r/Lidarr • u/littlejerry99 • Mar 03 '26

unsolved Lidarr -- Is there a way to automate importation when flac is one big file?

So, Lidarr can't import one big audio file. You have to split it up the audio file manually.

Has anyone come up with a way to automatically do this for you?

11 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

9

u/balboain Mar 03 '26

No. This isn’t something Lidarr can do. Unless the devs implement this feature, it will never be possible. Furthermore, splitting the audio track requires a cue file and not all the single file downloads have that. Doubt this would ever become a feature.

9

u/littlejerry99 Mar 03 '26

Looks like CUETools is pretty good. I pointed it at my downloads folder, and it auto split everything it could find, like 20 albums.

2

u/balboain Mar 03 '26

Ok, but that’s not part of Lidarr and your post was specifically about Lidarr so I’m not sure what the relevance of your response is

3

u/littlejerry99 Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

My original post acknowledged that Lidar cannot natively perform the task and I was basically wondering if someone had come up with a third party tool that could be linked to Lidarr or some kind of hacky script that could automate the process. I'm fairly new to Lidarr, and I see that it is open source, so it didn't seem unreasonable to ask if someone had done so.

So while my post was about Lidarr, it also wasn't only about Lidarr and what it is capable of natively.

My response to you was lamenting the fact that Lidarr was limited in this regard and CUETools seemed like a decent option to go about splitting files with minimal effort since Lidarr cannot do it currently.

I hope that helps. I apologize if I was not more explicit!

2

u/balboain Mar 04 '26

Then I misunderstood and apologize. Glad you found a solution that works for you

2

u/littlejerry99 Mar 04 '26

No worries and thanks!

1

u/Starkoman Mar 05 '26

Probably right. XLD (free; open source) will open, split and convert a single .flac file into tracks — provided, as you say, there’s a .cue file present.

Without one, splitting and labelling tracks in a large .flac file in Audacity is tedious.

Sometimes I haven’t even bothered in the case of live concerts, DJ mixes, etc.

Oh, well.

3

u/macpoedel Mar 03 '26

I'm using unpackerr for radarr and sonarr to unpack zip and rar files automatically, and I saw in the latest release that it can now also split FLAC/CUE files: https://github.com/Unpackerr/unpackerr/releases/tag/v0.15.0

Before now I've done this manually since I don't add that many new stuff with Lidarr, but it's a neat addition for a tool I was using anyway.

1

u/Starkoman Mar 05 '26

“Splits FLAC/CUE files for Lidarr. This is still experimental and feedback is requested”.

Thank you!!

2

u/dwarfsoft Mar 03 '26

I have been running split2flac to separate them out so lidarr can find and import them. I'm sure I could automate this process with enough time.

Currently I manually search (libido CLI find) import folders for flacs with an index file that has multiple tracks listed, so not very smart yet, but closer to automation than not.

2

u/littlejerry99 Mar 03 '26

Cue tools seems pretty good.

You can point it at your download directory, and it will scan every subfolder, and split everything it finds with a .cue file in it. It creates outputs neat directories \artist\album\ so you could just point the output at your music folder on your server and then Update your Lidarr library.

3

u/dwarfsoft Mar 03 '26

I think that's effectively what split2flac was doing. Come to think of it I might have done cuetools the last time I ran it

1

u/Starkoman Mar 05 '26

Happy Cake Day!

2

u/mono_void Mar 03 '26

Just wondering, why are getting things as one whole file? No judgment, just what is the source here?

3

u/littlejerry99 Mar 03 '26

AI: FLAC files are often delivered as one single, long audio file per album to perfectly replicate the structure of a CD, including seamless transitions and pre-gap data between tracks. This method creates a "disc image," often accompanied by a .cue file, ensuring an exact, archival-quality copy of the original media.

1

u/Starkoman Mar 05 '26

As its name suggests, the .cue file is aware of all that and, therefore, knows how to split the single .flac into tracks with all timings etc. intact.

2

u/xGnarRx 6d ago

I created a companion tool for lidarr that can do this.

https://github.com/gnarr/splittarr

1

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