How can I get iTunes to refresh its database of the music on my PC?

This is what I want to do:
1.Delete a lot of tracks in various folders on my hard drive
2.Then get iTunes to run through its database and compare to my hard drive and remove any references to tracks it can no longer find.
How do I do this? I can't find a way of getting iTunes to order the tracks by folder location, nor does there seem to be a refresh method.
If you want to know why I want to do this:
I had a bunch of music on my PC when I installed iTunes. So iTunes added all the music it could find to its database but basically without any info, like Artist/Album etc etc.
Now, I don't mind importing my CD's again so that iTunes can organise it properly with all the info and track order info, but how do I get iTunes to forget about the stuff that was originally imported? Bearing in mind that I don't want to forget about everything, and also there doesn't seem to be a way of ordering the music by location. If there was, I could just ordrer it that way and then select the tracks I want to delete.
Thanks in advance...
Generic Windows 2000

After a couple of days, I'm noticing that the repeat(ing) offenders have more than 10 episodes, and seem to keep repeating them every time I sync.
They only show once in my phone and in the iTunes Podcasts, but through iTunes and looking at what's in my phone is when I see the repeats.
Even after I've marked a podcast as played, and deleted it from within my phone, as well as telling iTunes to delete the played episodes, it still shows multiples of the played episodes.
There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it either. They aren't the newest ones either.

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How do I get iTunes to refresh its database?

I have now twice imported an mp3 Audiobook into iTunes, attempting to get it onto my iPod.
Both times the tracks don't show up in iTunes but I can hunt for them in Finder and they are there in iTunes' folders, duplicated!
Searching on any of the album name, composer etc or even individual track names in iTunes, shows up nothing. This is not the only time this has happened. The other instances I find the tracks in iTunes' folders and drag them back into iTunes and mostly they show up. This set stubbornly won't.
iTunes is so unreliable, it's been losing material on me for years but due to the complexity of how it handles media, it is hard to pin down under what circumstances exactly it is doing this. Or whether it is just random or due to my library being so large.
How do you tame this donkey?

Steven
Not offended at all, just clarifying what I do. I'm pretty anal about this.
I had looked under Recently Added and have now looked with Date Added under all the categories and it still fails to show up.
I saw another post which said to tickle the database by bringing up some other tracks and just changing them to force the database to rewrite, but I have already been through a series of other imports which should do that.
This is what I really dislike about this all in one database style that Apple has chosen for iTunes, iPhoto, Bento etc. All your eggs are in the one basket when things go wrong, and go wrong they seem to do with depressing regularity.
I am in full agreement with all the PC users who detest the iTunes ecosystem for this very reason.
Because iTunes is stuffing up I can't do a straight forward import on to my iPod.
Apple insists on ATV2 using iTunes as well, the very worst system, to manage its media with the added complication that it does it exclusively over wireless network. Crazy as, when most other systems allow a direct connection between the media and what it is displayed on.
Apple has strayed a long way from its previous pursuit of simplicity and "It just works".
Peter

How can I get iTunes to locate and play all my music files?

How can I get iTunes to locate and play all my music files?

I have this problem too. I am researching now. Here is what I know so far. If you right click a song then get ifo the it will say Protected AAC or purchased AAC. Protected wont play on sonos, purchased will play on sonos. It seems that all my protected were purchased 2005 to 2009 or so. I am trying to find out if apply will convert these for a small dfee or if I use the itunes cloud these tunes will convert for me. downloading and reloading is not an option for me. Pretty much a money grab by apple either way. I am sure Steve is smiling.

How can you stop iTunes splitting up a cd in the music library

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Try highlighting the tracks in iTunes, right-clicking and Getting Info, then marking them as Part of a compilation.
If that doesn't take care of it, read Apple's document (where the pic came from) -> Why aren't songs with the same album art grouped together?
WTH.

HT5610 How can I get iTunes on my mini to accept iPod music that was loaded via cd?

How can I transfer my iPod music that was loaded directly from cd onto my new, recently updated iPad mini

Welcome to the Apple Community.
Sorry, I don't understand your question. You can't load content from a CD onto an iPod, it's either purchased from the store or synced from a computer. Please expand a little on what it is you are trying to do.

How can I get iTunes to not show multiples of the same podcasts in my iPhone?

Not all, but some have the same episdoe multiple times. Every sync seems to add another one of them. This happens, through iTunes, in my iPhone 5. In iTunes, I show that I have 69 unplayed podcasts. When I sync, I can see it got to 68 for my phone (likely one is in the cloud), but then it flashes and now it shows 113. When I look at the unplayed podcasts, I show that some of them have as many as 17 of the same episode in my phone. When I go to my phone's podcast app, I see it once.
It doesn't happen to all episodes, and I can't find anything in common between those that it does happen to. The newest update to the podcast app and itunes brought back some features that have been missing for over a year, but this is getting weird.
iTunes 11.2.1 (1)
IOS 7.1.1

After a couple of days, I'm noticing that the repeat(ing) offenders have more than 10 episodes, and seem to keep repeating them every time I sync.
They only show once in my phone and in the iTunes Podcasts, but through iTunes and looking at what's in my phone is when I see the repeats.
Even after I've marked a podcast as played, and deleted it from within my phone, as well as telling iTunes to delete the played episodes, it still shows multiples of the played episodes.
There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it either. They aren't the newest ones either.

