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I am running win8 x64 and have a windows phone 8 device connected by usb. The phone shows up in windows explorer and I moved two folders with subfolders with videos to Computer\Windows Phone\Phone\Videos When I open the video app on my Phone. It lists all videos but just as a long list. So the folder structure is not preserved.

Can I bundle videos in albums/folders on Windows Phone 8?

I don't have the gdr2 update (yet)

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  • The orders videos based on it's own sorting, it doesn't take into account the folder structure you use on the card - both with music and videos. – Neil Turner Aug 8 '13 at 12:23
  • ok, because I have 10 folders containing 1.wmv and it looks like it is listed by alphabet. So I have no overview which 2.wmv is a follow up of 1.wmv – JP Hellemons Aug 8 '13 at 12:30
  • I think the only way of ordering the videos is to give them proper names, and the phone will list them alphabetically - or 1-1.wmv, 1-2.wmv, etc – Neil Turner Aug 9 '13 at 14:28
  • I have moved them to skydrive, so that I can use the skydrive app to navigate through the directories. I am thinking about making a custom video app, or wait for gdr2 or 3 or something. – JP Hellemons Aug 10 '13 at 15:23
  • I doubt GDR2 or GDR3 will help much - the system will always index files based filename, it won't (and doesn't need to) display folders in the file system. – Neil Turner Aug 10 '13 at 15:30
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To be able to explain what is happening, allow me to go in to a little bit of background as to how Windows Phone handles media files.

When you drag and drop files from your computer on to the phone, while it may appear that you are creating an identical structure on your phone, there is in fact more processing taking place in the background. When you connect your phone to the computer, it is not mounted as simple external storage. It is instead mounted as an MTP device.

When you move a bunch of files on to the phone, for each file, the phone automatically creates a metadata file in a hidden folder.

When you try to view/play the media files on your phone, the phone actually looks for the metadata files that link to the actual media files. The metadata files have no directory structure and hence you see your media appear as one long list.

So the answer to your question is: no, you cannot create your own directory structure for media files. Your best bet is to use Playlists (as suggested by @NeilTurner).

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  • Thanks for your explanation. I was wondering if it would be possible for microsoft to add in gdr3 or wp8.1 or something, the virtual path as metadata to simulate folders? that would make it easier to navigate. – JP Hellemons Oct 21 '13 at 7:25
  • The hope is that Windows 8 will continue to get updates for a long time to come. Feel free to add your suggestion here: windowsphone.uservoice.com – karancan Oct 21 '13 at 16:14
  • There are a lot of feature request in there which are available in gdr2 and will be in gdr3. And there are double requests in too. I believe that microsoft has to clean up the uservoice page. – JP Hellemons Oct 22 '13 at 8:45

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