Ituns Library

[austinfd]

So I just noticed that every song on my iTunes library is also in my "Music" dircetory. Since these are two separate locations on my hard drive, do I really have two of everything??

 

[6mt15]

By default, iTunes stores all your music in an iTunes folder of the Music directory of you user account. If you import songs, iTunes makes a copy of the original file, and places it in your iTunes Music folder. Your iTunes library you see while in iTunes is just an organized list of the files contained in the iTunes Music folder.

 

[austinfd]

By default, iTunes stores all your music in an iTunes folder of the Music directory of you user account. If you import songs, iTunes makes a copy of the original file, and places it in your iTunes Music folder. Your iTunes library you see while in iTunes is just an organized list of the files contained in the iTunes Music folder.

Thanks but, maybe my question should have been clearer. I know that if you import a file from the desktop as an example, it copies the fie to the library, and then you can delete the desktop file. I'm talking about something else

I noticed it when I was dong a spotlight search for something else... the same string happened also be in the title of a song I have in iTunes. But spotlight displays two entries for the file (and any other song I search for) and each entry is in a different location on my hard drive, and even has a different file name:

example: spotlight search for "Is there a Ghost" by Band of Horses reveals two files: cmd-I tells me they are in different locations:

1. /Users/usrname/Music/Is there a Gost.m4a

2. /Users/usrname/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Band of Horses/Cease to Begin/01 Is There a Ghost.m4a

So... what's up with that!?

 

[munson]

Thanks but, maybe my question should have been clearer. I know that if you import a file from the desktop as an example, it copies the fie to the library, and then you can delete the desktop file. I'm talking about something else

I noticed it when I was dong a spotlight search for something else... the same string happened also be in the title of a song I have in iTunes. But spotlight displays two entries for the file (and any other song I search for) and each entry is in a different location on my hard drive, and even has a different file name:

example: spotlight search for "Is there a Ghost" by Band of Horses reveals two files: cmd-I tells me they are in different locations:

1. /Users/usrname/Music/Is there a Gost.m4a

2. /Users/usrname/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Band of Horses/Cease to Begin/01 Is There a Ghost.m4a

So... what's up with that!?

Try finding them in separate finder windows. Chances are that if you can see them both and their info is not the same that they are different files (duplicates).

 

[austinfd]

I figured it out... but I don't know how it happened. Basically my whole library exists in /User/username/Music/ AND /User/username/Music/iTunes/ the latter being the one that iTunes cares about and copies too...

So here's to reclaiming 12 GB of space!

 

[munson]

I figured it out... but I don't know how it happened. Basically my whole library exists in /User/username/Music/ AND /User/username/Music/iTunes/ the latter being the one that iTunes cares about and copies too...

So here's to reclaiming 12 GB of space!

Well, it happened because all your music goes to one place, and iTunes is set up to copy those files into the folder that it wants to play them from. To avoid this in the future, make sure where the files are going to when you acquire them is the same folder that iTunes likes to play them from. Also, turn off the feature that tells iTunes to copy the files into it's library. These things can be done from the preferences menu of iTunes (I do believe).

 

[boast]

uncheck "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library"