How can I get iTunes to display the tracks from a CD in their original (album) order?

To be absolutely honest, I don't really understand what this box is for, so I shall just use it to repeat and expand on my question. (I have already sent a "Feedback" comment on the same topic).
How can I get iTunes to display the tracks from a CD in their original (album) order?
It seems to me that there is something very basic wrong with the way iTunes handles CD Tracks.
Professionally produced CD tracks are seldom if ever in a randomised order. Why then does iTunes seem unable to display the tracks in the order they appear on the original CD source - whether from a personally owned CD or from a download from the iTunes Store?
Some music demands a specific, non-alphabetic sequence in order to make sense. Why does it seem that iTunes only offers Alphabetic, or reverse alphabetic order - both of which make a nonsense of the original, often intended order of tracks?
Why not replace the so-called "cover-art" in the bottom left hand corner if the iTunes window - which, while it may look attractive to some, gives the barest of information concerning the original disc, with a list of the original CD tracks in their original order, so that the user can easily reestablish the order in which they should be played.
As I would expect legibility might be a problem with doing this, why could not the original contents, (in their original order), at least, be displayed when the "cover art" is double clicked-on - the result of which at present gives me an enlarged version of the "Cover Art". While on the subject of the contents of the source disc, what about all the album notes which someone takes trouble to write in order to increase the appreciation of the music on the CD and the listener's general background knowledge of the artists involved. Such notes, it seems to me, have considerable intrinsic value in their own account. I would, I think, normally be prepared to buy such "Sleeve notes" - so long as a "taster" was supplied (as it is for the music) - for something like the cost of a single 'Tune" on iTunes.
These two aspects let Apple iTunes down enormously, in my opinion. I think that by chopping even quite protracted sequences of music up into bits does no one any favours - except perhaps Apple's already quite substantial bank balance. People have to be aware that two and a half, to three and a half minutes is a very short time to develop a piece of worthwhile music, and that there are many, many composers, not all of whom are alive today who have written music that huge masses of mankind value for the enrichment of their lives and the human condition in general.
Please make the viewing of iTunes tracks in their correct order by default possible. By all means have the alphabetical variations available as offering a different approach to the music, but not the sole approach to it - PLEASE.
Frustratedly yours
Alan Whitaker
PS I work at my old 24" iMac Intel Core 2 machine which runs OS "Tiger" - because it is more beautiful to look at, the screen is more pleasant to work on, and because, in some ways it is more capable (it will run FreeHand MX without needing a "patch"), than my more recent 21.5" which runs "Snow Leopard". (I don't find it that much slower, either).

Dear Mike
Thanks for the support. I am utterly amazed that after all the hype about how good iTunes is that it cannot play a downloaded CD in the correct order, and that what that order should be is not available directly from within one's own iTunes installation. (I know that one can go back to the iTunes Store to check what the order should be, but having downloaded the tracks surely iTunes is clever enough to retrieve this important information.
My iTunes to differ from yours in that I have also noticed that it seems unable to download copies of my "talking books" in the correct order either. But in my case it downloads them - from a CD - in order, but with the first track downloaded first - so that it appears at the bottom of the column of tracks so that it would get played last! (At least this is, while being inexplicable, a relatively "logical" bit of blundering and because of this is relatively easy to put right!).
I like many genres of music, some of which are not really programmed except perhaps by the artist performing them. I know that Frank Sinatra was very careful to programme his album songs to obtain a particular effect and in relation to the keys of the music. iTunes presumes to know better.
Film scores may be totally randomly put together, in some cases, but in others the order is vital to one's appreciation of the music as a whole and how it relates to the plot of the film.
In symphonic music most works are divided into sections and are conceived by the composer that way. Some individual sections may gain a life of their own if played separately, but they are never complete in the sense that the composer envisaged them without being placed in their proper context.
Opera and probably most choral music too, is similar except that the words may well become meaningless if the order is changed at the whim of a piece of ill-written computer code, while ballet music has to be heard totally within its sequential context or it becomes meaningless.
Finally, I would venture that iTunes, by jumbling up the order of the tracks as recorded on a CD, does an immense disservice, not only to the music on a particular CD, but to music in general, by expressing everything in terms of "Songs" - which it seems to interpret as stand-alone items of between 2 and 4 minutes whatever the genre. Even the way the iTunes publicity speaks of how many "songs" it can store instead of how many minutes or hours of recorded sound. This has to be another brick in the wall of "dumming-down" of people's expectations, and the shortening of their attention spans.
I don't know about anyone else, but I feel betrayed by Apple over this. Perhaps the look, feel and general presentation of an item are not the most desirable features of a consumer product. Maybe it should be judged more on it fitness for the purpose for which it was sold. There is one other possibility - that Apple are trying to redefine "Music" - and that everything that lasts longer than about 3.5 minutes or is in the form of what could for want of a better term be called symphonic in the broadest sense is something else - not "Music" within Apple's new definition, at all!
Well that's off my chest! now I can get down to creating some sort of order in my iTunes Libraries, knowing that I have to reconsult all the sources in order to confirm the source playing order.
Anyway thanks again. At least I know that it is not just me
alanfromthatcham

