How do I get iTunes to consolidate?

For a while, I had two versions of iTunes - one (older, about 8.2.1 or 9.x) on my older PowerBook, and a newer one on my iMac. After recently buying a used MacBook Pro (early Unibody), my iTunes on my primary laptop and my iMac are both 10.5.x. But I find that after transferring my iTunes files over from the iMac, I have different places where the tracks are kept: some are in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music (the preferences-specified location), but there are others in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Music. And when I rip CD's that I have bought, they seem to be imported to ~/Music/iTunes And podcasts that were transferred over using Migration Assistant from the PowerBook and iMac wind up not all being put into iTunes' Podcasts folder, but show up in the iTunes Music folder (in the open iTunes window, in this case).
I have tried going into iTunes preferences settings and setting the location again, have checked the 'Keep iTunes Media folder organized' and the 'Copy to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library', but I still find tracks and podcasts that 1) iTunes doesn't find when I do a 'Get Info' on the track, and 2) that iTunes still shows the location as in the external drive from which I boot the iMac.
How - short of having to totally abandon all of my playlists and podcast subscriptions and start from scratch completely - do I get iTunes to play nice with where it puts all my tracks and podcasts? iTunes does NOT make me a happy camper when I'm trying to straighten this mess out.

Ignore this post - I figured it out - copy iTunes Library from old Mac to flash drive and copy to new Mac (Home folder - Music - iTunes) - it's working - sorry for wasting anyone's time.

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I can not store all my Music on my internal Macbook pro hard drive so I am storing it on a large external drive connected to my airport extrem. How do I get Itunes to search for the music here with out trying to copy it to my laptops hard drive??

I can not store all my Music on my internal Macbook pro hard drive so I am storing it on a large external drive connected to my airport extreme (2 TB drive plugged into the USB port). I see the drive on my laptop and I can add and delete files no problem. How do I get Itunes to search for the music here with out trying to copy it to my laptop's hard drive? I don't have enough space to do that.

How did you move the music to the external drive? What exactly is on the drive? The entire iTunes folder or only music? If it is the entire iTunes folder you can do the option+start suggestion earlier. If you copied only music and did so by dragging it there then you need to delete it again and consolidate/organize it there instead so iTunes tracks the move. iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19507

HT201596 80 % of my itunes files are located on a 3tb external drives; the remainder on a 4TB drive. ALL my files are on the 4TB. How do i get iTunes just to use the files on the 4tb drive so I can use the 3tb for other purposes THX .

Hi, 80 % of my itunes files are located on a 3tb external drives; the remainder on a 4TB drive as I ran pout of space. ALL my files are on copied on to the 4TB drive . How do I get iTunes just to use the files on the 4tb drive so I can use the 3tb for other purposes THX .

Select the desired location in preferences, then consolidate the media files to it.
iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19507 - Unfortunately this is misnamed. It should say "Change where your media files but not where your library files are stored" - more information at: https://discussions.apple.com/message/22026652#22026652 - and steps 5-8 in https://discussions.apple.com/message/24491967#24491967

How do I get itunes to recognize all of the music in my library. I backed up the library for 24.95 and not all of it went into the backed up library?

How do you get Itunes to recognize all the music in your library when you buy the backup in the cloud? Alot of my music was not backed up. These are songs I burned off my CD collection. Itunes Match did not recognize them either?

*What am I doing wrong?*
You moved it to the server.
You should let iTunes do it.
Point iTunes prefs to the new location.
Menu Advanced -> Consolidate library.

I have files in my iTunes media folder that somehow are not in my library. How do I get iTunes to scan my media folder and add missing files to my library without making a copy of each file in the same location?

I have files in my iTunes media folder that somehow are not in my library. How do I get iTunes to scan my media folder and add missing files to my library without making a copy of each file in the same location? If I use add file / folder to library, it scans the folder and then makes a copy of any file that is not in my library in the exact same location; I recal in older versions of iTunes being able to just drag my media folder into my library and it would update missing links.

