Can I do this?

[oldius]

Batch convert my full music library but get the system to overwrite the original file?
I am short of space and currently have about 20,000 AIFF audio tracks. I am considering overwriting them with FLAC files that, I believe, take less space. I also want to preserve the audio quality so some advice on that would be very welcome.

[garym]

Re: Can I do this?

Yes, in your Convert step to FLAC, use the "Delete Source File" DSP. This will delete the original file after the conversion.

https://www.dbpoweramp.com/Help/dMC/dsp.htm

And yes, FLAC is lossless so the FLAC audio is equal to the AIFF audio, but the file size is smaller. You should do some testing first with a few of the AIFF albums to make sure the metadata tags, artwork, etc. all moves over as you expect for the new FLAC files.

p.s. I advise against this, but then again I assume if something bad can happen, it will. My advice is to acquire a small USB external drive (they have gotten pretty cheap), and convert the AIFF files to FLAC on that drive, saving the AIFF files until you're done with everything and have checked out the results (including running "convert" to [TEST CONVERSION] on the new FLAC files to insure that none are corrupted. Once you're all done, you can delete the AIFF files. But you really need to have a backup of the FLAC files on a separate hdd anyhow, so you can use the new USB drive for backup as well.

[oldius]

Re: Can I do this?

That's very helpful, thank you.