Applications :: Understanding ITunes Music Folder Files
Nov 3, 2009
How to make sense out of the clutter that has become of my iTunes Music Folder? Please see the screenshot below. I am quite certain that there is abunch of archival /legacy files within this folder, as well as a bunch of stuff that doesn't really need to be in this folder any longer, and I would like to know what is what so that I can begin cleaning things up a bit. Also when I make backups of my iTunes Library (minus the audio/video files) which files are the ones that need to be backed up? and the expanded view:
I'm trying to bring all my music files from my Windows computer so I copied all my music files from my Windows computer to my external hard drive, and then copied from the external hard drive to my iTunes music folder in my new iMac. When I compared the info between my iTunes music folder, and the music files on my external hard drive, the iTunes music folder had more files. By looking through the files it looks like two extra files were added to each album folder....a "folder.jpg" file and a "AlbumArtSmall.jpg" file was created. I know that these are only pic files, but I didn't have those files when all my music files were on my Windows machine, how come they show up now? Are those two files necessary? Can I just delete those?
I have a WD external hard drive that I got for the holiday's last year.Here lately I've been using it as my iTunes library. A great way to free up some space on my Powerbook g4. Question is, why does iTunes keep changing my library folder after I'd already changed it when I initially set up the hard drive as my iTunes library destination?
Another question is how do I make sure that all my music files automatically go to the folder on the external hard drive when I download music. For example I may snag a free song from a website and will double click it after downloading and it plays in itunes. I want that file to be saved on my external hard drive as well (yes it's plugged up and plugged in).
I only have an 8g ipod so I have to constantly check and uncheck songs that I want to hear, so I want to be sure they are all in the same locale. And one way I know that certain files are on my internal and not external is when i unplug my external those files still play when they shouldn't unless it's plugged up.
i have a lovely imac g5 but when i switched on 90% of my files in itunes were 'unable to find...' when i looked for them in finder i couldnt find them either. i do not use 'itunes copy to library' but i have my files located internally and havent moved anything, ive tried repair disk and still no avail. is it itunes or something worse that has done this? im pretty miffed as you could imagine any solutions/ explanations?
I've downloaded mp3 files from various websites that give away free music. They download as zip files and once I unzip them, I move the folder to the "Music" folder. Then I import them into iTunes (File ---> Add to Library). I'd like to make the "Music" folder more organized. Right now I have the "iTunes" folder within the "Music" folder, in addition to SEVERAL folders I've added from the free music I've downloaded. Even though I've already added this music to iTunes, if I delete the folders within the "Music" folder, iTunes will no longer be able to play it because it will say it cannot find the source. I get this, but was hoping there was a way to get it into the iTunes folder (the way it gets loaded when you import a CD or buy a song online- it automatically goes there).
I have music files in both media folder and on another drive, not copied to media folder. I know I can highlight and delete individual and multiple files in iTunes. Time consuming.What i'd really like to do is tell iTunes I want it to only see the files in my media folder.I want undo what I did when I told it to bring these other files into the library.
I have music with correct IDE tags in a "Music Collection" folder, though they are all unorganized and in sub folders. These folders have names like "Other iTunes", "More Music", "New Music", etc. I would like to reorganize all this music into one iTunes folder. I have gone into preferences and tried checkmarking the boxes "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when to library". My iTunes Media folder is a fresh new folder in "My Music". When I check that exact location, I see none of my music has moved there. All I see is an empty "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder. All my files are still in the unorganized "Music Collection" folder.
What can I do to literally move all my unorganized music files from this folder to a completely fresh and new iTunes Media folder, all with very organized sub folders categorized by artist and/or album? My main goal is to make an organized and updated library, because I spent a good amount of time deleting duplicates that have not gone to the recycle bin (and it would take FOREVER to find all those duplicates and delete them permanently).
I finally ripped my music into digital format. It is a very large library so I performed the rips in four segments creating four folders of music. The highest level folders are Music1, Music2, Music3, Music4. The next layer folder is the artists name, then album name, then the actual MP3S.