Only the songs that are connected to iTunes will be copied when you consolidate to a new folder.
Splitting the media folder away from the usual location makes it harder to move iTunes in the future.
Are you go move everything back once you've tidied up or are you going to leave it that way? Either way I'd recommend you create an iTunes folder at the new location, an iTunes Media folder inside that, and consolidate to this new iTunes Media folder. You should also use the option File > LIbrary > Organize Library > Rearrange files in the folder "<Media Folder"> if you have not already done so.
tt2

I have been using itunes all day and then it wanted me to install a newer version. When I did it said I can't because it's missing mdsvr80 or something so i downloaded that now it has another error. How do I get itunes back the way it was or to work?

I have been using itunes all day and then it wanted me to install a newer version. When I did it said I can't because it's missing mdsvr80 or something so i downloaded that now it has another error. How do I get itunes back the way it was or to work?

See this User Tip by turingtest2
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6562

I have a MacBook Pro 17" computer, and I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone, how do I get iTunes on my Android device?

I have a MacBook Pro 17" computer, and I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone, how do I get iTunes on my Android device?

You don't get the itunes program on your Android devise at all.
You would need to read the directions for your phone to learn how to put music on it.

I imported a cd that I purchased and I can't get it to sync to my phone. All the songs have a grey circle in front of them and the names of the songs are grey as well. How do I get iTunes to see them so they can sync to my iPhone?.

I've imported 3 cd's to my iTunes, but they continue to be "grey-ed out" with a dotted grey circle in front of them. The music will not sync to my iPhone. How do I get iTunes to recognize them so that they will sync?

Thanks Chris CA.
In the Gen 4 they offer "Settings" then "Reset Settings" Then it asks, "Do you want to reset your iPod?" I click on "reset" but then nothing resets. :-( This is what makes me think it might be locked or something....

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 do I get iTunes to keep playing (radio) when I am not using the compute

How do I get iTunes to keep playing - radio or CD - when the computer is otherwise idle? It cuts off after about 5 minutes and goes into sleep mode. thanks,
Vlasta

Hey vlasta4444,
It sounds like you'll want to change the time it takes for the computer to goto sleep from System Preferences> Energy Saver.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/10330.html
Jason

HT4098 I have a subscription to The Telegraph which I purchased before changing my email and apple ID. How can I get iTunes to transfer this purchase and put it under my new apple ID?

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Did you create a NEW Apple ID or did you change the email address for your OLD Apple ID? This will affect how you update apps in the future.
Anyway, go to Settings/iTunes&App Stores, log out, then log in with the new ID.

How do I get iTunes to recognize a new device if I accidentally did not hit new device when I first hooked it up? I hit the button that said I wanted to back it up from my old info

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First of all, I think the first time you sync an iPod that's formatted for Windows on a Mac, the sync process reformats it for Mac. You can check what it is now by looking for the iPod with Disk Utility. If it's Mac OS Extended, it's formatted for Mac already.
Also, there is no current iPod updater app these days. iTunes handles it through the Restore button. If you are not able to use the latest iTunes because of your Mac, I can understand. The latest version of iTunes should run with 10.3.9 or later, if the hardware can handle it.
You said the battery was low so let it recharge for a while.
You should also reset the iPod. It's part of the 5Rs, which you should go through as the starting point for iPod trouble-shooting.
http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/five_rs/wheel/

After installing the latest version of ITunes I get an error message that says this application has failed to start because MSVCR80.dll was not found. how do I get Itunes to start working again?

After installing the latest version of ITunes I get an error message that says this application has failed to start because MSVCR80.dll was not found. how do I get Itunes to start working again?

See... Unable to install or open > http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5376
Also See this User Tip by turingtest2
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6562

HT1918 How do I get iTunes to charge my credit card instead of using up my apple credit balance?

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If you have a balance on your iTunes account then that will automatically be used for purchases before your credit card will be - you can't change how items are billed.
You could try gifting items to yourself, you can only gift via a credit card (I haven't tried it but I think that you should be able to gift items to yourself)
Gifting : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2736

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thx
c-post

Sorry, Itunes is not giving me that dialog. Lemme tell you, it did give me a related dialog earlier today when my La Cie was not connected. Apparently it defaulted back to the Pioneer at that time. I have since reconnected the La Cie, and the system is seeing it, however Itunes won't offer me the option to burn to the La Cie. It just burns to the Pioneer, then gives me an error saying it can't burn the CD.
c-post

How do I get iTunes to consolidate?

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