Can you make iTunes automatically add new songs in a given folder?

Should be no problem with an Applescript. Maybe even Automator would work.

Do you really get SO much that simply dragging it in from whatever folder you downloaded it to is inconvenient?

Anyway, there's no in-iTunes solution. You'd need to script something.

Might this help as a starting point?

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts04.php?page=3#downloadstoitunes

B

Let's be honest, one solution is to stop getting your music from p2p networks.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again—and I mean no personal offense: but someday, like people who could not adjust to the "horse to internal combustion engine" transition, those Luddites who can't let go of outmoded, inflexible, manual folder-organization will soon be similarly mocked for their stubborn refusal to change to a more flexible, convenient, and powerful system based on metadata.

METADATA FOREVER!

i second that
if you have a piece of software that organizes everything for you,
why be stubborn and say that you want it your way?
just import your new files to your itunes library and then delete them
easy as that

sk3pt1c said:

i second that
if you have a piece of software that organizes everything for you,
why be stubborn and say that you want it your way?

Click to expand...

Heh ... a bit like my mate who didn't want his iMac saving his documents in the "Documents" folder.

WTF?

Cheers!

Jim

BiikeMike said:

I'VE said it before and I'LL say it again, It is absolutely stupid to have a folder called KLSJJKH.....

Click to expand...

iTunes uses an Artist/Album structure on the PC/Mac, so I don't know what you are talking about, and there's no need for expletives. Bypassing the profanity filter is an offense here...

Yes, the DB on the iPod is cryptic, but you don't fix that by having your own structure on the PC/Mac. Perhaps you should consider Rockbox?

B

BiikeMike said:

Well, you do it your way, I'll do it my way.

( ... snip ... )

I DON'T LIKE ITUNES! I do other things with my music that don't involve iTunes, and need to be able to find my stuff.

The only reason I use iTunes is because I have an iPod, and don't even get me started on that thing. If it's MY music, I should be able to get it on and off of my personal player as needed. NOT a one way operation!

So, it was a simple question, and there was a simple answer, no. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Right ...

First: Finding your stuff shouldn't be difficult ... surely Spotlight will find it for you?

Second: if you enable disk use on your iPod can you not just drag and drop MP3 files onto it without using iTunes? If not, then there are several shareware hacks that allow you to manage the content of your iPod without using iTunes.

Third: I'm absolutely certain that you can override iTunes default directories for music files in Preferences and keep your music elsewhere.

Although, like some other posters, I'm not sure what objection you have iTunes (really rather tidy) habit of placing tracks in a folder with the album name, inside another folder with the artist name. Each to their own, though!

Cheers

Jim

If most of it is coming from P2P networks then it won't be tagged. Is that the problem? If most of what you have is in the form of unpurchased music, then it'll likely be badly (if at all) tagged. Or, if like me you rip outside of iTunes then you come across a similar problem, except everything is properly tagged.

I've found no really good solutions to an auto-import on startup, and instead turned to a music management software which has the power and flexibility to work the way I want it to. However it's Windows-only, there are no tools anywhere near it on the Mac and I guarantee that booting into Boot Camp or Parallels to manage your music will drive you bananas in short order if you try to do it on a Mac.

As the guy above said, Rockbox is an acceptable if rather hokey option of converting your iPod to drag & drop. There are other options: iRiver and iAudio players are drag & drop or can be switched into drag & drop mode, so that you can dispense with iTunes.

But maybe if the tagging is an issue it may be better spending some time tagging your music, or editing the tags on your music before you add it to iTunes.

BiikeMike said:

Well, you do it your way, I'll do it my way.

I'VE said it before and I'LL say it again, It is absolutely stupid to have a folder called KLSJJKH and inside that have another one called KLSDHJF(&WYERH and inside that have another one called LDHJSF&$JH and inside that have another one called KLJDHF&$H and then have a bunch of songs calld HWERF&, SDLKFJ*$, S:LDFJ)#, SDJF& and SDKFH. That makes it impossible to find what you need in the finder. "Why do you need to find music files in the finder? just do everything through iTunes" I DON'T LIKE ITUNES! I do other things with my music that don't involve iTunes, and need to be able to find my stuff.

The only reason I use iTunes is because I have an iPod, and don't even get me started on that thing. If it's MY music, I should be able to get it on and off of my personal player as needed. NOT a one way operation!

So, it was a simple question, and there was a simple answer, no. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Wow, get over yourself man, and if you don't want duplicates of your songs just go to advanced and unclick the selection that says copy music to itunes folder. Also make sure not to move those folders around or iTunes wont be able to find the tracks without you finding them yourself. If you want to add new songs to itunes automatically I am sure you could write something in automator. (Confused why you have a mac pro if you don't know how to do anything)

You should be able to do it with AppleScript and Folder Actions. I don't know more than that though, sorry. It's a shame there's no good music player for OS X.

Folder Actions

Folder Actions with iTunes.

That might come in useful. Thanks Doug.

another possible solution...

Hey I don't know if itunes has rectified this problem since this thread, if so sorry about refreshing this topic.

Like the OP, I was very annoyed about having to remember to add songs to itunes manually right after download or else put up with those irksome duplicates by re-importing the folder. A "smart folder" is really a feature that itunes should support natively (i.e something that recognizes new media added to a folder and adds it to some specified playlist). Doug's applescript solution is probably the most elegant, but for those of you have an aversion to code you can also create itunes "smart folders" with Automator.

