Duplications during itunes music folder transfer

I followed the steps detailed on this Web site for the transfer of the iTunes music folder from my laptop to an external hard drive. I then moved all my music files from another location into the folder, then did the "add folder to library" command. But during that final step, every song on my hard drive, now in the newly created iTunes music folder, was duplicated, and the duplicates showed up in the iTunes panel. I had the box marked "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" unchecked. I've since reloaded iTunes and am beginning with a clean slate. Any ideas how to avoid the duplication problem during the next attempt?

Hey cheekycherub,
These instructions may be of assistance:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93063
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93366
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
Hope this helps,
Generik
PowerMac G4/Dell Precision WS 370, XP Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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Cleaning up duplication mess from Shared iTunes Music folder

I'm helping my sister clean up a mess on her Windows Vista computer. In the process of cleaning up one mess, I may have made another.
She's wanting to share the iTunes Music folder with multiple users on the machine--so that they can all access the music from their individual user accounts. A couple of months ago, I set up the iTunes Music folder in the Public folder so that all users could access it. Each user then created it's own iTunes Library database upon opening iTunes in their accounts.
We thought this would work fine, but she's now finding that if items are added in different accounts, they're not showing up in the others--you have to know what was imported/added in one account so that you can "add to library" in the others.
So, in order to try to fix that, I created a new Music folder ("iTunes Music New") for the Main user's account and "consolidated Library" so that it would contain everything. I then went into each account and changed their default Music folder location to the new Public one that I created "iTunes Music New".
My next problem occurred when I clicked consolidated library in a 2nd account. Now, since all accounts are pointing to the same folder and I hit consolidate library in 2 accounts, the Music Folder has duplicates of MANY, MANY songs. However, they're not necessarily duplicated in the iTunes Music Library database, since the consolidation occurred from two separate accounts.
Most of the duplication software/scripts that I've researched seem to be able to delete duplicates within the iTunes Music Library database. Obviously, I'm not needing that, I'm needing to delete duplicates from the iTunes Music folder itself.
Is there a way to do this?
Once I solve this problem, my next question is how to clean up all of the secondary user libraries so that they match the main one. It doesn't matter if I lose playcounts on these secondary accounts as long as I retain them in the main original. Can I just delete the .xml and iTunes Library.itl files and "add to library" the main music folder?
Or can I create a shortcut in each of the secondary users folders that would point to the .xml and .itl files in the "master" user's folder?
I hope that this makes sense.
I'm hoping to get this situation mostly cleared up before I leave my sister's in the next day or so.

Unfortunately, you're going to have to delete those duplicate files by hand.
On my PC when I do boneheaded things like that, Windows gives them names like
song[1].mp3
song[2].mp3
You can use Windows search to find files with [1] in the filename. That should speed up the process.
After you get everything on the hard drive fixed, all you have to do is set up the secondary accounts to use the main users's ITL file.
From iTunes > Help > iTunes Help
*To create or use a different iTunes library:*
+If iTunes is open, quit it.+
+Hold down the Shift key while you open iTunes (from the Start menu, choose All Programs > iTunes > iTunes).+
+In the dialog that appears, do one of the following:+
+To create a new library, click Create Library.+
+To choose a different library, click Choose Library.+

Moved iTunes music folder to HDD, Now iTunes Can't Find it--Help :-)

I finally was able to get an HDD that actually mounted and now I have moved my iTunes music folder based on the instructions here: iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder. I printed them out and followed them step-by-step.
Before moving the folder iTunes Music from my internal HD (~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music) to the trash, I played random tracks with no problem. So I moved the folder to the trashcan, then emptied the trash as instructed. Went back to iTunes to play some music, and now all of my tracks have the dreaded exclamation point in the first column. When I click on a track to play it, I get the message "The song 'blah blah blah' could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"
Of course, I can select 'Yes' and go through the steps and locate the files on my HDD. This, however, is not an optimal process with over 2400 songs. Does anyone know what went wrong with my relocation?
Melissa
PowerBook G4 PowerPC Mac OS X (10.4.8) iPod 30G, MyBook 250GB HDD, iTunes 7.1.1

I've used that method to transfer music from one drive to another literally dozens of times and never seen it fail in the way you experienced. I'm at a loss to explain how you could have followed the instructions, successfully transfer the music to the new drive, and yet have the iTunes database still think the music should be on the original drive.
What I can suggest are two solutions: One for it you don't care about keeping your playlists, rankings, and playcounts intact. The other for if you do care.
Fast fix but loses the meta data: Quit iTunes. Open your home directory, find the music folder and open it. Trash everything you see in your music folder and restart iTunes. All your music and playlists will be gone. Open your new drive on the desktop, find the folder with your music, and drag it into your iTunes window. Your music will be imported into a new iTunes catalog and then you can create your playlists.
Keeping the metadata: After quitting iTunes, move the music back to its original location by dragging the music folder(s). Unmount the new drive and play some music. Remember the songs you clicked on and showed iTunes how to find? Do those songs all over again and once you've verified the iTunes library now points to all the songs properly, delete the songs from the new drive and repeat the steps to move them again.

