Applications :: Itunes Library Bloated With Clones
Nov 16, 2010
I have a fairly large music collection consisting of ripped CDs (wma and mp3), downloaded albums and singles (from itunes and other sites), my own recorded music, podcasts...you name it. I've used itunes on a number of PCs and now have it on my new imac. I want to gather everything together in one place.
I've also gone through the process of backing up my collection in a rather haphazard manner, which has meant that when I gathered all my mp3s from various places, there were many cloned folders and files all over the place. I seem to have about 4 or 5 different folders called "itunes". Also, due to the fact that itunes consolidates your collection by copying some files, there are even more duplicates kicking around.
The result is, that I now have an mp3 library of around 260gb of files, and probably about 200gb of that is made up of duplicate files...................
Am I the only one who feels that iTunes has become far too bloated and heavy on system resources for such a simple task as......playing mp3s? Theres no reason for iTunes to be taking up 70+ mb of ram. And why is still called 'iTunes' when its more of a media central application, seeing how it combines iphones, ipods, apple TV, ringtones, tv episodes, etc. Its become way too broad to be called iTunes.
This is one thing that bugs me. Some of us prefer not to use such a proprietary based digital audio player like the ipod/iphones and have more common sense by using UMS based players which dont require software, and therefor have no need for all the extra features of it. And seeing how theres really only itunes for mac thats worthy of being used, im pretty much stuck on iTunes. Basically, I *ONLY* use iTunes for mp3 playback on my mac. If this was the case on windows side, I'd have a plethora of choices (im expecting blind apple sheep to start screaming at me for that one). Each time I setup iTunes with a new installation or new login account, i turn off ALLLL the features. The only one that stays is internet radio.
Basically: iTunes has become far too bloated and broad. There should be something lighter for such a common, simple, everyday used task as playing mp3s.
I freaking hate iTunes. Programs for simple tasks like uploading music onto devices should be efficently coded, not resource hogs that are incredibly unintuitive and needlessly complicated. Why can't we just drag and drop music and videos directly onto our phone like we can with just about every other media player? I already have all of my music organized just as I want it on my computer. Just let me drag the folders I want directly into the iPhone without having to bother with a 100mb download that runs like crap.
There's absolutely no excuse why such a simple function needs such a complicated program. Quote:..................
am new to this and have a new iPhone I was wonder if I can get a simple question answer i tried Google and there seems to be a bunch of ways to do what I?m looking for.So I want to take my friends iTunes library (5300+ songs) and transfer them to my library ( 2000+ songs ) and then once that is done I want to be able to put them on my iPhone / ipod 32g ( 32g 3gs black can anyone tell me how and keep in mind I want to kiss (keep it simple st#$id )
Hopefully someone will have the answer as I have searched high and low on this one. I have moved ALL my iTunes content (music, videos etc) to the Shared Music folder on my new WD MyBook World Edition 2 (just in case that's relevant info) and everytime my Mac attempts to load iTunes I have to repeatedly direct it to the library.xml file in the Shared Music folder.Surely there's a proper solution for this? Anyone else out there had this experience and has figured it out.I've noticed that it does this only the first time I open iTunes up, any subsequent bootup within a session is fine, but any restart of my Macbook Pro and I have to repeat this.
I loved the Genius Recommendation Panel on iTunes 9 and found lots of new songs and artists when using itI cannot believe Apple removed it from iTunes 10 and replaced it with a social networking site with the awful title "Ping" So I replaced iTunes 9 last night, only to find that it wouldn't accept my iTunes library. I managed to reload the songs, but I have lost all my playlists, star ratings, play counts, etc. Its all gone.
My iTunes library has apparently filled my entire iMac (according to the computer I have over 97 days' worth of music). I would like to know 1) how to properly save my iTunes library to an external hard drive and 2) how to use iTunes so that it uses the library on the external drive.
basically all my iTunes music is stored on my Mac Mini, I want to be able to access it all on my iBook so that it is still playing through my Mac Mini but I control it with the iBook. I am using Chicken of the VNC so far and would prefer something that doesn't use a VNC (Such as ARD, etc) and also something that doesnt use a browser window. I have tried netTunes, but really thats all that does as well, gives you a VNC view of iTunes. Also I have tried TuneConnect (Which is really what I'm looking for, but that crashes when I try to access the Mac Mini Library) Does anyone know a better way or doing it, or basically something like TuneConnect that I can try?