How do I merge the folders? If I perform a copy the first artist name is sees that already is exists, the finder wants me to skip the copy or replace the folder that is there. I simply want to add the folder or merge it. Is there a "merge" function in OSX? I tried Carbon Copy but it will not copy or sync fils on the same disk.
I have my iTunes music on an external drive. I set the location of the iTunes Music Folder to the location on the external drive in Preferences. But next time I open iTunes, it's reset back to the location on the built-in HD where iTunes places the folder by default. External HD is sometimes disconnected (though not when I'm resetting it). Maybe if iTunes can't find the drive it reverts back? Powerbook G4, OSX 10.4.11, iTunes 7.7.1.
iTunes 8.1 just keeps bugging out on me. I set my iTunes Music Folder Location to a folder on my Time Capsule, but when i exit out and relaunch iTunes, the folder location is reset back to the default iTunes Music folder on my system drive! Why does this keep happening? Anyone else having this problem? I don't want to have to point my location back to the Time Capsule each time I load up iTunes.
A thing to note is however, is that my library file (and other misc itunes files) still remains in the iTunes folder on the system drive. Would that have anything to do with this?
I keep my iTunes Music Folder on an external 320gb HD. I'm about to move it to a 500gb HD. Rather than go through the steps of changing library location and then consolidating the library, can I just do this (all w/iTunes turned off):1. Copy entire iTunes folder, incl. Music folder and library.xml, etc. from old to new drive2. Disconnect old drive.3. Rename the new drive the same as the old drive.If the drive name, folder structure and file path are the same, will iTunes notice the difference between the two drives when I launch it? I'm on an MBP and, w/the simple OS X naming system, it seems like it shouldn't be a problem.
I was under the impression that you could just put new songs right into this folder and they would show up in iTunes. I added a bunch of music files (correct format of course) to this folder and they don't show up. I still have to use "Add to library" and browse to the actual folder and song for it to show up. What gives?
I have several thousand songs organized with a certain Artist/Album/Song structure. I also have uncategorized folders in my music folder with a bunch of random songs inside. Is there a way to sort the music list in iTunes by location, so I can choose all the songs in that folder to add to a playlist, or can I make a smart playlist that takes all the songs in the folder (and scans for new ones whenever)? If not, is there something else I can do to accomplish this?
I'm in the process of moving my iTunes folder to an external hard drive due to my computers hard drive being full. Now the external hard drive I'm using needs to be plugged in to a power source, now if I transfer all my music/movies to the external drive and also have my iTunes automatically download everything to the drive will I be able to copy my movie files back into my computers hard drive when I wan to be able to watch them on plane trips or would I be better off using a external hard drive that doesn't need a power source so I can just take it with me?
I have some sound effects that I have on my external hard drive that I want to listen to and add to my iTunes, but whenever I go to do that I get a message that says I don't have permission to write on my music folder. I am the only account on my Macbook Pro. I checked and I have the rights to read and write on my music folder. I don't know how to fix the problem. It also happens when I add music that I downloaded from the internet not iTunes. Sometimes with that I just have to hold option or command (I don't remember off the top of my head) and that'll let me copy the music into a folder that I created. How can I get permission to write into/onto my music folder for my Macbook Pro?
I had to move around my files recently so needed to change the location iTunes looked for them. I ran across a hack whereby you edit the iTunes Music Library.xml file and then intentionally corrupt the iTunes Library.itl file so that it reimports the next time you restart iTunes (I'm sure many of you may already be familiar with this hack).
It almost works. Problem is that it doesn't import all my files. I have over 10000 files but it only imports 6445 of them. I noticed that the original xml filesize is 16MB. After importing, it gets chopped down to 10MB. What the heck is happening here?
my music files are in a folder on an external hard drive. currently, itunes has lost track of the files and won't play the songs. it shows an exclamation point next to all the songs.
i have tried to re-select the proper folder in itunes advanced preferences, but to no avail.