Error message when moving iTunes music folder to External Hard Drive

I have followed the instructions in Apple support to move my iTunes music folder to an external hard drive. During the consolidate library step, only half of my music is transferred before I get the error message "Copying music failed. The disk could not be read from or written to."
Has anyone gotten the same message, and what was your experience correcting the issue?
15" Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

In Windows, you go through File >> Library >> Organize Library. here you can choose to consolidate your library. this should do the job.. alternatively you could take a look at this blog..
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/09/19/how-to-keep-your-itunes-library-on-an-external-ha rd-drive/
Even though its step by step on mac you should be able to figure it out from there.
Message was edited by: MuldVarp3N

Error Code -36 When Copying iTunes Music folder to an External Drive

_*"The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "NAME.mp3" could not be read or written. (Error code -36)_"*
This is the error message I get when trying to copy my iTunes music folder to an external drive. I am following Apple's knowledge base article, so yes, I have consolidated my library, have closed iTunes and there is plenty of room on the external drive. For what it's worth, I am also getting this error when trying to do the same thing with my iPhoto library.
Would be grateful for some insight,
With oodles of appreciation in advance,
Joe

I was getting the same "-36" error while trying to backup to a Lacie firewire external drive.
I had a lot of people telling me to re-format, erase, reinstall, run utility programs ... yada, yada, yada.
First off, test to see if it is the connection type (firewire). I reconnected the offending external drive via USB, restarted the drive and ... BINGO! ... all transfers went perfectly.
Once i knew it was the firewire connection and not the drive itself i simply unplugged my iSight camera (the only other firewire device connected to my machine), reconnected my external drive via firewire and the problem is now corrected.
Firewire buses seem to be very finicky things ... i would suggest eliminating all firewire devices from the machine (except, of course, the external drive you're trying to transfer to) and see if the problem goes away.
Like i said, i simply unplugged my iSight camera and the transfer to my external drive went perfect and my transfer rates went from an average of 4MB/sec to over 19MB/sec.
P.S. BTW - prior to the error and after i corrected the error by unplugging the iSight camera, my internal and external drives all checked out 100% on Disk Utility, Disk Warrior and TechTool Pro.

ITunes music folder keeps reverting back to default

If anyone can help, I'd appreciate it: I just moved my music library to a new hard drive, following the Apple instructions on "moving the iTunes music folder" (i.e. changing the iTunes music folder location on the advanced tab in preferences, setting it up to copy files, and then consolidating the library). The move worked, but for some reason, whenever I exit iTunes and come back in, the iTunes music folder reverts back to the default (C:\Documents and Settings\default\My Documents\My Music). It doesn't announce it or anything, but when I go to add new music, it sends it there instead of the new drive. What am I missing on the transfer?
Windows XP SP2

"booting up"= turned on.
I have noticed that you have posted on a thread that is 2 months old. This is really a bad idea as your issue can be easily overlooked. It's always much better to "start your own topic" by click on this link on the forum main page.

I imported a CD audio book into iTunes 11, searching says its there, but I cannot find it. It does appear in my iTunes music folder.

Using Audiobook builder I imported an audiobook CD into iTunes 11. I can see it in my iTunes music folder on the hard drive, searching in iTunes 11 says its there, but in either the albums or list, it does not appear. I have successfully imported many CDs using Audiobook Builder before, but with this particulary book I have this problem.
Any ideas anyone ?

The missing file thing happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
At guess you've used a different profile name. Files inside the media folder have survied the transfer, but those outside are expected to be on the same absolute file paths, but no longer are.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes.
tt2

Multiple itunes music folder locations

Guys,
Does anyone know if it is possible to have multiple itunes music folder locations for itunes?
I am quickly running out of space on my macbook pro and would like to move my less used music and movies to a separate external drive whilst leaving my most popular stuff on the macbook pro.
Cheers
Kegan