Automator should be preinstalled in most OSX builds. Just go to your applications folder if it isn't already on your dock.

Basically, I have Automator select all the music in various folders that I download music into. These songs are imported into itunes into playlists that reflect where I obtained them from (npr, .mp3 blogs, creative commons, friends, ect). After they are imported I move these songs into a different location under a "Automated music" folder, so that they will not be added to itunes again. Having two folders, one temporary and one permanent, is definitely not an elegant solution, and it takes some time and effort to set up, but it works fine for me.

Here are the step-by-step instructions if you want to do this:
1) Open automator. It should be on your dock or in your applications folder. It think it's pre-installed on all osx macs.
2) On the first screen keep the selection on "custom" and hit the "choose" button.
3) In the left hand column under "Library" select "Files and Folders"
4) In the next column double-click "Get Specified Finder items"
5) A "Get Specified Finder Items" pane should open on the main screen.
6) Click the "Add" button on this screen and select the folder that you download music into
7) Now from the second column from the left double-click on the "Get Folder Contents" action.
8) I wouldn't click on the "Repeat for all each subfolder found" checkbox unless you want all the subfolders to be put into the same permanent folder.
9) Now on the left-most column click on "music" then in the next column dobule-click on "Import Files into iTunes"
10) On this action pane you can adjust the settings to have the selected music files put into whatever playlist you want
11) Almost done. Now you need to create a folder where these imported songs can be moved to so they will not be imported again. This can be a subfolder of the folder you just imported music from or anywhere else you want to store your songs.
12) In the leftmost column click on "Files and Folders" then in the next column click on "Move Finder Items"
13) In this pane select the new folder you just created
14) Now simply save this series of steps that you have created (which is called a "workflow" file). Go to file and click save-as. Note: I created a separate "automator workflows" folder in Music to store these files

It's pretty simple after you've done these steps to repeat for all of your music folders. Simply create permanent folders for them wherever you would like then change the "get specified finder items" and "move finder items" accordingly. Also, if you like putting music into playlists based on their source (like I do) then also change the playlist destination accordingly. Make sure to do a separate save-as for each "smart folder" you want to create.

Now you can import new files into itunes whenever you want. Just open automator, open the workflows (apple-o) and run them (apple-r). Cheers!

Wow...

A guy walks into a forum asking for a solution to, what should not be a difficult task, and everyone answers that he is 1) wrong for asking, 2) obviously pirating music (and this isn't a forum for philosophical complications of p2p sharing) and 3) dumb for suggesting that itunes is in anyway infallible and not the best damn engineered program out there.
For starters Itunes is good, but it's not amazing. It might be the best damn player out there, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.
For those who told the OP to get over himself, everyone in this damn forum needs to get over themselves. I came browsing for the same answer to the question he did, and all i found was a bunch of arrogant comments from people who couldn't come up with a successful solution.
To those who did help with automation, please excuse me, your replies showed the intellect your counterparts' lacked.
Itunes does a horrible job organizing files sometimes. It puts 50% in the unknown folder and then throws things all over the place from compilations to whatnot just because the tags aren't always well done, and itunes *(GASP) doesn't have knowledge of EVERY CD ever made! Holy ****! That can't be.
If it wasn't for Bill Gates bailing your ass out years ago Apple would have gone the way of the Radio Shack Tandy or Amiga.
God forbid they make an Itunes that has an audit feature where you can scan for changes to your music folders. I'm pretty sure zune and windows media player are even light years ahead of Itunes when it comes to that. Next time just give the guy a hand or say "hey man I don't know of any such way". Don't go on to criticize a man for asking a question.
I'll probably come back to this forum. THank you for allowing me to vent.

This IS a MAC website. Everyones here for a reason, even if it's just an iPod.

In case anyone actually reads this three year old thread for information, and not ranting or whining. iTunes 9 added a new feature that would probably help some folks. There is a special folder called Automatically Add to iTunes http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3832 which will let you add songs from whatever source you please.

It still won't fix the fact that iTunes relies very heavily on metadata and if the tracks are not tagged properly they won't end up in "the right place" in the iTunes library.

B

Just FYI

re: Automatically Add to iTunes folder:
This does not work if you are in a situation like me where you need for itunes to add files that are on a network storage device. I tried making an alias to my media folder on my storage device, and dropping that alias into the Automatically Add folder. It does not work. Unfortunately, I need for these files to reside on the network storage, and there's too many of them to copy locally.

You can do it with AppleScript.

I'm aware you can do it with AppleScript.
I was just pointing out that while iTunes did add this functionality, it is still somewhat crippled.

imredkid said:

You can do it with AppleScript.

Click to expand...

Sorry to respond to a dormant thread, but you can do this with Applescript? I know next to nothing about Applescript, but I'd love to use this method. Like the previous responder, my music all lives on a NAS and I don't let iTunes manage my library. In fact, I'm only using iTunes to move music to and from my iPhone.

Would you mind either pointing me to a resource or giving me hints on how to do this in Applescript? I've been googling for info on best practices for iTunes and a NAS for a month now, and haven't found any great solutions. Thanks very much.

Micah