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iTunes Question

Falleron

Falleron

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 22, 2001
1,609
0
UK
Can someone explain?

I have about 1500 songs in iTunes that I have ripped from cd’s (comes to about 5Gb + stored at the root of my HD). Anyway, if I go to my home directory/music/itunes/ . I find that this directory has files in there that add up to about 2Gb! What are these? They are all labelled “ …. Export” . I don’t really have a problem with limited space, just don’t want things cluttering up my computer. I am reluctant to delete these files because I tried a similar thing in iTunes a while back + it deleted all of my music completely.

Any ideas??

Thanks
 
Check the file path of the music (select a song in iTunes, cmnd-i). If it's to that directory, don't erase it. Beyond that... I really don't know.
 
There are no shortcuts in my "MP3" Folder. These other files seem to appear when I rip new cd's. Its as if they are supposed to be temporary files but have not been deleted.
 
I don't think you're going to like this, Falleron.

iTunes is set in default to make a directory at /[user]/music/ specifically for all of your imported or played music. To remove this option, go to iTunes > Preferences >> Advanced > (uncheck both boxes at the bottom of the Preferences window). This should prevent anything like this from happening again.

Now, if the following information is correct, this is going to be a pain for you, unfortunately, Falleron. Assuming you brought all the songs to your root user and not to the /[user]/music/iTunes whatever, the first 2GB of songs you played may have been copied by iTunes, again, by default, and sent to a recognizable directory.

To find the names of all these songs, you are going to have to create a Smart Playlist. From the main iTunes window, hold down Option on the keyboard, and click the Nut icon at the lower left-hand corner (it's usually a + sign). Try these settings from the Advanced Tab:

Match the following condition: [Play Count] [is greater than] [0]
Do not limit the list. Live update it. Accept.

Now you should have a playlist of all the songs played in full, at least once, and those songs should be the ones copied to the wrong directory, the one you listed above. To confirm this, check at least ten songs (I would check 30 or more, from various artists, to be more certain), by actually going to the directory of the songs you listed previously, Falleron, and opening them.

If each of them are the same songs as the ones from the new Smart Playlist, then that directory is where iTunes made a duplicate of those songs. You should be able to delete the folder of duplicates, and you should be able to continue the rest of the songs iTunes recognizes.

I'm not guarenteeing you this will work, but it's to the best of my knowledge. :)
 
Hmm, I certainly a while back changed from the default music directory to my custom directory at the root of the HD. I dont recall exactly when that was now, but, it may explain the 2Gb. I think I understand what your saying but dont want to risk deleting my music so may stick with what I have now. Presumably, if a copy was made then I could delete the iTunes folder + then re-import them from the other copy at the root?

Update : I did what you suggested about the smartlist. It came up with 2.7Gb of music + in my iTunes folder ther is 1.91Gb. Something is not quite right here. Anyway, thanks a lot for your help, I think I will let sleaping dogs lie. It works + that is the main thing! I have 45Gb free, so its not a major problem. The only problem is if I need to back my music up. If I copy my MP3 folder from the root, will this contain all my music? I asume it would (The duplicates all being held in my iTunes folder).
 
>The only problem is if I need to back my music up. If I copy my MP3 folder from the root, will this contain all my music? I asume it would (The duplicates all being held in my iTunes folder).

Yeah, as long as it has all the original mp3 files.

I experienced a similar situation a month or so ago, when I cleared out my Hard Drive and reinstalled iTunes. When I tried to load the songs, all xxx+ songs were being copied (a message displayed this), and I forgot about the iTunes update check boxes in the Preferences menu. (I actually became so irate I made at least 10 sexual references with iTunes...) I disabled the check boxes, and I disabled the problem. :)

Just copy the folder/s with all your original mp3 files, if need be, and don't worry about the duplicates, as long as you have confirmed they are duplicates.
 
If you don't use playlists, you may want to delete all songs in your iTunes library, organize your HD, and then drag and drop them back in place.

BE VERY CAREFUL TO SAY "NO" when iTunes asks if you would like to delete the files.

After you do this, find all .mp3s, put them in a folder you'd like to stick with, and drag this folder into the now blank iTunes library window.

iTunes will then organize that folder, rebuild a library from its contents, and normalize the songs.

DON'T delete the files, just the titles in the iTunes window.

Also, if you have songs in folders which don't have tags, turn off the 'Organize iTunes folder' option, else all your untagged songs will move to the unknown artist folder...
 
At the moment I have about 20-30 playlists so it would not take too much to start again. As far as I can see, it would just be a case of deleting the songs from within iTunes + dragging the songs back to their playlists. I may do that.
 
Back up iTunes Library.xml

Delete everything in the iTunes library window

Import iTunes Library.xml from the backup

Drop your master repository into iTunes

This will preserve some of your playlists, and get everything current and organized.
 
I did it. I first backed up my MP3 folder onto my other partition of the HD. Then Deteleted everything from within iTunes + got a message saying some were in my iTunes folder. However, I know that there weren't any music in my itunes folder (they were all files with the txt icon). Then, I deteleted the contents of the iTunes folder freeing up the 2Gb. Then, I just went through the MP3 folder re-importing them back into the correct Playlists. I did not loose any music.

NB. I still understand what the 2Gb or so was in the iTunes folder! They were not mp3 files.
 
This is really weird! My problem is coming back!! I deleted everything from the iTunes folder + re-imported everything. However, I went back earlier to check everything was ok + there was about 50Mb in the folder again! They are apparently iTunes database files labelled "...Temp". What is going on? I have not got any of the above options selected (as discussed previously.).
 
This may be the cost of not using your user/Music Folder. Why do you use a root folder instead of your user folder? If it's to give access to another user you can do this by changing permissions and dropping an alias of your music folder in theres. I did this on my own machine.
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
This may be the cost of not using your user/Music Folder. Why do you use a root folder instead of your user folder? If it's to give access to another user you can do this by changing permissions and dropping an alias of your music folder in theres. I did this on my own machine.
Click to expand...
I guess its an old OS9 thing. I have always kept my music in the same sort of place. I am not too bothered about 50Mb or so, just if it grows again to about 2Gb then I will considering moving everything back to the iTunes folder.
 
Originally posted by Falleron

I guess its an old OS9 thing. I have always kept my music in the same sort of place. I am not too bothered about 50Mb or so, just if it grows again to about 2Gb then I will considering moving everything back to the iTunes folder.
Click to expand...

I was hung up on keeping my own personal folders at first also. I relized later that it made more sense to just give in and use there crudy uncostimzable prefab folders. The whole system is designed around them. You will find more problems the further you go if you don't at least link your user folders to your folders using an alias.

It really sucks to have a prefab system that is totaly uncostimizable. Guess we're learning what it's like to use windows.:)

I think that we will have more options in the future on where things go and how things are organized at the moment we are simply using a system that they have done there best to deliver to us with a base set of functions from here on out I think we will see feature after feature added.
 
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