How can I get itunes to play one album from start to finish, especially when there are different artists on it?

How can I get itunes just to play albums from beginning to end? Often if an artist has a guest artist, or there are 'various artists' on the album, it stores them all separately, so listening from beginning to end becomes not one click away, but a multitude of clicks away just to make a play list which returns the album to its original state. Why can't Apple do this as a default?

If your music is sorted by "Albums", even a compilation is a single click.
'various artists' on the album, it stores them all separately,
That happens when you sort your music by "Artist".

TS1363 I have windows 8 and itunes 11.1 ... it identifies my iphone 4 but insists that I either update my phone to OS 7 or restore to by basic 6.1.3 OS I don't want to do either. How can I get itunes to access my iphone ?

I have windows 8 and itunes 11.1 ... my laptop identifies my iphone 4 but itunes insists that I either update my phone to OS 7 or restore to by basic 6.1.3 OS I don't want to do either. How can I get itunes to access my iphone ?

RealPlayer can cause conflicts with Flash Player because it tries to assign EVERY TYPE of video or audio file to itself by default. I haven't used RealPlayer in years for that reason. It's an unnecessary program anymore. There are apps loike VLC media player that cna do EVERYTHING it does without conflicting with other apps like Flash Player.
With WIndows 8, Microsoft began embedding FlashPlayer themselves into Internet Explorer. Because of that, you cannot download and install it from here. You cannot uninstall it from Internet Explorer without removing a specific Windows Update first. And you cannot update it via this website. ONLY through Windows Update can Flash Player for Internet Explorer be updated.
That said, you probably DON'T have a virus that's causing the problems with Flash Player and Internet Explorer. Many, many websites are not "recognizing" the browser.
This is a known problem with Internet Explorer 11, which Microsoft has been aware of since October 18 when they released IE11 The pages can't recognize the browser, so they don't recognize any of the plugins, like Flash Player.
So far, Microsoft has made NO indication that they have any plan to fix it soon.
Microsoft's recommendation is to use Compatibility View for affected pages, and "pretend" you're using an different browser. Trouble with that is it has seen limited success at best, and you have to individually enable it for EVERY page that has problems.
I'm not big on "pretending" so I recommend actually using another browser.
Firefox (from Mozilla)
Opera (from Opera)
Safari (from Apple)
Chrome (from Google)
ANY of those will work where IE11 won't, with the Flash Player Plug-in (For all other browsers), and Chrome doesn't even need that because it has its own Flash Player plugin built in.

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How can I get iTunes library to display the new names and organisation of tracks and albums (ie files and folders) that I have renamed and reorganised (using Windows Explorer) having previously imported them using iTunes?
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Thanks for your replies ckuan
I agree with Tgod that your first solution does not work. It appears unpredictable whether the old or new file names are listed when you drag the folders into iTunes from Windows Explorer. The folder structure is completely missing. I reckon if you have to muck around spending days/weeks/months finding out how to fix links to a secret meta-file (obviously designed by some deep-cover microsoft worm working in the Apple!), then it's pretty obvious that almost any alternate way of doing this would be better. Bye bye iTunes!!
Incidentally, I tried several other things that (if the software was designed intuitively) should work, but give disastrous results:
1) when deleting the library listing in iTunes, it gives you two options - one is to remove the listings to the Recycler. Be aware that IF you select that option, it removes not only your library listing, but also your ACTUAL MUSIC FILES to the Recycler. Moreover, it does NOT remove the insidious secret meta-file that is what apparently keeps rewriting old names over your carefully renamed file names, and keeps totally ignoring your carefully designed folder (album) structure. OK - not a complete disaster, as I realised and went hunting through the chaos in the Recycler to recover all my files. No thanks to the genius who designed this brilliant feature!
2) after deleting the library listing in iTunes, I attempted to import just the folders that I wanted. iTunes refused to allow me to do that, and proceeded to try to import every frigging music file it could find on my whole hard drive, in apparently random fashion into the library. Whoever thought up that doozy either never ever tried to use or market test it, or has modified their mind rather too many times with artificial substances so their brain is like muesli chop suey.
3) oh why go on, it's too depressing ...

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Sincerely yours Son Of Gizmosapien.
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How can I get iTunes to refresh its database of the music on my PC?

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