Safety And Undo

Audiobook Organizer is designed around preview-first workflows. The safest path is dry-run, review, execute, then keep the undo log until the library is verified.

Dry-Run Invariant

Dry-run mode must not mutate the filesystem:

audiobook-organizer --dir=/books/source --out=/books/organized --dry-run

audiobook-organizer rename --dir=/books/source --dry-run

Use dry-run output to inspect destination paths, skipped books, conflicts, and metadata warnings.

Organization Undo

Organization operations write .abook-org.log.

Undo from the same source directory:

audiobook-organizer --dir=/books/source --undo

Keep the log until you have verified the output folder and any Audiobookshelf scan results.

Rename Undo

Rename operations write .abook-rename.log.

Undo from the renamed directory:

audiobook-organizer rename --dir=/books/source --undo

Safer First Runs

1. Start with a small folder.
2. Use a separate --out directory.
3. Run with --dry-run --verbose.
4. Fix missing metadata before execution.
5. Run the real command.
6. Verify the output.
7. Keep the undo log until you no longer need rollback.

Riskier Options

Use these only after the preview is understood:

Option	Risk
In-place organization with no --out	Source folders change directly
--remove-empty	Empty source directories are removed after moves
Large recursive source directories	More skipped/error cases can be hidden in long output
Incorrect ABS path mapping	ABS metadata may point at paths the host cannot access

See Getting Started for a safe first-run command sequence.