I don't know whether this can actually do any harm, but it's strange anyway. In my iTunes library, some music files are listed by iTunes as AAC files while others are listed as MPEG files. When I go to home/music/itunes/itunes music, and look at the files there, the same files that are AAC's in iTunes are listed listed as being m4a and the MPEG's are mp3's. Now, I guess that the difference is that iTunes just shows the container format, so that might be normal (?), but why do I have both mp3 and m4a in my library. Around half of my albums are one type, half the other, and all songs in one album are the same type.
I want to backup my itunes library, but it says that I need to install a blank disk. Is there a way to backup the library to an external harddrive instead?
EDIT: I tried this... please tell me if this was the correct thing to do. I basically just went to Finder > Music > iTunes and dragged that whole "iTunes" folder to my external harddrive that was plugged in... and its copying it now
In my ~/Music folder resides two huge folders for iTunes. I'm sure this came about when I reinstalled Snow Leopard some time ago, I didn't realize the transfer didn't happen correctly at the time. One is called iTunes (296 gigs, last opened on Aug 31 and modified today) which seems to be my current folder used by iTunes 10. The other is called iTunes Media (252 gigs, last opened July 30 and last modified on the same date). I'm noticing in here however, files (such as Voice Memos) that are NOT in the first folder I mentioned above. I've probably tons of duplicates here, but what is not a duplicate I'd like to send into the correct place - and then kill the huge unneeded folder! How can I verify where iTunes looks for all of it's data? Music, videos, books, etc. Any suggestions as to how I could merge these?
I'm just got my new iMac and started moving my iTunes library from my PC to Mac.
This is how I did it.
My iTunes library is already organised in my PC, i.e. all music in the iTunes folder.
So I just copied the my entire iTunes folder onto an external hard drive and then to my mac.
Then I use the "add to library" function on itunes so my mac can organise all my music.
The "keep itunes music folder organised" and "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library" check boxes are ticked on both my PC and Mac.
I look at my itunes library on my mac. Everything is good with artists and albums and song names looking good and organised. My playlists and other data is missing - no big deal, since I can make new playlists (BUT if anyone can tell me how I can get my old playlists and data on to Mac iTunes that would be great). However, the biggest problem is that all the .wav files have lost their artist and album names! How can I get these back?
I have the vast majority of my iTunes library on a NAS device. When I first got my MBP I set the library's location to the folder that I had moved off one of the desktops to the NAS. Everything works fine.
However, it seems that the library location will reset itself to the local location on the MBP (possibly whenever I run iTunes when I'm not on this network). So, if I add files to the iTunes when I'm not on this network, they get placed into the local library.
I have my iTunes Library saved on an external hard drive and setup that way in iTunes, all my movies, music is saved in that library. However, all my applications are saved in an iTunes library located in my music folder that saved on the internal hard drive. I leave the external running 24/7 and didn't have an internal library at all before getting my iPod Touch and downloading apps.
I see that this has been asked a few times (albeit a long time ago), but there's never really been a definitive answer.I have just switched to Mac and I used to use a program called iTLU on the PC which would automatically update my iTunes library (remove tracks that have been deleted from the hard drive and add tracks that are new).
My cousin is trying to move her library from her desktop PC to her laptop PC. She used the itunes backup tool to transfer her library. She authorized her laptop to play her itunes store music and videos, but if she tries to play one of those protected files on the laptop it says she is not authorized to play it.
I went out and bought a Drobo and threw 4, 500gb drives in it to host my media and Time Machine back ups for the house. I put that Drobo on my AEBS and share it over my network. It works very nicely.
However, when I go to work, I still want the same performance that I have at the house and afp is not giving me that performance. Choppy video and audio cut-outs are not gonna work. I have my entire iTunes library on the Drobo.
