iPod Need Help Organizing I-tunes music

[Deuxmasta]

Hey guys, So I have alot of music and i'm trying to organize them but it's driving me crazy. I recently bought a MBP and i'm trying to organize my music on Itunes but i'm having a couple of difficulties.

First I can move music around and add them to folders comfortably in Itunes but in the actual folder where all the music is, is still a mess.

I use Itunes because it gives me an alphabetical order of the artist and song names where in the actual folder things are just everywhere

I tried to organize the files in Itunes then create a separate file on the desk top to moved the organized folder once complete but i realized two things, first i would have to drag and drop every time i change something on the itunes and second, i sometime end up creating double files.

Also when i want to permanently delete a file i can't do it on Itunes because the actual file doesn't get erased

I'm sure there is a better way to go about this but i just wasted 2hours moving around folders to come back exactly where i was from the beginning. Any Advice thanks!

 

[HBOC]

Hey guys, So I have alot of music and i'm trying to organize them but it's driving me crazy. I recently bought a MBP and i'm trying to organize my music on Itunes but i'm having a couple of difficulties.

First I can move music around and add them to folders comfortably in Itunes but in the actual folder where all the music is, is still a mess.

I use Itunes because it gives me an alphabetical order of the artist and song names where in the actual folder things are just everywhere

I tried to organize the files in Itunes then create a separate file on the desk top to moved the organized folder once complete but i realized two things, first i would have to drag and drop every time i change something on the itunes and second, i sometime end up creating double files.

Also when i want to permanently delete a file i can't do it on Itunes because the actual file doesn't get erased

I'm sure there is a better way to go about this but i just wasted 2hours moving around folders to come back exactly where i was from the beginning. Any Advice thanks!

I don't know why you are creating new folders on your desktop for iTunes. iTunes keeps its' own folder for the library. To organize the music, you would organize it in iTunes itself, not organize it on the desktop. That is why there are duplicates. To delete a file in iTunes, you right click on the file IN ITUNES, (right click/delete). It will prompt you if you want to delete and remove from iTunes library. Select Ok for both (yes, whatever it may be)

By creating "folders" on the desktop, you are creating more of a mess than necessary, as you have now realized. Remember that iTunes is a program that manages music. I am assuming you used winamp or WMP in windows?

if you need help, let me know. Also screen shots would be helpful. Or you can hit command+shift+4 to select what you want to take a screen shot of.

 

[GGJstudios]

There are many ways of organizing your music, but you have to pick one and stick to it. Either you let iTunes manage the files on your hard drive, or you manage them yourself. Not both! My approach is to organize it myself, rather than let iTunes do it. My library is quite large, so I have it organized in folders by genre, then by artist, then by album. I don't let iTunes make copies of anything and I keep all tag info, lyrics and artwork in the files, so there are no other folders needed.

I don't have a problem with duplicates, although I do have a lot of songs intentionally duplicated because they appear on multiple albums. I find my library easy to maintain and easy to locate files. Also, I use my own genre definitions, so I don't have hundreds of genres and sub-genres.

 

[Deuxmasta]

I don't know why you are creating new folders on your desktop for iTunes. iTunes keeps its' own folder for the library. To organize the music, you would organize it in iTunes itself, not organize it on the desktop. That is why there are duplicates. To delete a file in iTunes, you right click on the file IN ITUNES, (right click/delete). It will prompt you if you want to delete and remove from iTunes library. Select Ok for both (yes, whatever it may be)

By creating "folders" on the desktop, you are creating more of a mess than necessary, as you have now realized. Remember that iTunes is a program that manages music. I am assuming you used winamp or WMP in windows?

if you need help, let me know. Also screen shots would be helpful. Or you can hit command+shift+4 to select what you want to take a screen shot of.

The reason I create both on itunes and desktop is because of this
- I have alot of songs that i don't want so because of itunes i can find these artist that i have no intention of listening to and i can't delete the actual file from itunes even though i REALLY wish i could. so instead right now i'm actually making folders of the songs i want to keep on Itunes and then drag the files to another folder on the desktop (duplicating them) then i permanently deleting the original folder with the songs, so after i permanently delete the orginal songs i won't have an duplicates. Hope that was clear

- Also if i'm going to be moving the file from one external harddrive to the next and want to same itune folder names and organization, i assume i would have to do that through the desktop since i can't transfer my itunes to external hardrive

Basically what i'm looking for is some program or method that allows me to do the following or something similar, i love how Itunes gives you all the names of the artist and songs so it becomes very easy to organize but i hate the fact that when i want to permanently delete a song or i can't actually do it on the computer (for example if i have 60 GB of music and i want to reduce it to 20 GB permanently deleting 40 GB worth of particular artists, its hard because i can't find the artist as easy on the desktop as in itunes) lol you get it? sorry for the confusion

 

[HBOC]

uh, i am confused. You said you cannot delete songs from iTunes? So right click/move to trash (delete) doesn't work in iTunes?

When you double click on a song file (mp3, m4a, etc) it will open in iTunes. It will add that song to the iTunes library. The iTunes library can be found here...
User/music/iTunes/iTunes Music. Then it will list all the songs you have. I have included a screen shot of said folders, and even the mp3 files within those folders..

first 2 are of the iTunes music folder and the "get info"...

 

[HBOC]

the last of the screen shots.

If you are having problems, than i don't know..I know i am deleting songs in iTunes, because when i "delete them", i can see the total number of songs at the bottom subtract however many songs i delete...

 

[hollerz]

From what I can understand, you basically want to start fresh with iTunes. In which case, what I'd do, is copy everything from your iTunes Music Folder onto your desktop (which you did), then in iTunes, Edit > Select All, Right click, Delete and Move to Trash. That will delete all the copies that iTunes has made.

If you want to organize the music yourself:

Go into preferences in iTunes, and make sure "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" is unchecked. Go into your music folder (or wherever you want to store all the files), create your folder structure and copy all the artists and albums that you want to keep into these new folders. Then drag them all into iTunes (from the new folders). This won't copy them anywhere else. Then you can delete all the ones you don't want from your desktop.


If you want iTunes to organize it for you:

Go into preferences in iTunes, and make sure "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" is checked. All the songs and artists that you want to keep, drag them from the folder you made on your desktop into iTunes. This will copy them into the iTunes Music folder for you, and organize it in it's own way. Once you have everything you want to keep, you can delete the whole folder you made on your desktop.


Hope that makes sense!

 

[Deuxmasta]

Yea i see what your saying and just to clarify both on yours and my part.

Question #1

When i delete a song in itunes it does not get deleted on my desk top. how would i permanently delete the song in itunes so that it won't show up on my desktop?



Question # 2

Also i would like to organize my files in itunes so that if i had a song in my Hip Hop folder and i wanted to move that song into rock it would also apear like that on my desk top, because i know that you can't save itunes playlist in the case that i have to wipe my hardrive clean and start over, the only thing you can save in the music on my desktop. basically i want to keep my desktop music files just as organized as my itunes, in the case that i want to wipe my hard drive. hope that was clear.