iTunes Music Question..

[MACiVoy]

Hi all,

So I had a lot of music in my iTunes library that I never listen to. So I went into the finder and deleted all of the songs I did not want. However, they still show up in my library on my playlist.

Do I have to go through and delete 1 by 1? I figured once I deleted in the finder they would be deleted automatically on my playlist..

Any help is appreciated as I have thousands of songs and do not want to go through 1 by 1 again via iTunes..

 

[mfram]

You should have deleted them using iTunes in the first place. iTunes will move the files to the trash if you tell it to. At this point, you may have to do delete them in iTunes again. Maybe you can ask it to scan for files and it'll realize they're gone. But I doubt it.

 

[Annerz]

You could delete everything out of iTunes and just put the music you want back in. Otherwise you'd probably have to go through and delete each artist..

 

[swiftaw]

Create a playlist, and drag all of your music into it. Now, itunes will only add a song to the playlist if in fact it can find the associated file. Thus this playlist will only contain the songs that you still have.

Now, create a new smart playlist that is set to contain all the songs that are not in the first playlist. These will be all the deleted songs. You should then be able to delete all these songs from your library in one go.

 

[GGJstudios]

Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes is a great resource for managing your iTunes tags and files.

http://dougscripts.com/212

 

[keaide]

Maybe Apple should hide the iTunes library in one big file too... and then hide it along with the iPhoto library... (just joking )

 

[rickyalan]

you just delete the music files but the references still listed in itunes library. so you can see they are still there. try Doug's scripts or try some paid apps like iTunes Duplicates Cleaner

 

[AdrianK]

Select everything in iTunes (cmd-a), press delete, keep files. Now drag the folder containing your music in from Finder. I do this all the time, very easy.

 

[ajpl]

Select everything in iTunes (cmd-a), press delete, keep files. Now drag the folder containing your music in from Finder. I do this all the time, very easy.

Doesn't that lose all your playlists and ratings?

 

[MACiVoy]

So I am not sure if people do not understand my issue, or there is no way to fix it.

I deleted the music in the finder because there was a large amount of songs added at one time in the past, and it was easier to sort in the finder by "date created" and delete the portion of songs..

I figured when I did this iTunes would be smart enough to remove the songs, I was wrong..

Now do I need to go through iTunes and delete them 1 by 1??

 

[GGJstudios]

You could delete everything out of iTunes and just put the music you want back in.

Select everything in iTunes (cmd-a), press delete, keep files. Now drag the folder containing your music in from Finder. I do this all the time, very easy.

Doesn't that lose all your playlists and ratings?

Yes, deleting the songs from iTunes and adding them back will delete your playlist entries. This is NOT a recommended approach.

So I am not sure if people do not understand my issue, or there is no way to fix it.

I understood your issue perfectly, and yes, there is a simple way to fix it.

I figured when I did this iTunes would be smart enough to remove the songs, I was wrong..

It's not a matter of iTunes being "smart enough". iTunes is working as designed, and it's a useful method. There are situations where you don't want songs deleted from the iTunes library automatically, even if the file isn't there, such as when you have some of your music on an external drive that isn't attached at the moment. If you want to delete anything, delete it from within iTunes, which gives you the opportunity to keep or delete the file, as well.

Now do I need to go through iTunes and delete them 1 by 1??

No, you need to follow the suggestion I made and use the script I posted a link to. That will remove any songs in your iTunes library that don't have a corresponding file on your hard drive.

 

[swiftaw]

So I am not sure if people do not understand my issue, or there is no way to fix it.

I deleted the music in the finder because there was a large amount of songs added at one time in the past, and it was easier to sort in the finder by "date created" and delete the portion of songs..

I figured when I did this iTunes would be smart enough to remove the songs, I was wrong..

Now do I need to go through iTunes and delete them 1 by 1??

Read my earlier post.