Copy random files

Martin Brinkmann
May 18, 2008
Updated • Dec 4, 2012
Software
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11

Mix2Stix was primarily designed to copy random mp3 files from the hard drive to an USB stick or mp3 player to ease the pain of selecting the music manually. It provides a one click solution with a few comfort functions which I will explain later in this article. The user has to set four parameters after program start that define the process.

He has to select the folder from which the files are copied - subfolders are automatically included in the process -, a destination drive or folder, a size that should be copied and the file extension. The first two are obvious while the latter two require a short explanation. Size defines the total size of all files that are copied. If you pick for instance 1000 Megabyte as the size and mp3 as the file extension mp3 files with a total size of about 1000 Megabytes will be copied, never more than that of course to avoid the dreaded disk is full message.

The file extension can be any file extension which means you can also copy avi files, documents, images or anything else that you can think of randomly to the folder or hard drive.It is furthermore possible to add additional file extensions with the ";" separator.

Two optional check boxes are available: Clear Destination Dir deletes all files in the destination dir so that it is empty before the copy begins. Replace Existing Files overwrites existing files without asking during the copying.

The configuration can be saved and loaded which is nice if you want to use the program every now and then to load new files on the device. It is even possible to use it once every day before going to school to start the day with a fresh random selection of your music.

Mix2Stix requires Java which has to be installed on the system. The source is included in the distribution.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on November 3, 2017 at 12:02 pm
    Reply

    This is perfect (except :) I can’t access mounted folders on my Mac. I have all my music in an external drive and I can’t “get” to those folders?

  2. Eric said on July 1, 2015 at 12:48 am
    Reply

    277GB of audio. 30,000+ files. 8GB thumb drive. Mix2Stix. Add about a 1,000 mp3s to the thumb drive in a few minutes. DONE.

    Listen for a few months in the car.

    Repeat.

    THANKS Martin.

  3. Kayla said on January 14, 2015 at 7:39 am
    Reply

    2015, and this application still works great. In this generation when any other mp3, player besides the iPod, is becoming obsolete, this is an important software c:

  4. Jess said on May 3, 2013 at 1:38 pm
    Reply

    What a great idea… thanks!

  5. Caleb Withers said on November 21, 2009 at 2:54 am
    Reply

    Thanks so much for bringing this program to light! 1000s of songs and a 2gb mp3 player are now harmoniously one!

  6. BADJAG said on November 13, 2009 at 8:35 am
    Reply

    Fantastic! This is EXACTLY what I was looking for! I’ve always wanted to choose what files to copy onto my portable player in a random manner, and Mix2Stix does this perfectly! Thanks for letting us know about this superb utility!

  7. Jan said on September 2, 2009 at 8:47 pm
    Reply

    Great app! I’ve tried quite a few but none of them worked with my music collection (20.000 mp3’s). This one is just 38kb and does exactly what I want, and nothing more. Thanks!

    1. John said on February 4, 2010 at 5:54 pm
      Reply

      38kb?? You’re forgetting 80 MB of java installation files on your harddrive.

      For those who are insterested, I made a php script which does the same thing:
      http://pastebin.com/f3e3d4428

      The only thing you have to do is download php, extract and do:
      php.exe bla.php

      And it will start to copy. It can be modified easily to work on linux as well.

  8. Tama said on February 23, 2009 at 3:47 pm
    Reply

    I’m using this software to randomize my MP3’s on a USB stick.

    step 1
    Mix2Stix from USB to work Dir (Clear Destination Dir)

    step 2
    Mix2Stix from work Dir to USB (Replace Existing Files)

    I would like to do it in one step.

    i.e. Source and Destination the same.

  9. Remko said on February 12, 2009 at 12:28 pm
    Reply

    Hi,

    Sounds great (just what I was looking for). I only mis one feature. That is give the copied files a random name (or number) so that when you press play on your MP3-player is plays the files in random order.

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