Moving and Renaming Files
Ora reconnects renamed, moved, or relocated files to their existing track, keeping analysis, cues, playlists, and tags.
Ora identifies a track by a fingerprint of the file, not its path. When a file you've imported reappears under a new name or location, Ora reconnects it to the existing track instead of marking it missing or importing a duplicate.
What's preserved
A reconnected file keeps:
- BPM, key, waveform, and energy analysis
- Cue points
- Playlist membership
- Tags, ratings, and play count
Nothing is re-analyzed.
When it runs
No action needed. Reconnection happens during normal scans:
- Live: while Ora is open, renames and moves inside library folders reconnect within seconds.
- On launch: Ora rescans every folder and matches anything that moved while it was closed.
- New drive: add the new folder once; every file matches by fingerprint.
How matching works
The fingerprint is a hash of the file's size plus a sample of its bytes, taken at import. Renaming or moving doesn't change the bytes, so the match holds. Re-encoding or converting does, so Ora treats that as a new track.
Two guards:
- Move, not copy: Ora only reconnects when the file at the old path is gone. If the original is still there, the new file imports as a separate track.
- No guessing: if a moved file could match two missing tracks, Ora leaves them missing rather than reconnect the wrong one.
Limitation
The fingerprint reads the start and end of the file, where tags live. Editing tags in place is fine: the fingerprint updates on the next scan. But if you rewrite tags and move or rename the file before Ora scans the edit, both signals change at once and the file imports as new. Reattach its cues and playlists by hand.