I have these exact same questions as the user above, but for a different reason. I want to have two different locations for my iTunes Music folder. One on my laptop for recent music (so I have it when I travel) and another "archive library" on the Time Capsule for the remainder of my music (accessible only over my wireless LAN when at home).
I have gone through the "hold the option key" process to create a second "library" on the Time Capsule, but it still references the same iTunes folder location. Of course, I could relocate the entire iTunes Music folder to the Time Capsule and re-reference it in Preferences->Advanced, but then I wouldn't have access to my recent songs when traveling.
Then, there's the whole question of how to transfer songs between folders (when my "recent" folder gets to large and I need to archive), but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.
Thanks,
John Mac

Recovering "iTunes Music" folder from Time Machine Backup (Permissions Err)

OK, long story, but stay with me.... could be an interesting one here.
So I move to a SSD hard drive in my 24" iMac. New Intel SSD drive is only 160GB, so I'm only using it for the OS, Applications, etc... all of my data is on an external FW800 disk (Western Digital MyBook). I've already relocated my Home Directory to the external drive and that seems to be working great for all my pictures, docs, movies, etc, except for iTunes.
My iTunes library comes up, but I can't locate any of the songs. I checked the preferences and it's pointed to the correct location on the external disk. So, I was trying to do the relocation, but it would appear that the MUSIC folder does not have all the data i copied into it. When I try to open the "iTunes Music" folder I get this error... "The folder "iTunes Music" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see it's content". I've checked my Time Machine drive which obviously has all the music files on it (the space is taken up), but I can't get to them to recover.
Any clue how I can get this permissions error resolved so I can get my music? I have (3) backups of the same directory... all the same story, no permissions. I even created the same user account name when I rebuilt Snow Leopard on the SSD.

I don't think you understand. I need to get my music from Time machine where it is backed up. How do i find it in time machine and how do i transfer it to a seperate HD?

When I tried to backup itunes music folder- 15.1gig- to ext. hrd drive using drag

When I tried to backup itunes music folder - 15.1gig - to ext. hard drive using drag & drop, only 5.9gig transferred to the new folder. Tried again with same result. Any ideas?

Fast backup for iTunes library (Windows)
Grab SyncToy 2.1, a free tool from MS. This can be used to copy your entire iTunes library (& other important data folders) onto another hard drive or network share. You can then use SyncToy periodically to synchronise or echo your library to the backup. A preview will show which files need to be updated giving you a chance to spot unexpected changes and during the run only the new or updated files will be copied saving lots of time.
Unlike Windows copying routine, SyncToy won't need to copy files that have already been copied successfully again and if it has problems reading any specific files these will be listed as failures, but the rest of the files will get backed up rather than the process grinding to a halt.
If your media is all organised below the main iTunes folder then you should also be able to open the backup library on any system running the same version of iTunes, regardless of the drive letter or path it appears on.
tt2

ITunes Music Folder organization

Hey. I have all my albums stored in a My Music folder, some are labelled fully (Artist - Album) as the folder name, while others are simply the artist, the album or what have you. As I load new albums onto my computer, I just do a manual "add folder to iTunes" each time. I checked both Keep ITunes Music Folder Organized and Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder when Adding, and it prompts me to copy all the files over. I've tried this a few times, using My Music as the folder, and other locations, but it only ever copies like, ten of my three-hundred odd albums.. I want it to copy ALL my music and organize it accordingly, but it won't.. What gives?

Hi Jen, welcome to discussions
iTunes always manages the music folder in that way (\[artistname]\[albumname]\[title]).
To keep it from splitting up your albums with several different artist, check "part of a compilation" in the info tab (right-click->get info). Now those albums will appear in one folder (\compilations\[albumname]\[title])

ITunes Music Folder Organization Inproperly

After I imported music of the album "Wings Of Song", by James Galway, from my removable hard disk to "iTunes Music Folder" and had iTunes organized it, I discovered something that's a little bit wierd. All the music I just imported is put under the folder Compilation\Wings of Song. This means that when iTunes organizing the music folder, it unexpectedly "thought" all these music are by the artist Compilation. What is the reason? Could anyone tell me why? Thank you!

