How to Use iTunes Match With Very Large iTunes Libraries

[milo]

I'd say that's cumbersome enough that I wouldn't even try using it. New additions won't end up in Match, seems like it has the potential to mess with things like ratings, play count, playlists, etc.

With or without this method, what happens with a library that starts under 25k but then goes over that limit when files are added?

Here's another question I haven't seen mentioned yet, what about songs listed in the library but the files are missing (those dreaded "!" songs). Do they count toward the limit?

Every time music is imported it scans those files.

Is that still the case when doing this method, matching one library then switching to another?

I use Smart Playlists to select my music from my extensive library. IMO this is the best way to use iTunes, particularly with a large well-tagged library.

Is iCloud smart enough to auto populate Smart Playlists on the fly? If not then I don't really see how useful it will be anyway.

Going back to managing music manually on a per-song or per-album basis? I don't think so!

I wonder what would happen if I changed all of my unchecked songs to audiobooks.

Exactly what I have been asking. Right now one click of the sync button (including wireless) updates all smart playlists with files. It sounds like those smart playlists are still on the device and probably update the listings, but do they automatically download all those files as well (or have the option to do that simply, meaning updating all at once as opposed to having to tell it to download each of those playlists individually)?

And I plan to try out the Audiobook thing to try and get unwanted stuff out of match - anyone tried that yet?

 

[pooryou]

I think that will work, but for me that would cause bigger problems.

Because you actually use audiobooks (I don't) or for some other reason that I may not be anticipating?

 

[brayhite]

eye no rite?! cuz lyke alluv my 1,000s of CDs that i've purchased over the past 25 years and ripped over the past 10 years are like totally stolen. i didn't invest countless amounts of money into them or anything.

worst. comment. EVER.

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i neg'd you for making a highly specious, probably false, assumption... not for "having an opinion" as your sig suggests.

Radiohead fan. Go figure. (I kid, I kid).

I actually checked, and only 10% of my songs have 8 plays or more. 17.8% have no plays registered, but that's not to say I haven't listened to those songs (it'd be nice if my old CDs had play counts etched into them somehow though). And this is out of 16,669 songs.

 

[KeithJenner]

Because you actually use audiobooks (I don't) or for some other reason that I may not be anticipating?

That is the main reason, yes.

However, I also think that they would tend to be hidden there a bit.

Having said that, the solution I was looking at if they haven't corrected this by the time it comes to the UK will be to move a number of files over to a different computer so they are still available over Home Sharing. It could be said that they will be similarly hidden away.

I really hope that Apple offers a solution soon. Hopefully this limit is just temporary.

 

[pooryou]

Exactly what I have been asking. Right now one click of the sync button (including wireless) updates all smart playlists with files. It sounds like those smart playlists are still on the device and probably update the listings, but do they automatically download all those files as well (or have the option to do that simply, meaning updating all at once as opposed to having to tell it to download each of those playlists individually)?

Since I haven't used it yet I can only speculate, but I guess in the best case scenario it will populate the smart playlists correctly and update them on the fly, downloading songs as they are played (wouldn't this cause an extra gap between songs as they start buffering?). However even if it works like this, it seems you would still have to go in and do cleanup later to delete the files that get downloaded as you listen. Or is there some way to set a maximum size for the 'song cache' or something like that?

 

[transmaster]

This is the assumption that many people make.

I have been collecting CD's for almost 25 years now. I also used eMusic to get a couple of thousand songs when that was very cheap (around 10p a track). I currently have around 39,000 fully legal songs in my collection.

It doesn't work out as very much spending per year over that sort of time.

Ditto here I am a musician and I have been collecting music for over 40 years. I presently have 3.1 terabytes loaded on my HHD's I can go something like 3 years playing 24/7 without a repeat. iTunes is not going "match" much of what I have. I only have about 700 gig's indexed on iTunes. I suppose you could call my music collection my digital "fake book".

 

[roadbloc]

and i doubt you even listen to more than 5% of your music.

Your foolishness is showing. Hush now.

 

[transmaster]

Your foolishness is showing. Hush now.

Honestly I don't really know what I have. When I hear of an artist I put the band/musician's name in my search engine and most of the time I have something. I have 38,000 eBooks no way I am going to read all of those

 

[DMVillain]

Does the author know the definition of the word "quixotic"? It usually means fruitless, ineffective, idealistic yet unrealistic, etc.

