How to make iTunes detect the new location of music files?

Hi everyone. I moved all of my music to a different location on my hard drive, and I changed the location in iTunes preferences, but it doesn't seem to detect this, so my library is empty now. I saved an itl, xml, and temp file as well, but I don't know what to do from here.
I also tried dragging the new music folder onto the "Library" entry in iTunes, and this added everything, but I no longer have my ratings, playlists or anything like that.
Is there some other way to have iTunes detect the new location? And can I get back my ratings and playlists?
Thanks.

iTunes doesn't use file names to determine how music appears in your library, Rather, it uses metadata that is split between:
data elements that are embedded within the media files
data elements that are included in the entries in the iTunes database
No amount of reorganization, renaming or other manipulation at the file level will make any difference to how songs will appear in iTunes. Using your example:
the value of the track number element is 1
the value of the artist element is "Elvis Presley"
the value of the song name element is "Blue Suede Shoes"
Depending on how you configure iTunes then the file name is either:
completely independent of iTunes (i.,e., the file containing this song could be xyz.mp3)
dependent on the metadata managed by iTunes, (i.e., when you have these two options set:
then iTunes will set the file name to be 1-01 Blue Suede Shoes.mp3 where:
the file is in a folder called "Elvis Presley" (the name of the album)
that folder is in one called "Elvis Presley" (the name of the artist) which is in iTunes Media\Music
Going back to your question "How to make iTunes read the song's name/singer from the file's name" the answer is simple - you can't, as this is not how iTunes works. There are some third-party utilities that you can use to set some metadata element values based on parsing of file names which might be a useful first step. However, to use iTunes effectively you should really forget about / ignore file names - manage your media using appropriate metadata and allow iTunes to look after file names behind the scenes.

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How to point Itunes to a new location where music is stored Cannot locate music now it is on an external drive PLEASE HELP!!!!

Background Info
i have recently got rid of my Windows machine an am now using my MacBook as my main machine
On the old windows Desktop   i had my music set up as follows
Itunes libary information:
C:\Documents and settings\Lee Robinson\My Documents\My Music\
all of the Music files were stored on the PC as follows
G:\Music\My Music
Before i got rid of the machine i backed up all of my music and my iTunes libary files as follows to a External USB Harddrive that is now connected to my mac
Music Located @
/Volumes/AFRO-PORT/My Music
the iTunes Libary is located at the following
/Volumes/AFRO-PORT/My Music/iTunes
what i then did was to copy my itunes libary files at /Volumes/AFRO-PORT/My Music/iTunes to my local Mac machine .....
/Users/Afroboy/Music
Problem
Now when i fire up Itunes, i have all my playlists, ratings abum art etc...... but the problem i have is that itunes cannot locate any of the files. I guess that this is because my entire libary is still pointing to
G:\Music\My Music - as on my old windows PC
How do i tell itunes that this is no longer where i keep my music and for the actual MP3 files itself it needs to look at the following path
/Volumes/AFRO-PORT/My Music
... all file structures within these 2 file directories remain the same
I would really appreciate the heklp- my music collection is quite big and i dont want to loose any of the work i have done building it up over the past 5 years
Cheers
LR

Hi - thanks for the response
yes thats right, i have always kept my itunes folder and the directory containing all of my actual media seperate
all of the Music files were stored on the PC as follows:
G:\Music\My Music
Itunes libary information:
C:\Documents and settings\Lee Robinson\My Documents\My Music\
Your quite right, doing the above method that i have, turns it really messy when you when you try to move your entire collection. i saw this article earlier today
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
..........wish i followed it before hand
The only Semi work arond i have found is to go to File> Add libary.... and brows to what is now my new external drive with all my music on /Volumes/AFRO-PORT/My Music/ .
Once the import was complete it effectivly dupicated my entire libary - So i then went to
File > Display Duplicates to show duplicate items, sorted by date and removed all the duplicate items
.... So far seems to have worked ok however i have lost my play lists, their all on my iPod anyway so all seems fine now
As you said iTunes wants you to do thinngs in a certian way and it certianly makes you pay if you dont. So now my question is, so i dont have this problem in the future..... do i
A) Manually move all of my Music files to my iTunes Liabry and have everything in one folder (If i move manually where do i need to copy all my files to?)
B) Start from Scratch and let iTunes do it, so i have everything on the external disk

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The issue is not related to the external drive. iTunes Match has difficulties matching tracks ripped fom CDs because they may differ slightly from the versions on sale in iTunes. You can try the match again. Otherwise do a search of this forum. There are already many discussions on this subject here that may help you.

How to make iTunes read the song's name/singer from the file's name itself?

