Replace iTunes songs with higher quality versions and retain "date added" ?

[Nor*Cal]

Hello all, I have a ton of 128 kbps songs in my iTunes library. I have no re-ripped these songs into a ALAC format to replace their older counterparts. Is there an easy way to replace (update) these songs without changing the "Date Added" field?

 

[grubworth]

Hi, have you considered getting iTunes match? if your library a reasonably tagged correctly then iTunes match can simply work its magic and back up your songs and keep all meta data. So you simply delete the song on your computer after its been matched, at this point you can listen to it in the cloud or simply re-download it and it replaces it with a 256kbps quality file and retains the date added etc.

This is what I done since I also organize my library from date added. Anther way, if you are wanting a higher quality file to replace it, then right click on the song, view in finder and then delete the songs in the album file, then replace with the higher quality file. Itunes then gives you a "file cannot be found" and you chose to locate the new file and again keeps your date added while upgrading the sound quality. This can be quite time consuming, but if you're OCD about your collection you will end up putting the time in, lol.

I hope that made sense. 🙂

 

[mactmaster]

Date Added seems to be changing when upgrading lower quality songs using iTunes Match on iTunes 11. Is anyone else experiencing this?

I added an album ripped at 128kbps and it matched (Date Added: 11/29/12), I then deleted the local files and downloaded the 256kbps copy from iTunes Match but the 'Date Added' was changed to 3/9/12.

PS. Is it just me or does this forum need a separate iTunes section.

 

[oddsratio]

You delete the local file, empty the trash, and place the ALAC file in the same folder that the original file was in. You click on it in the iTunes library and it shows up as missing and prompts you to locate the file. You navigate to the folder where the ALAC file is and select that as the missing file. It will update in iTunes and retain the 'date added' information. Unfortunately, there's no script for this.

To be safe, make a copy of any files you plan to delete on the desktop.