I didn't know what it meant until I clicked the word twice with 3 fingers

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

25k? That's a loooooooooot of stolen music.

I have ~10K non-iTunes-purchased non-stolen tracks (although quite a few of those are available on the US iTunes Store, so wouldn't count against my 25K limit.) A friend is over the 25K limit solely from ripped CDs (that he now has in storage in a few large boxes in his basement.) Lots of foreign stuff in his collection, so unlikely to even be in the US iTunes Store.

 

[0098386]

and i doubt you even listen to more than 5% of your music.

This is incorrect sir.
If my listening habits are of interest to you, every track on my iTunes library has been played at least twice. Half of my library has been played more than 15 times. Some tracks have had 300+ plays. (I listen to my music whilst working)

 

[Dogfood1]

Not for me

I guess I'll never know the joy of iTunes Match. Large, legal Grateful Dead live show archive. Of the 45k songs in my library, 30K are Dead or Dead related. And hardly any would even be on iTunes Match.

It would be nice for my 15K of non-Dead, but not worth the hassle. Makes Spotify premium look better and better....

 

[joco2]

Quick question about the new iTunes Match:

When the upload process is underway, how does it match your song to a song in the cloud? Does it actually listen to the song to match it (similar to Shazam)or does it match it based on currently filled in information.

My library is extremely messy.

 

[kimhill]

Another method to reduce a big library

I posted this in the original MacWorld thread earlier:



I have another way to [reduce a big library] which offers some advantages, as long as you're careful.

Instead of starting with a new, empty, iTunes library, duplicate your existing library in the Finder, and rename it to something like "iCloud Library." Then, re-launch iTunes, holding down the Option key, and choose the new (internally identical) iCloud library.

Next, start deleting music you can do without. The CRITICAL point when deleting is to accept iTunes' default choice to "Keep File" instead of moving it to the trash. This way, your music folder will remain untouched, and you can go back to your original library and it will work as before.

The advantage here is that you can use the power of your existing playlists/smart playlists, ratings, play counts, etc., to help manage the process of selecting the tracks that are most important to you.

One suggested tool: Doug Adams' "Not In Any Playlist To Playlist" script:

http://dougscripts.com/302

This will put all tracks that didn't appear in a playlist into a new playlist. If you're an industrious playlist maker, there's a good chance that these are tracks that aren't too important to you.

You could also make a new Smart Playlist that includes everything from this "Not In Any Playlist" playlist, and add an extra (logical "OR") condition- rated below, say, two stars. You'll end up with a list of all your tracks that are neither in a playlist, nor rated over one-star. You could also add a playcount condition. The result: a list of songs that you either don't care much about, or haven't gotten to- good candidates to omit.

If you select all tracks in this playlist and delete, you may be able to complete your winnowing process with just that one keypress. And you'll still have the power of your existing song organization. After the match process, you can go back to your original library and use it as before.

 

[macnerd93]

a lot of my music is on Vinyl, got into collecting it recently. Hardly played iTunes :L. Just love vinyl to me it just sounds better than digital/CD quality which seems really flat and lacking bass. I'd also say you can only appreciate people like Bob Dylan on vinyl. But my iTunes library is about 6,000 tracks most of which are from albums or Vinyl rips using my 1978 Toshiba SM3750 Music Centre, does lose some crisp quality in the transfer process mind. Will most likely get iTunes match since it seems like its gonna save a tone of space on my iPhone 4S and iPad

 

[jhwalker]

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25k? That's a loooooooooot of stolen music.

Or a lot of purchased / ripped music. I have over 50k tracks (with thousands more on CDs not yet ripped) and not a single one was acquired illegally. I've just been at it since college and like music.

 

[rowley]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

25k? That's a loooooooooot of stolen music.

I've got 29,000 tracks in my library - none of which are stolen.
How very dare you.

 

[the8thark]

quixotic but effective solution.

It also means impractical, which was the author's intent.

So the original article here says Macworld has a impractical but effective solution.

So MacRumors like talking in Oxymorons?

 

[rediffusion]

I posted this in the original MacWorld thread earlier:



I have another way to [reduce a big library] which offers some advantages, as long as you're careful.