So with portability in mind, I went out and picked up a 500gb WD My Passport drive. Plugged it into my Mac and started copying my iTunes library to the WD. Call me an idiot because I didnt bother to format the drive, I left it at FAT32. I actually did this on purpose because I also want to be able to bring the WD to a friends house or work and share my iTunes library with anyone.
So, I successfully copy over all 200gbs of my iTunes library and change the drive location in iTunes to my new WD. All is well. iTunes is much more responsive as well.
Onto my question, how can I keep a copy of this drive? I buy and upload a lot of music so I can see this being an issue. I would love if Time Machine could somehow do it but it doesnt allow me to back up the drive. Should I just periodically copy and paste the entire drive to my Drobo? I still have a copy of the library on my Drobo for a backup, but I want to keep that copy as current as possible.
Out of the box, iTunes lets you share your library with up to 5 client computers. However, 5 is the max.
I need to share my iTunes library (or a music library set up in some other way) with up to 9 clients on a local network. Does anyone know of client/server software that will let me do that? I'm pretty techy, and can work at the terminal level, etc., so it doesn't have to be an off-the-shelf solution.
I thought I'd heard of people doing this, and done a fair amount of searching, but haven't been able to find anything suitable.
Constraints:
All computers are running 10.4.11.
Right now, we don't have internet access, and may not have it any time soon (I know, I know, it's the dark ages, but I'm having to deal with bureaucracy and privacy issues). So, something like SimplifyMedia probably won't work - it seems to be dependent on internet access.
We add music fairly often, and the person who adds music is not techy, so adding tunes/updating what the clients see is either automatic, or at least easy. And, changes need to be seen by the clients immediately, or at least quickly.
I can potentially set up a file share, though this isn't ideal. Has anyone shared an iTunes library this way?
Looks like I'm going to have to use a work supplied PC for my next contract. There's no way around it. How do I go about transferring my iTunes library (40GB music, 100GB movies) onto the new machine?
I have a 300+ gig iTunes library stored on an external HD. My G4 Powerbook plays from that library all the time. I just got a new iMac, and want to use the same library, preserving playcounts, playlists, artwork, date added, etc. I know this is possible, but I'm not sure how. The last time I moved my library from a 250G external to a 500G, I got the library all messed up, ended up with the files being there, but lost all of the data I referenced above (playlists, dates, etc). I'd like to avoid doing that again. If it matters my Powerbook runs Mac OS X, version 10.4.11, while the new iMac has Snow Leopard.
I've been struggling with this issue for a while. I'll perfect my iTunes library, then for one of a laundry list of reasons, lose the perfection I have attained (Album art, names, etc.)
Is there any way I can make the attributes of my current iTunes library permanent?
Would just 'Consolidate Library' work? Note: must also save album art and such.
Currently, I have all of my media in one iTunes library. This includes 40+ movies, 3000 songs, music videos and podcasts. I also have lots of apps for my iPhone. I have an iPhone 3GS, iPod nano, and Apple TV connected to this library. The files and library are stored on an external hard drive as I don't have the space for this on my uMBP. I would like to split the library (saving all my metadata and album art so that I don't need to redo this) into two. One library will remain on the external hard drive and contain all the movies, whilst the other will have all my music on it. The first library will be used to stream movies to my Apple TV, whilst the other (in the MBP HD) will be used to sync music/apps/photos to my iPhone/iPod nano.
However, at the moment I also have all of my music synced onto my Apple TV, and if I split the library with one containing just movies, all the music will be removed from the Apple TV and I won't be able to keep it up to date with any new albums I put into the iPhone/iPod library. Basically I would like the convenience of having all my music (but not movies) on my MBP hard drive so that I can sync my iPhone without having to connect to the external drive. At the same time, I can't be bothered managing music on two libraries to keep my Apple TV library synchronised with my iPhone library.
I'm looking to buy a powerbook, and I'm wondering if there is some easy way to transfer all my existing music files, as well as my playlists, ratings, etc.. from my powermac (MDD) to my new machine. I'm guessing there must be some simple way to do it with an ethernet or firewire cable.
