program, no fiddling with Wine

Plus: Will delete old files and folders

Plus: Can estimate size of files to transfer

Note: Requires .is_audio_player file (folder depth 2 or more)

Will not update old folder depth (i.e. if you synced at folder depth 1, it will keep syncing to those folders. After updating the .is file, you have to delete the old files/folders before it will create new folder paths at 2 depth)

Deal-breaker: No way to configure folder structure (Artist-Album)

Generates .pls playlist files, not m3u (so requires script to convert, or a convoluted do-si-do of Rhythmbox's import/export playlist plugin)

Foobar2000 OWS component (Wine)

Plus: Creates playlists in windows format

No future updates to this component since 2021

Deal-breaker: Will not delete files there, only the ones previously synced by Foobar. Will delete files/folders if they were added by Foobar

Device drive for tasks/commands must be updated if plugged into different USB port

Potentially no way to dynamically add track number to file names (add it and a delimiter if there is one and don't if there isn't)

Only deletes files after syncing (so will error out if hit size limit before reaching deletion stage)

Amarok, Strawberry No playlist-based track selection, and definitely not "select multiple playlists and generate new playlists at the target location".

Android-playlist-sync (did not try)

No MTP. Designed for syncing to Android phones (unclear if works on devices) Rsync based, see issue below.

Dealbreaker: Copy multiple playlists script unfinished

Dealbreaker: Sync script only works with single playlist

Did not run, so not sure of resulting folder structure

Rhythmbox-Playlist-To-MediaPlayer (did not try)

Removes ALL files for fresh rsync

In general: rsync-based scripts will not work, because they cannot cleanly delete old files in a fast way, or create new file structure based on metadata

Does not have what I am looking for (some might have Amarok/Strawberry level file transfer capability) Tauon deadbeef lollypop beets