Instead of starting with a new, empty, iTunes library, duplicate your existing library in the Finder, and rename it to something like "iCloud Library." Then, re-launch iTunes, holding down the Option key, and choose the new (internally identical) iCloud library.

Next, start deleting music you can do without. The CRITICAL point when deleting is to accept iTunes' default choice to "Keep File" instead of moving it to the trash. This way, your music folder will remain untouched, and you can go back to your original library and it will work as before.

The advantage here is that you can use the power of your existing playlists/smart playlists, ratings, play counts, etc., to help manage the process of selecting the tracks that are most important to you.

One suggested tool: Doug Adams' "Not In Any Playlist To Playlist" script:

http://dougscripts.com/302

This will put all tracks that didn't appear in a playlist into a new playlist. If you're an industrious playlist maker, there's a good chance that these are tracks that aren't too important to you.

You could also make a new Smart Playlist that includes everything from this "Not In Any Playlist" playlist, and add an extra (logical "OR") condition- rated below, say, two stars. You'll end up with a list of all your tracks that are neither in a playlist, nor rated over one-star. You could also add a playcount condition. The result: a list of songs that you either don't care much about, or haven't gotten to- good candidates to omit.

If you select all tracks in this playlist and delete, you may be able to complete your winnowing process with just that one keypress. And you'll still have the power of your existing song organization. After the match process, you can go back to your original library and use it as before.

This sounds like a better method but as you say, you must be careful.
One question: if iTunes Match replaces my .mp3 files with .m4a files will the original iTunes library be able to locate the files? The file names should be the same but the extensions will not.

 

[blue22]

bueno...

I believe that matches everything that it can, so it will use the 256kbps version.

It doesn't overwrite anything though. Your higher quality version stays on your computer.

Thank you!

 

[rediffusion]

I have many radio shows which I have changed the 'media kind' to audiobook. These files appear under books rather than music. I need to know whether these are used towards the 25k before signing up. Anybody know?

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EDIT - Just found this:
this post states:
"iTunes Match only deals with songs and excludes audiobooks, ringtones, iTunes LPs and iTunes Extras."

Maybe this is a way of selecting which songs you want to match for those people with over 25k songs. Make the ones you don't want audiobooks then once the others are matched, switch them back to music files

 

[milo]

I have many radio shows which I have changed the 'media kind' to audiobook. These files appear under books rather than music. I need to know whether these are used towards the 25k before signing up. Anybody know?

That's exactly what I did, and it worked. I had some audio books that weren't tagged that way, and I changed those as well as some other things like comedy records and other things I wanted to keep in the library but not have matched. That got me under 25k and able to activate. Basically it's the number of files that show when you click on the Music tab in the upper left, minus songs purchased from the iTunes store.

 

[rediffusion]

That's exactly what I did, and it worked. I had some audio books that weren't tagged that way, and I changed those as well as some other things like comedy records and other things I wanted to keep in the library but not have matched. That got me under 25k and able to activate. Basically it's the number of files that show when you click on the Music tab in the upper left, minus songs purchased from the iTunes store.

Great, thanks for confirming that, Milo

 

[DUCKofD3ATH]

I wonder what would happen if I changed all of my unchecked songs to audiobooks.

Bad things. Songs you'd listened to partway wouldn't start at the beginning the next time you played them. The songs would move from Music to the Books section. You'd have to change the type and creator codes and file extensions (I've found that simply changing the Media Kind to Audiobook isn't reliable).

A lot of work. Creating a new library subset of your main music would be simpler.

I've got a large music library (63,000-plus music tracks). But most of it is 196K and above that was ripped from CD, so I'll be using the alternate library to update the stuff ripped from LP (great chance to get tracks without the pops and crackles that tarnish the vinyl versions).

 

[milo]

Bad things. Songs you'd listened to partway wouldn't start at the beginning the next time you played them. The songs would move from Music to the Books section. You'd have to change the type and creator codes and file extensions (I've found that simply changing the Media Kind to Audiobook isn't reliable).

But these are songs you don't want matched, and if they're unchecked already then you're probably not copying them over to your devices so none of those things probably matter. Doing it this way is "wrong" but if the goal is to just disable certain material without having to remove it (and lose playlists, play counts, ratings, etc) it does that.

And doing this worked fine for me (for making Match ignore them) without changing types, codes, or file extensions, I just did a get info in iTunes on all the files at once and just changed Music to Audiobook.