How to create a new database
All My Movies keeps a collection in a single file with the extension
.amm. Everything is in there: the movie cards, the people, the
covers and the screenshots. Copy that one file and you have copied the whole
collection.
On the very first run the program creates an empty collection for you, My movies.amm in the program's data folder (usually C:\ProgramData\AllMyMovies), and shows a start page with the ways to fill it: scan a folder with video files, add a movie by its title, scan barcodes, add a DVD from the drive, import from Excel or from another program. A link on the same page opens the sample database if you would rather look around first.
A collection of your own, with a name and a place you choose, can be created at any time:
- Choose or press Ctrl+N.
- Pick a folder and a name — My Movies.amm is fine. Put it somewhere you back up.
- Click Save. The new collection opens, empty, and the main window offers the ways to fill it.
Two things to avoid. Do not keep the working database inside a folder that OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive synchronizes: while the file is open the sync client can upload a half-written copy or lock it for a moment, which causes random errors. Keep the database local and let the cloud hold the backup copies instead. And do not keep your movies in SAMPLE.AMM — the sample database of ninety films is there to look around in; your own collection belongs in a file of its own.
The database engine comes from Windows and cannot handle a path with characters that are not in the current Windows language for non-Unicode programs. If the program refuses to create the file, use Latin letters in the folder and file name.
More about database files, and about keeping several of them, is in Creating a new database.
Free to try. Catalog up to 100 movies at no cost, forever.