"add folder to library" question

Firstly - I don't want to put all my music in the iTunes Media folder and let iTunes organise my libary - I like it the way it is.
So I've used the "add folder to library" function to add my music library from another location. I realise that iTunes won't monitor this folder so I just manually add my library folder each time I add music to it, and iTunes rescans the entire directory. Seems to work OK...
Is this creating duplicates or a hideously large library XML? Or does iTunes recognise if a file already exists and only add the new files to its library XML?
Thanks

i have fgound that it duplicates most so u have to individually load each "file" album if ITunes doesnt kinda ***

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Add new folder to library question

My wife and I have a VERY LARGE library of music and while still trying to get iTunes situated for our particular use we frequently have files that are manually copied into the music file folder that of course iTunes then has no idea is there unless we add the entire music folder to the library AGAIN which takes forever. Also, I'm concerned that it's adding duplicates when it does this.
If we were just adding a single folder or something at a time I wouldn't be concerned, I could just add that one folder, but the way these files are added it's basically a script that runs that compares another drive to the music folders drive of iTunes, whatever is not there it copies over so it's different files, different folders etc so I can't really just select one folder to add, it's adding the entire folder in iTunes again.
Is there an easier way to do this? Will doing this create duplicates?
Thanks!

After posting that and re-reading I decided to re-write it but my system wouldn't let me save the edit; here's the edit...
My wife and I have a very large collection of music that we have been trying to incorporate into a single library for our laptops to use. I think I have it mostly figured out for sharing a library (found an article about using synctoy in Windows to essentially mirror the libraries from a shared network drive while using the same physical copy of music files on a network drive. This seems to be working so far, but...
In the process I have been moving from having a mirrored copy of music on each laptop (via an external USB drive on each laptop) to consolidating that into one music folder on the networked drive. I've got it just about complete but I ran an xcopy script again to ensure all music files from those drives really made it in entirety to the networked drive AFTER adding folder to library in iTunes. Now of course iTunes doesn't know those new files are there and they are all over the place, not in just one directory.
Now the question, if I select add folder to library in iTunes again selecting the entire music folder so it will pick up those new files, will it create duplicate entries in iTunes? Or should this work ok?
Is there an easier way to do this?

Apple TV locks when 'Add folder to library' on iTunes being streamed from

This problem seems consistently repeatable on my set-up. Was just wondering whether anyone else has experienced this problem.
Apple TV is playing music streamed, screen saver may or may not be active. I then copy new music folders into my iTunes music directory and then select 'Add folder to library' on iTunes and select my music directory. iTunes updates correctly and I can then edit/play/add artwork to the newly added music.
However, back on the Apple TV, the music continues to play but the playback position no longer updates although the animated swinging from side to side every so often still works or if the screen saver is active it continues as normal. The Apple TV no longer responds to the remote control. I have left then music playing before and it continues until it has no more music to play, e.g. got to end of album.
I have found only one way out, which does not always work (I sometimes have to remove power from the Apple TV to reset it). If I close down iTunes, after a number of seconds (5 to 15 usually) the Apple TV pops up a button asking to reconnect to sources. I can then restart iTunes and the Apple TV reconnects and I can select what I want to do.

You'll probably have better luck asking the question here -> Windows EightForums
iTunes isn't designed to work with Windows 8 or any beta software, so theres no suprise that it isn't working as expected.

I'm trying to copy music from my PC to itunes. I open itunes, go to 'file', go to 'add folder to library', select the folder and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong?

I'm trying to copy music from my PC to itunes. I open itunes, go to 'file', go to 'add folder to library', select the folder and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong?

Hello there, gleab.
The following Knowledge Base article reviews the ways to import content into iTunes:
Adding music and other content to iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1473
Also keep in mind which formats can be added:
You can add audio files that are in AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, or Audible.com (.aa) format. If you have unprotected WMA content, iTunes for Windows can convert these files to one of these formats.
Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Pedro.

My itunes on my macbook pro does not have a "add folder to library option". Is there something wrong with my mac ?, my itunes on my macbook pro does not have a "add folder to library option". Is there something wrong with my mac ?

I purchased a Mac Book Pro and find the Itunes a bit strange as the "add folder to library" option under the menu is not available
is my itunes corrupt or what can i do to transfer folders to my itunes?
please help

Ruggernaut wrote:
I purchased a Mac Book Pro and find the Itunes a bit strange as the "add folder to library" option under the menu is not available
is my itunes corrupt or what can i do to transfer folders to my itunes?
iTunes for Mac has never had an "Add folder to library" option. This is only available on Windows version.
Select Add to library, select the folder then click OK.
Or drag the folder(s) to the iTunes library at top left of iTunes.

HT1473 Help I just moved my music files to a external hard drive and am using the new crappy version ( i know my opinion) of itunes and cant add the files to my libray it gives me the add file to library option but not the add folder to library option wha

Help I just moved my music files to a external hard drive and am using the new crappy version ( i know my opinion) of itunes and cant add the files to my libray it gives me the add file to library option but not the add folder to library option what am i doing wrong?

