iTunes help

[jon08]

For the first time, I've decided to let iTunes arrange my music folders by checking the "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" in the Preferences.

However, I'm not quite happy with the way iTunes will put all the albums of a certain artist into the same folder and moreover, add no (Year) next to the album. The way I like to keep my folders is in the following fashion: Artist Name - Album Name (Year), which means that each album is by itself - even if by the same artist. Another thing is that I like to keep my music folders organized in a way like "RAP Albums", "Instrumentals", "Latino" etc. Each one of these is a folder, and inside of each folder, say RAP Albums, there are a bunch of folders/albums.

Is there a way to make iTunes do that? Or will it always just arrange things so that there is an artist folder, and inside of it all of the artist's albums, and all the artist folders will be together, no matter what genre?

I've attached two screenshots, the first one is how I keep folders, and the 2nd one how iTunes will arrange it.

 

[stridemat]

Nope I don't think you can. It's either iTunes way or your way.

 

[jon08]

So if I went by iTunes way, could I at least keep folders organized by genre - i.e. Instrumental, RAP albums, ...? iTunes will still throw everything in the same bag/Media folder, right?

Can I alter that Media folder by myself though?

 

[stridemat]

You may be able to organise it yourself, but Im not sure if it will work

Can I ask why you want to have the files organised? I never go into the folder where my music is stored. I access it all through iTunes.

 

[jon08]

No you cannot.

Can I ask why you want to have the files organised? I never go into the folder where my music is stored. I access it all through iTunes.

I don't know, I guess it's just an old habit I developed back in the PC days - I always liked to have my music neatly organized, i.e. Artist - Album - Year.

And moreover, how am I supposed to make a playlist of, say, Instrumental Hip-Hop albums if they will be scattered around one big iTunes Media folder? The way I did it up until now was create a Library and simply drag'n'drop the entire Hip-Hop Instrumentals folder with subfolders/albums I wanted in there. But by iTunes way they will get mixed with ALL other albums, from rap, rock, to pop and whatnot..........which leaves me with..manually picking up the instrumental albums?

 

[stridemat]

Can you not create a playlist within iTunes, and place the songs you want to play into that playlist? For example search for Instrumental hip-hop in itunes, highlight all the songs you want and drag them into the relevant playlist.

 

[jon08]

Can you not create a playlist within iTunes, and place the songs you want to play into that playlist? For example search for Instrumental hip-hop in itunes, highlight all the songs you want and drag them into the relevant playlist.

My Instrumental Hip-Hop playlist consists of the entire albums, not just certain songs. And besides, I label those songs' genre as Hip-Hop, not Instrumental (Hip-Hop).....

 

[stridemat]

Well I would imagine that you know the names of these albums, so search for these in iTunes and drag them into a playlist.

Would that work?

 

[jon08]

Well I would imagine that you know the names of these albums, so search for these in iTunes and drag them into a playlist.

Would that work?

Well, out of 70+ albums, it would be pretty much PITA to go and manually select each and every album to drag'n'drop, hence I simply have a folder on my HDD with all these albums inside.

Btw, if I do let iTunes organize my folders, what happens when I want to make a backup, i.e. transfer the music folder onto my external HDD? What should I copy? The entire iTunes folder, or just the Media\Music folder?

 

[stridemat]

I just copy the music folder as that is where all my music is stored.

 

[jon08]

I just copy the music folder as that is where all my music is stored.

What about playlists?

Edit: nvm, I guess they are included?