File/folder behaviour when importing in iTunes?

I've recently purchased an iPhone 3G. I've also got a substantial mp3 collection (121GB), all ordered in a Genre/Artist/Album subfolder structure. Every file has an ID3 tag properly filled out.
As you can tell I'm an organized person - at least when it comes to music.
I need to know, when I hit the "Import folder", what will happen in the hard drive: Will my folders be modified in any way by iTunes? Or will iTunes create a separate folder with the +same songs+ in it, but just a different order/filetype? Will the new files (or the old files) have some sort of modification done to them, like a format change or a different tag added?
I'd like it if iTunes could "read" my files, but I don't want them modified or doubled-up - that would just ruin all the work I've done and take too much space.
How does iTunes manage the original files and the new files once I import them?
Message was edited by: couzin2000

Wow - this was a crucial find for me. I just converted to Win7 64bit with a fresh install of all programs including iTunes. When I went to import my library I checked the "Keep iTunes Media files Organized" not knowing exactly what the impact would be. I found out that it completely re-wrote the native folder and filenames in different scenarios (in windows explorer). Once a file was imported into iTunes it hated special character like hyphens or commas ultimately converting them to underscores. Itunes also combined some albums into a single album/folder like Elton John's Greatest Hits 1970-2002 instead of keeping 2 seperate albums for each disc. Other scenarios I was experiencing was basically rewritten incomplete album names. With nearly 40,000 songs (485GB) on my hard drive (8000 songs on my ipod) it was extremely painful to see names being changed without rhyme or reason.
Simply unchecking both of those boxes got me back to my naming and filing conventions. Essentially back to good with no further conversion of special characters or file names.
Unfortunately now I am going back and re-correcting all of the folders and files that were changed under the "checked" settings. Much happier with the organization of the database now.
Thanks for sharing the note.

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We have 6 ipods and 1 iphone in our house. We have different itunes accounts. We use one computer. How can we share each others music? I moved everybodies itunes media folder to the public folder but when I open itunes I only see that accounts music.

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Adding media directly to the media folder does not make it appear in the library. iTunes doesn't really 'look' at that folder except to go to specific files when you call upon them from a library. You have to drag new content to each user's library, that is assuming each user has their own library.

File Name Encoding resets to Roman from Cyrillic when importing into iTunes

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Fixing the filenames probably doesn't do what you need. iTunes uses the ID3 tags. See this note for info on fixing those:
http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/mlingos9.html#itunes

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Wow - this was a crucial find for me. I just converted to Win7 64bit with a fresh install of all programs including iTunes. When I went to import my library I checked the "Keep iTunes Media files Organized" not knowing exactly what the impact would be. I found out that it completely re-wrote the native folder and filenames in different scenarios (in windows explorer). Once a file was imported into iTunes it hated special character like hyphens or commas ultimately converting them to underscores. Itunes also combined some albums into a single album/folder like Elton John's Greatest Hits 1970-2002 instead of keeping 2 seperate albums for each disc. Other scenarios I was experiencing was basically rewritten incomplete album names. With nearly 40,000 songs (485GB) on my hard drive (8000 songs on my ipod) it was extremely painful to see names being changed without rhyme or reason.
Simply unchecking both of those boxes got me back to my naming and filing conventions. Essentially back to good with no further conversion of special characters or file names.
Unfortunately now I am going back and re-correcting all of the folders and files that were changed under the "checked" settings. Much happier with the organization of the database now.
Thanks for sharing the note.

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I tried other suggestions in this forum, including raising audio track level to 150%, and saving to CD and re-importing to iTunes as AIFF (which seemed to help a little), but still the volume level of the imported audio in iMovie is still way too low. This is originally a midi file my son created. It is not purchased or protected content. It imported into iTunes fine and sounds fine there. Had the same problem with a "jaws" audio clip downloaded free online. Fine in iTunes, barely audible after importing into iMovie.
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Hi
two ways
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btw this website always seems so SLOW acting (for the past 5 years)
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I browsed through some sites in hopes of finding something that would help me but I have to admit, I barely understand just what I am exactly looking for.
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check if this app an help you: http://www.tuneupmedia.com/index.php.
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File/folder behaviour when importing in iTunes?

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