In iTunes 11 uncheck the preferences setting in in the iTunes Preferences panel "Advanced > Copy Files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library"

My computer has just prompted me to download the newest version of Itunes and now there doesn't seem to be any option to "add folder" to library, just "add file to library" so have to do one song at a time and is very time consuming!! Help?!

My computer has prompted me to install the newest version of Itunes and now there doesn't appear to be any option to "add folder to library", only "add file to library" so have to do each song individually and very time consuming....help! Anyone know if I can get this feature back? Thanks so much, Charlotte

Use CTRL+B to put the top menu bar back on screen. Add File to Library and Add Folder to Library are both under File.

Itunes will not add folder to library - no error messages

I have an archive of about 4 thousand albums and have decided to use Itunes to manage them. Windows Media Player is terrible for large archives - it's database is poorly designed. Anyway, when I tell Itunes to add a folder (containing 1000 artists each in its folder)to its library it stops at around seventy every time. Also within the 70 artists folders it ingested I have several albums that didn't ingest.
what's going on?
on a related subject, Itunes does not seem to be smart enough to know that it already has a song in its library that you are trying to ingest.
thanks for any help!
Patrick
Windows XP Pro

iTUnes for windows has a limit, not sure exactly what number that limit is yet but if you goto file>add folder to library it only catches so many til it reaches a limit then it stops.
Also iTUnes is designed to add whats called "Duplicates" because it takes for granted your the smarter one. If you had to songs that are somewhat the same, one is the original, one is a remix, the tags might not note this. You may have .... Britney SPears - hit me one more time then another one thats a remix BUT the tags say the same thing "Britney SPears - hit me one more time" So instead of stoping the second song from coming in, it lets it in so later you can edit the tags to denote its a remix.
Now since you have such a large swath of music all in there own lil folders, Id think the easy thing to do is let iTUnes auto search your system and add them all. Theres no feature like this built into iTUnes UI but theres a feature like this when you delete a hidden pref file. When this file is deleted and you open itunes again, you get a set up wizard, it in this wizard you get the option to have iTUnes search the whole system for music and media files.
Go here to B noirs post about deleting this pref file http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=531850&tstart=0

Need help in adding a folder library (on external hard drive) to ITunes. Older versions had "add folder to library" option...

I have an external hard drive that has a huge music library that I wish to make my Library in ITunes. I have already set the location of the library to the hard drive folder (under Preferences/Advanced). In the older versions of ITunes there was an "add folder to library" option. After selecting that option, ITunes would then take a long time to analyze the songs in the new folder and I could then transfer songs to my IPad. The new ITunes has an "Add File to Library". I selected *.* to include all artists and songs in the library, but ITunes does not begin to analyze the songs and artists in the hard drive.
How do you get Itunes to recognize the songs and artists in the new song directory?.

As long as you don't have an existing library that is synced with a device or holds oodles of carefully crafted playlists, ratings etc. then...
Hold down shift as you start iTunes. You should get an option to choose or create a library. Click create, browse to root of the external drive and click save so that your library is say X:\iTunes where X: is the letter of your external drive. All new content downloaded to the library will stay on the external drive.
See this user tip for a backup strategy.
tt2

File names get jumbled when using Add Folder to Library

I have a set of .mp3 files created by playing vinyl LPs into a software sound recorder. Each of these is named with a number as the first two characters of the file name (the track number) and then the name of the song.
I create the appropriate folder with the ArtistName and subfolder with the AlbumName in the Itunes directory and then copy the .mp3 files into the subfolder.
My problem occurs when I 'Add Folder to Library'. The .mp3 files don't change, but the names of the tracks listed in the Itunes library are goofed up. There is no strict pattern, but mainly it shows the 3rd track having the 2nd track's name, the 4th track has the 3rd track's name, etc. I have to go back and rename all the tracks to make the Itunes Library match the actual .mp3 files. (I can tell they are mis-assigned by the file sizes).
It might be a Windows-only thing, I'm not sure. Any idea how I can make the Itunes Library match its index to the actual files added when importing? Or is there some other technique I should use to import these .mp3 files?
It is possible it is related to the fact that that initially the internal data in the .mp3 files merely shows 'Freecorder' for the Album and Artist in every file.
Where can I report this as an 'official' bug to Apple?
Gregg Cattanach
Message was edited by: GreggCattanach

Actually, your suggestion was somewhat helpful. It wasn't the 'Freecorder' in the Artist and Album slots. But when I look at the properties of the files generated by Freecorder in Windows Explorer, it appears the internal file names are being mis-matched with the actual .mp3 file names, so it's Freecorder that's creating the problem.
Interesting. OK, It looks like it isn't an Itunes problem after all. But it's easy enough to edit the internal properties tags (Windows Explorer/ Right-Click / Properties / Summary) before I add the folder to Itunes.
Thanks.
Message was edited by: GreggCattanach

Cant add folder to library

I just reset my computer and re installed itunes 11 and I cant add folder to library but can add files but have 5k songs and that will be a PAIN, and I looked on google and apple for 3hrs now and still cant find a solution. I been having a ipod and itunes for about 6 years now and never had a problem like this.

