Is there a way to limit how many files can convert do at the same time?

[carks32]

I'm trying to run beets on a server where I have limited cpu usage but a bunch of cores and threads. Is there a way to limit how many files the convert command picks up? Mainly because it goes really slow once it picks up anything more than 15 files lol.

[Hikari-Tsai]

Yes. Set convert.threads, or use the command-line option for a one-off run. The default is the number of detected CPUs, which explains why it starts many encoders at once.

For example, to allow only three concurrent conversions:

convert:
  threads: 3

or:

beet convert --threads 3 <query>

This limits the number of parallel conversion workers, not the total number of files selected. If the server has a strict CPU quota, start with 1 or 2; adding more workers can reduce throughput when the encoders are already CPU-bound.