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Your Library and Folders

What This Solves

As soon as you start using Aelano, the videos you import, the audio you upload, and the channels you subscribe to keep piling up. If everything sits in one flat pile, you will not be able to find anything after a while, let alone study by topic. Aelano’s library lets you organize study content the way you organize files: create folders, create subfolders inside them, move content in, sort by date or by name, and select a batch of items to act on together when you need to.

Situations where this helps:

  • Organizing by language: separate “Japanese” and “German” folders
  • Organizing by topic: “BBC documentaries”, “TED talks”, “Everyday conversation”
  • Organizing by stage: “Studying now”, “Finished”, “Want to study”
  • Organizing by where content came from: “YouTube”, “Podcasts”, “My own recordings”

Where to Find Your Library

Once you are in Aelano, the Home page is your library. The top level shows everything you added recently along with all the folders you have created. Tap into any folder and you see what is inside it — which can be other folders, transcribed content, or channels you subscribed to.

What Can Go in the Library

An Aelano library holds three kinds of things, mixed together:

  • Folders: containers you create yourself to categorize things, and they can be nested
  • Transcribed content: single videos, audio, and subtitles that you can open and study directly
  • Subscribed channels: YouTube channels, podcasts, and other content sources you subscribed to, which keep getting new episodes

All three can live in the same folder at once.

How to Use It

1. Create a folder

Go into your library or into a folder, tap the “New Folder” button in the top bar, and enter a folder name (it cannot be empty). The new folder appears at the level you are currently in, and you can nest folders as deep as you like (a folder inside a folder).

2. Put content into a folder

There are two ways:

  • Enter multi-select mode → move: tap the “Multi-select” button in the top bar, tick the content you want to move, then tap “Move to” at the bottom and choose the destination folder
  • Choose the destination folder while importing: tap upload or import from inside a folder, and newly imported content lands in that folder directly

3. Long-press to open the action menu

Long-press any folder or piece of content to bring up the action menu. The common actions:

  • Rename: change a folder name or a content title
  • Remove / Delete: take it out of your library
    • Deleting a folder also deletes the transcripts inside it, this cannot be undone, and Aelano asks you to confirm

4. Multi-select and batch actions

Tap the “Multi-select” button in the top bar. Once you are in multi-select mode:

  • Tick several items
  • An action bar appears at the bottom: Move to / Delete Selected
  • Multi-select mode exits automatically once the action is done

Content that is still transcribing (RUNNING status) cannot be selected — you have to wait for transcription to finish.

5. Set the sort order

Each folder can have its own sort order. Tap the sort button in the top bar and choose:

  • Smart sort (default): sorts automatically by the content’s “effective time”, with the most recently updated first
  • By upload time, newest first
  • By upload time, oldest first
  • By name, A–Z
  • By name, Z–A

Each folder remembers its sort preference, so it is in the same order the next time you come back.

A Few Practical Tips

  • Create your categories before importing a lot: if you already know you will organize by “language” or by “topic”, it helps to create the top-level folders first (such as “Japanese”, “German”, “English”) and then go into the matching folder each time you import, which saves you from organizing later.
  • Use nested folders for long-term projects: for example, “Japanese > N1 prep > Reading” and “Japanese > Everyday > Podcasts”. Aelano does not limit how deep you can nest, but very deep nesting also gets hard to navigate — three levels is usually enough.
  • You can put subscribed channels in folders too: select a channel in multi-select mode and move it into the folder you want. A channel inside a folder still pulls in new episodes automatically.
  • Not sure whether to delete? Move it to a “To clean up” folder first: deleting cannot be undone, so creating a “To clean up” folder as a holding area and deciding later is safer than deleting outright.

Common Questions

How many levels can folders be nested?

There is no hard limit. Staying within three levels is a good idea — any deeper and things get hard to find.

Why can I not select some items in multi-select mode?

Content that is still transcribing is filtered out automatically and cannot be selected. Once it finishes transcribing (and plays normally in your library), you can select it.

What happens when I delete a folder?

The folder itself is deleted, and the transcribed content inside it is deleted along with it, including its playback history and study records. Aelano asks you to confirm, so read the prompt carefully before confirming. If you only want to move content out, use “Move to” rather than “Delete”.

What do I do if a move fails?

It is usually a network hiccup. Leaving multi-select mode and trying once more normally fixes it. If it keeps failing, let us know.

Does this sync across devices?

Yes. Your library structure, folders, and where content belongs all sync under your account. Organizing on one device shows up when you open another.

Where did the old “Collections” go?

The old collections have been upgraded into the new library system. Collections you created before are migrated automatically into top-level folders, and their contents are unchanged. The new system supports nesting, mixed item types, and persistent sorting, which makes it more flexible than the old one.

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