The preference "copy files to itunes media folder" re-enables itself

[Yassan]

Hi everybody.

iTunes 12.9.4.94, MacOS 10.14.4, MacBook Pro 15" mid 2012 (last non-retina model).

Yesterday I noticed that iTunes was copying in the media folder the files I was dropping on its window, while I disabled that preference long time ago. So I again disabled "Copy files to iTunes media folder..." (rightmost tab in iTunes preferences) but today, restarting iTunes, I found it again enabled.
Deleted ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist, but the behaviour didn't change.

This problem appeared after the update to MacOS 10.14.4 which, I believe, brought also an iTunes update.
Did anybody have the same experience?

Greetings

 

[colinwil]

Yes - I'm seeing the same issue in iTunes 12.9.4.94

Fortunately I haven't needed to drop any new files onto iTunes since this version was released.

Traditionally you could reverse this setting by holding down the Alt key when dropping files into iTunes. I wonder if this still works as a workaround until they fix it.

Update

I tried holding Alt while dropping the file, and that still works - it adds to the library without copying the file to your iTunes folder.

Alternatively I found that I can un-check the 'Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library' checkbox if I also uncheck the 'Keep iTunes Media folder organised' one. They seem to be linked now.

 

[Yassan]

Yes - I'm seeing the same issue in iTunes 12.9.4.94

I tried holding Alt while dropping the file, and that still works - it adds to the library without copying the file to your iTunes folder.

Alternatively I found that I can un-check the 'Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library' checkbox if I also uncheck the 'Keep iTunes Media folder organised' one. They seem to be linked now.

Strange, I have to press the Cmd key instead of the Alt key to have the same effect... But thank you for the hint!

This linking of the 2 options is depressing. Why then not having only one checkmark?
I usually produce uncompressed audio files (a "limitation" of the DAW (digital audio workstation) that I use) of speeches, and I use iTunes to convert them into highly compressed AAC and apply mp3 tags; this means that it is useful that iTunes keeps the media folder organised but harmful that it copy the original file.

 

[BlaqkAudio]

I reported the issue to Apple a few betas back. Unfortunately, 10.14.5 beta 1 doesn't include an iTunes update that fixes this. There are some other preferences that don't stick, like unchecking "Show Apple Music Features". Hopefully they'll issue an iTunes update in the next beta

 

[Yassan]

I reported the issue to Apple a few betas back.

Thank you! I was thinking about it but, since I never reported a bug to Apple before, I was hesitating to spend time to learn the procedure.