Small, lightweight Alpine based Beets container.

To generate the initial config.yaml in /opt/appdata/beets (can be changed as needed), run the following:

docker run --rm -it \
  -v /opt/appdata/beets:/config \
  -v <path/to/music>:/music \
  -v /mnt/snap/disk1/Ogg:/convert \
  --entrypoint="/bin/sh" \
  oscarcarlsson/beets -c init_config.sh

Edit /opt/appdata/beets/config.yaml as needed with reference to the Beets Configuration Reference.

For the below examples, </path/to/music> is the final location where your music is kept. Run with:

docker run --rm -it \
  -v /opt/appdata/beets:/config \
  -v <path/to/music>:/music \
  -v /mnt/snap/disk1/Ogg:/convert \
  -v $(pwd):/working \
  oscarcarlsson/beets <beets command>

Where is any command detailed in the Beets CLI Reference.

For example to import a folder:

docker run --rm -it \
  -v /opt/appdata/beets:/config \
  -v <path/to/music>:/music \
  -v /mnt/snap/disk1/Ogg:/convert \
  -v $(pwd):/working \
  oscarcarlsson/beets import <folder in current directory>

Add the following alias to .bashrc (or equivalent):

alias beet='docker run --rm -it -v /opt/appdata/beets:/config -v <path/to/music>:/music -v /mnt/snap/disk1/Ogg:/convert -v $(pwd):/working oscarcarlsson/beets'

To now import the same folder:

beet import <folder in current directory>

Each time the above command is run, it starts up a new container, runs the command and then removes the container. This has a slight amount of overhead, and is generally not noticeable if you are importing a bulk folder at one time.

It is possible to enter the container interactively in order to quickly run a number of commands without the overhead of starting the container each time:

docker run --rm -it \
  -v /opt/appdata/beets:/config \
  -v /mnt/snap/disk1/Music:/music \
  -v /mnt/snap/disk1/Ogg:/convert \
  -v $(pwd):/working \
  --entrypoint="/bin/sh" \
  oscarcarlsson/beets

Once in the container, run Beets by: beet <command>

Configure the plugin to use your preferred (lossy) format, and then use beet convert * to convert your entire library. Make sure you have mounted your /convert volume somewhere before attempting thin.

Since the container is not running other than when explicitly called, updating is simply a matter of:

docker pull oscarcarlsson/beets

The image on docker hub will generally be kept at the latest version.