I need suggestions for itunes library cleanup

[bjpad2]

I import my music into itunes from CD's, currently using itunes 10. I've been finding that itunes breaks up CD's into multiple folders for some reason. First example- I bought a CD from a community brass band one time and it imports each track from that CD into a separate folder on my hard drive and the tracks show up on my ipod as 12 or so separate albums. Second example- I bought a new Celine Dion CD and imported it, it went into 4 different folders- one for Celine alone and separate other folders for tracks where Celine sang with another artist.

This really bugs me and I feel like I should manually move the various tracks back into one folder per disk. Maybe this isn't necessary, but is the better organization more trouble than it is worth?

I have dedicated my itunes to my ipod and have never connected my iphone because I don't want all of the music copied to the phone. I need to update the phone software because I'm finding many apps that don't work on my phone anymore. I'm thinking this is a good time to fool with the music library and update the phone. I thought I could copy all of the music folders to another place on my hard drive, delete them from itunes, manually edit the folders the way that I want them, then move them all back into itunes. I'm wondering if this is going to be more trouble than it's worth and should I just stick with the old operating system on the phone?

 

[1251division]

I believe you can choose not to automatically sync your music with your phone. I'm running iTunes 11, and there is a box to check "Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically" under the Devices tab of the Preferences dialogue found under the iTunes menu.

As far as managing the library, others may have a better suggestion for Mac, but I have used Mp3tag in the past, under Windows OS however. Still looking for a good Mac solution.

 

[DavoteK]

When you import the CD, you may need to make a few edits to the music to make it do what you want.

The 12 tracks may come in without any track names or artists or album names, so highlight them all and give them an artist name.

If they do have artist names and they may be different, make sure the "Album Artist" field is the same and that will group them for you in to one folder.

If I have a compilation album, I'll put the album artist as "Various Artists". You can also select "Part of a Compilation" as an option when you do get info for multiple items.

Don't worry about plugging your phone in. It will only sync the music if you tell it to. You'd need to click your phone in iTunes under devices (when its connected to your Mac) and then select the music tab and pick what music you put on the phone.

I wouldn't waste your time moving the music to a different location and then removing it from iTunes and then starting again. No real need to do it.