The Compilation directory is how iTunes organizes albums that Gracenote (CDDB) considers works of various artists or collections of songs from the same artist, but differing albums (like "Best Of's" or "Greatest Hits").
The CDDB is not always consistent, as some Greatest Hits are marked as compilations and others are not. This really irked me in the beginning as I was wondering why some of my albums went missing. At first I tried to manually reorganize and move the files, but it was cumbersome. I stumbled on the "Compilations" function and it made things much easier.
For instance, if you have a Greatest Hits album of U2 sitting in the Compilations directory and would rather have it under the U2 directory (where I feel it better belongs), you would perform the process outlined below and the album and songs would move to its "improved" location.
That's why you have folders in your Compilations directory. Some you may wish to keep there, some you may want to move to a more appropriate place. This is how. Try moving some of them to their Artist's folder (if you have any that would qualify).
First check your Preferences:
-- Advanced/General: Keep iTunes Music folder organized (on)
-- Advanced/General: Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library (off) - change it back to 'on' after the song switch, if you want
To move an Album from the Compilations folder after it was imported from a CD (or otherwheres):
-- Highlight the collection of songs on that CD within the main Library
-- Right-click, 'Get Info'
-- Remove the 'Part of Compilation' check-mark - turn it to 'no'
-- Click 'OK'
iTunes will reorganize your PC folder structure, moving the songs from the Compilation folder to their Artist folder.
To defeat a Compilation designation prior to ripping the tracks from a CD, go to 'Get Info' on the CD and make sure that the 'Part of Compilation' box is not checked. This will keep the album under its designated Artist folder.
This is how I keep my music organized. I only want 'true' compilations under the Compilations folder, not some of the Artist's 'Greatest Hits'. You may have other desires.

How can I move my iPod iTunes Music Folder from C: drive to a New Drive?

Running out of space on my PC's C: drive, so I tried moving all the folder to my new E: drive ie: (E:\My Music 2\iTunes).
ALSO set iTunes (Edit/Preferences/Advanced/iTunes Music Folder location to E:\My Music 2\iTunes - but nothing seems to help!)
All of the files couldn't find the source files, unless I pointed to them one by one.
Can't move them all back because they are about 7GB+, and I now only have about 5.5 GB on my C: drive.
And when I just went to open iTunes again, all my libraries don't even show.
I'm afraid to plug in my ipod for synching until I get this straight, for fear of messing that up too.
Please advise.
Compaq Presario Windows XP Notebook.
Compaq Presario Windows XP Notebook.

To move your iTunes music to an external drive...
1 Quit iTunes.
2 Move the entire iTunes folder including music to
the external drive.
In point #2 do you mean move the entire Program File folder of iTunes or just the "My Documents" iTunes library folder?
I have a full laptop, a big iPod and an external HD, I am trying to figure out how to store my library on the HD, but access it as if it were on the laptop.
I moved my iTunes library to the HD and then in iTunes I used the "add folder to library" function, but it brought all of the song files back onto the laptop.
How do you iPod gurus configure your setup with comp, HD and iPod? I need some guidance, my methods are not working.
laptop Windows XP

How can I move iTunes music folder to another drive?

I have iTunes version 7.1 running on a notebook with Windows Vista. My iTunes music folder is becoming too large for the C; drive and I am having problems successfully moving it to the D: drive.
I know the folder is in the D: drive because I can see it there. I have followed guidance on how to link it to iTunes: Edit / Preferences / Advanced / General / Change (choosing iTunes music folder on the D: drive) / OK. I have also ticked the "Keep iTunes Music folder organised" box, as well as the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" box. Nevertheless, when I open iTunes my music does not appear in the library.
What am I doing wrong?

Firstly there is more than one kind of iTunes Library file:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93732
Secondly you should consolidate your library:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesMac/7.3/en/670x.html
The following link will give you the instructions to move iTunes to an EHD. These instructions need to be followed EXACTLY.
The 2 metadata files within the main iTunes folder must stay on the main drive of your system as that is their "home", they can't be moved.
Now read this:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748

I have 100's of CDs that I have downloaded to my itunes library and they are in the library playable but they do not show up in the C drive under the iTunes Music folder under users. Why are they in the libary and not in the itunes music folder. Win 7 OS

I have 100's of CDs that I have downloaded to my itunes library and they are in the library playable but they do not show up in the C drive under the iTunes Music folder under users. Why are they in the libary and not in the itunes music folder. Win 7 OS. When I look in the library under the get info screen it says they are in the folder itunes music, under the c: drive but when I actually go to that folder to look for them they are not there....HELP!

Hello RumDog,
I think this article will help you find the media in your library.
Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Discovering and changing the iTunes Media folder location
Note: You would usually only change the iTunes Media folder location to share music between accounts on the same computer. See this article for specific steps on how to accomplish this. Also, see this article if you want to know how to move your music to a new computer.
Mac OS X: Click the iTunes menu and choose Preferences.
Windows: Click the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
Click the Advanced pane. iTunes displays the location of your iTunes Media folder.
You can then:
Note where your media folder is, such as for backing up your media.
Use the Reset button to reset it's location to the default (which is the iTunes folder).
Click the Change button to select a folder for a new location. Once you change this location:
If you make a new or alternate iTunes library, the new location will be used by that library.
Existing files will not be moved unless you choose File > Library > Organize library and choose the option to "Consolidate files."
From: Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Cheers,
Sterling

Duplications during itunes music folder transfer

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