The main differences between iTunes 11 and earlier versions are the loss of coverflow and ability to have multiple windows open. Other familiar features have been hidden but can be revealed...
You can restore much of the look & feel of iTunes 10.7 with these shortcuts:
ALT to temporarily display the menu bar
CTRL+B to show or hide the menu bar
CTRL+S to show or hide the sidebar
CTRL+/ to show or hide the status bar (won't hide for me on Win XP)
Click the magnifying glass top right and untick Search Entire Library to restore the old search behaviour
Use View > Hide <Media Kind> in the cloud or Edit > Preferences > Store and untick Show iTunes in the cloud purchases to hide the cloud items. The second method eliminates the cloud status column (and may let iTunes start up more quickly)
If you don't like having different coloured background & text in the Album (Grid) view use Edit > Preferences > General and untick Use custom colours for open albums, movies, etc.
Use Edit > Preferences > Show list views for all media to do just that
From iTunes 11.0.3 you can enable artwork in the Songs view from View > Show View Options (CTRL+J) making it more like the old Album List view
View > Show View Options (CTRL+J) also contains options to change the sorting of grid based views
tt2

Add Folder to Library - No dialog box to select folder

Hi,
I wanted to designate a specific folder as the folder where iTunes / my iPhone should import music from. I want to limit iTunes to a specific folder as do not want comingle my Zune data as I have 100 gig of music which will not fit on my 32G 3GS.
When I click on File-->Add Folder To Library, I don’t get the expected dialog from where I can select the folder.
I can see from iTunes that its windows dims, meaning that another dialog has the focus however I cannot see this dialog window.
When I click on iTunes at this time, I get a beep and Browse For Folder outline / dialog flashes on the screen, but it is blank and I can just see the form caption in the top left.
Hitting ESC returns me to iTunes.
I am however able to do a file selection File-->Add File To Library without any problems.
Seems iTunes is a little buggy.
Any suggestions?

Here is maybe another clue.
Whenever any dialog message pops up (got a warning that some .MOV file would not be copied for some reason or another) I hit alt tab and changed to another applications. When I returned to iTunes the dialog had disappeared.
Again, the focus is not on the main iTunes application window and I can not interact with iTunes. Once I hit escape (which dismisses the dialog) control returns to the iTunes application and I can use it again.
Just to test, I changed my screen res to 1024 x 768 (I normally run 1920 x 1080) to see if iTunes dislikes my resolution. Same problems....
Any help much appreciated as I would like to get some music on my iPhone 3GS.
Thanks
André

Cannot add folder to Library

HP6120 Windows XP Pro
I used Winamp and have a Library of a view thausends songs. A view days ago I installed iTunes because I planned to buy an Ipod 80GB.
I used the add folder to Library function and added the My Music folder to the library. Everything went well, but I noticed, that the number of songs was essentially lower than expected, because my ogg files were not taken into the library.
Therefore transformed the ogg-files to mp3-files.
I deleted all songs in my iTunes-library and tried to add the My Music Folder again to the library but now it stopps after a view songs with an error. The last song and the following songs are songs which have been accepted by the first run. (By the way - Winamp accepted all transformed files without any problems)
To solve the Problem I uninstalled and installed iTunes 7.018 a view times. I deleted the library folder. Restarted the computer again and again but the result was allways the same and the described failure came up.
I do really not know, how to solve the problem. I am not shure whether I will buy the Ipod as long as iTunes will not run properly. In the forum was the same failure described which came up after deleting of songs from the library.
HP6120 Windows XP Pro
HP6120 Windows XP Pro

FYI, I can work around this issue by browsing to any folder on another drive, "adding" it (even if it contains no music), then browsing the drive that has my music on it. I don't consider this a solution, but at least I can add my tunes now.

Add Folder to Library option is not available in the latest version of iTunes for Windows. I am using Windows 7 64 bit. Any suggestion ?

Add Folder to Library option is not available in the latest version of iTunes for Windows. I am using Windows 7 64 bit. Any suggestion ?

CTRL + B will bring up the menu bar, on which is File/Add Folder...

Unable to import all music files through add folder to library

I have mapped a drive to my roughly 6,000 song library on an external HD. When I attempt to 'add folder to library' naturally the process takes a considerable amount of time but it completes with only 3054 songs at 11.92 BG being added.
99.8% of the library is made up of mp3 files and there doesn't seem to be a pattern for what it has skipped. For example, even though it has imported some of the artists that start with the letter 'N', it has skipped Nine Inch Nails and others.
There were no errors encountered during the process other than being unable to convert the one wma file I have in my collection.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I have around 30,000 mp3s and when I used the add file to library selection only about 16,500 were imported into my itunes library. Not sure what made this difference between what imported and what did not -- subfolders maybe? Anyway, dragging my itunes folder that contained all of the folders contaning my mp3 files from Windows Explorer and dropping into the itunes Window worked. Between the songs and album artwork processing it took about 2 hours.
Dell Dimension 4600 Windows XP Pro

"add folder to library" question

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