I am a "sort-of" new iTunes user. I used to use it to play music without care of how to use it properly. Since I did not want to carry many CDs around, I copied all the CDs into the HD of my MBP. For simplicity, let's say I named the folder of the first and second CDs to be CD1, CD2. I don't remember how I stored the files. Either by drag and drop to the list when iTunes is launched or by some kind of import function from iTunes. The files in the iTunes folder do not seem to correspond to those shown on the iTunes list. My music files are all over the places. Some in the library folders and some seem to be in the playlist. Some of them seem to be in the unknown artist folder, etc. It is like a mess. As I just bought the IPT, I want to re-organize the files before syncing the music files from my MBP to the IPT. What is the best way to do in this case?
i had my entire iTunes library, about 150GB of music files, stored on an external hard drive that was starting act wonky. so i bought a new hard drive and copied all the music folders onto that new hard drive. but now iTunes doesn't recognize all those files in the new location. how do i reconnect my iTunes library to this new hard drive?
unfortunately, i've already deleted the old music files from the old hard drive so hopefully i don't need to do something with that.
In my iTunes folder User/Music/Itunes (I'm running Windows if that matters..*ducks*) I have tons of It .tmp files. Each one has a number next to the It - ex. It 5.tmp....I have 570 of these to be exact. it's safe to delete them?
When you consolidate your itunes library does it actually move all your files to one folder or does it just make a copy or reference them? Because my itunes media is scattered throughout my computer and an external hard drive and I'd like to move it all to one spot.
I'm using iTunes 9.2.1 and it states that my music library is 159.99gb with 25,994 songs, however the folder containing music files is 171.26gb with 30,309 files. This is a difference of 11.27gb and 4315 files. The folder only contains mp3 or m4a files with their respective album and band folders; no images, text files or anything else. The iTunes folder is located elsewhere. I added the folder to iTunes again to see if there were 11gb of songs I'd forgotten to add and there was no difference. I even deleted all iTunes settings and the current library and added the folder again and it is still missing 11.27gb.
I'm about 95% sure that none of my music collection is missing from iTunes so my first thought was that iTunes is just reading the file sizes and count inaccurately and it really is 171.26gb, but I'm not sure.
Can anyone think of a solution without going though my entire collection and comparing it to iTunes to see if anything is missing?
I have transferred my itunes music on to my external HD. The music is there and that is fine. I then deleted the old itunes folder from my actual HD. I have now wanted to access the music on the external HD, and have attempted to select the new music file location on the external HD via the itunes/preferences/advanced window,selected the new file path and it will just not show in itunes!
whenever i'm in finder and i double-click on a song to play it, when itunes opens the song it removes it from the folder it's in and puts it in a new one called music...this is getting VERY frustrating, as i have all my music neatly organized the way i want it...how can i get itunes to stop this? other than that, i'm very happy with my macbook pro, and definitely glad i switched over from pc...but this is an absolute killer
I am using a Mac Mini with OS X 10.7. I am having an issue with an external disk that was previously used as my main file source with an older Mac Mini. It seems there is a certain folder on the disk that I can't open or access that contains my lossless music files. When I look at the permissions it doesn't let me set them and also doesn't show "me", with the name I use to login to the system, as having access, or even showing up in the permissions on GetInfo.
I have a Lacie external hard disk that was originally formatted for PCs. I have some files there, but more importantly, my iTunes library is saved directly on the Lacie (I have everything on apple lossless, so they are some big files). I will keep using this PC while connected to the Lacie hard disk to syncro my iPod.
The problem is that I bought a mac now and I wanted the Lacie hard disk to be able to transfer files from mac to pc and vice versa. I have already read that I would have to copy the files that are on the Lacie, reformat the Lacie and then paste the files back. My only doubt is that if I do this reformatting, will I have any problems using the iTunes library while connected to my pc and iPod?
I just ask that because every time I changed any iTunes library folder on the computer, the iTunes would say that the music file couldn�t be found and ask me if I wanted to look for the file. I didn�t want to reformat the Lacie to later find out that I would have to �look for� every single music file, because that would be nearly impossible. I don�t know if I was able to make my question really clear�
