What are the default crates and what are they for?

When you first install Crates, you’ll see a set of “default crates” on the left side panel under “crates” tab.
Each one has a specific role to help you organize your music.

Inbox
That’s your holding area for all new, unsorted music in your installation. This could be freshly downloaded files or folders with music that still needs attention – listening (to decide if you’ll keep it), tagging, renaming, etc. Just like your email inbox, it’s the place you go through before moving things where they belong. It’s essentially your “new music” folder.

Online Saves
Music you save from the web. Tunes or releases added through the Crates Browser Extension, or via the “Search Online” feature will go here by default.

Collection
The precious core of your library – where your properly sorted and organized music lives. Inside Collection you’ll find:

• Tunes – a suggested sub-crate for individual tracks.

• Releases – the suggested sub-crate for full albums or EPs. Can be folders or simply “virtual” crates (e.g. Bandcamp releases)

• Vinyl – a “smart crate” example, automatically pulling in anything tagged as “vinyl”

DJ Library
An optional crate, but handy if you DJ. Add only the tracks you actually want to DJ with (e.g. high-quality or lossless files), while keeping the rest of the keepers in your main Collection. This way your gig-ready tunes stay separate from the ones you keep for home listening. Benefits include narrowing searches when preparing a mix, making smaller backups, and exporting directly to DJ Performance software (e.g Rekordbox).

Playlists
Where all playlists you create are stored.

• Play Queue – a special playlist that holds what you’ve queued to play next.

Online Libraries
Mirrors your music from online services – YouTube, Discogs, SoundCloud, Apple Music, Spotify, etc. These crates reflect what’s in those services, but you can right-click to add items to your Collection if you want to include them.
Don’t want to see a crate? Right-click → Actions → Hide. You can always restore hidden crates later in Settings → Collection → Hidden Crates.

Apple Music / iTunes
If you import your iTunes collection, it appears here. It’s separated from Apple Music so users without streaming accounts can still keep iTunes-only libraries.

Archive
For music you don’t want in your main Collection anymore, but don’t want to delete either. Suited for old downloads to be stored on external hard drives,  NAS etc.
Tip: You can send items here directly from Inbox instead of moving them into Collection by right clicking -> “Move to archive”

Listening History
A read-only crate that shows your past listening, grouped by day, so you can revisit what you’ve played.