Hi everyone,
So I have this file with songs from everywhere. I spent quite some time now to make sure that the structure of each file's name is as such : "Singer - Song name", hoping that everything would be read by iTunes accordingly. However, either iTunes read it well, or it didn't read it at all ("Singer - Song name" appearing in Title alone), or iTunes read the "media" of the file (ie. what the guy I downloaded it from wrote for it in the Preferences, which usually is in capital letters or with a bunch of weird underscores). As I'm OCD and need everything to be neat, I'm highly tensed right now. I really want everything to be neat and clear!
So, how do I make sure that iTunes reads the files' names such that it knows the structure is "Singer - Song name"? Thanks.

iTunes doesn't use file names to determine how music appears in your library, Rather, it uses metadata that is split between:
data elements that are embedded within the media files
data elements that are included in the entries in the iTunes database
No amount of reorganization, renaming or other manipulation at the file level will make any difference to how songs will appear in iTunes. Using your example:
the value of the track number element is 1
the value of the artist element is "Elvis Presley"
the value of the song name element is "Blue Suede Shoes"
Depending on how you configure iTunes then the file name is either:
completely independent of iTunes (i.,e., the file containing this song could be xyz.mp3)
dependent on the metadata managed by iTunes, (i.e., when you have these two options set:
then iTunes will set the file name to be 1-01 Blue Suede Shoes.mp3 where:
the file is in a folder called "Elvis Presley" (the name of the album)
that folder is in one called "Elvis Presley" (the name of the artist) which is in iTunes Media\Music
Going back to your question "How to make iTunes read the song's name/singer from the file's name" the answer is simple - you can't, as this is not how iTunes works. There are some third-party utilities that you can use to set some metadata element values based on parsing of file names which might be a useful first step. However, to use iTunes effectively you should really forget about / ignore file names - manage your media using appropriate metadata and allow iTunes to look after file names behind the scenes.

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I've had my iTunes media on an external HDD for years. Let's call this drive B.
My iTunes library and xml file reside on my Mac HDD.
I decided that I wanted to buy a bigger HDD and move all of the media to it. Last night I copied all of the media files to the new HDD (let's call it P) from B. I also copied the iTunes folder from my Mac HDD to P and directed iTunes to look for the media in the Advanced settings.
Of course when I launched iTunes after all the hours it took to do all of this copying, it could not find any of the media on P without asking whether I wanted to locate it - and the library was full of explanation points. When I examined the info on a few songs, it was showing that all of the media was still pointing to B as the location with the complete directory structure pointing to that old location - and not to the new drive.
I tried creating a new library and still could not get the library to recognize that all of the media was now on P instead of B.
I remember when I did something similar years ago, I just changed the location in iTunes in the Advanced settings and iTunes realized that all of the music was on B instead of its prior location.
I finally gave up and restored things back to the original settings with all the media on B.
I did a lot of searches and followed everything explicitly -- which basically meant copying the iTunes folder (with the library and xml files within it), and the media to the new drive and then telling iTunes where the new location was. To me it shouldn't be any simpler than that to get iTunes to recognize a new location for all the music.
Can anyone offer a more rudimentary breakdown of things for me to try so that I can get iTunes to acknowledge that all the media is on P and not B?
P is larger than B for those of you who are wondering why I'm trying to get this to work. And P also will be a drive that dedicated to iTunes and media and nothing else. Unlike B, which has all kinds of assorted files on it along with my music, etc.
And yes, each time I made changes - I restarted iTunes

Thank you both for the information.
It sounds like I did something out of sequence based upon reading the split library information, thinking I was doing the right thing.
This is exactly what I did
I copied the folder with all the media from B to P
I copied the entire iTunes folder from the Mac HDD to P
I option click started iTunes and connected to the library file and when iTunes opened it was OK - and looked like it normally does when I was still using B as the storage
I connected to P
When it didn't work, I tried to create a new library and did the same exact things.
So let me ask this:
Should I hook up P again and delete everything off of it except for the folders that have the media in them and then copy the current iTunes folder over onto P again - and then copy all of the media from it's current location into the iTunes Media folder inside of the iTunes folder I copy over from the Mac and then try to connect and consolidate everything?
I assume that if I move everything from the current media folder into the iTunes/iTunes Media/ that I copy over everything will be under the iTunes umbrella as if things were never split?
I don't seem to recall it being this difficult when I originally set up things on B, as it was a split situation then too, if I'm not mistaken.
I really appreciate the instruction. And honestly it does make sense to have everything in one location to prevent problems like this from happening - it would just be great if iTunes had a feature that moved and/or copied the necessary files to the new location to prevent splitting links

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iTunes doesn't use file names to determine how music appears in your library, Rather, it uses metadata that is split between:
data elements that are embedded within the media files
data elements that are included in the entries in the iTunes database
No amount of reorganization, renaming or other manipulation at the file level will make any difference to how songs will appear in iTunes. Using your example:
the value of the track number element is 1
the value of the artist element is "Elvis Presley"
the value of the song name element is "Blue Suede Shoes"
Depending on how you configure iTunes then the file name is either:
completely independent of iTunes (i.,e., the file containing this song could be xyz.mp3)
dependent on the metadata managed by iTunes, (i.e., when you have these two options set:
then iTunes will set the file name to be 1-01 Blue Suede Shoes.mp3 where:
the file is in a folder called "Elvis Presley" (the name of the album)
that folder is in one called "Elvis Presley" (the name of the artist) which is in iTunes Media\Music
Going back to your question "How to make iTunes read the song's name/singer from the file's name" the answer is simple - you can't, as this is not how iTunes works. There are some third-party utilities that you can use to set some metadata element values based on parsing of file names which might be a useful first step. However, to use iTunes effectively you should really forget about / ignore file names - manage your media using appropriate metadata and allow iTunes to look after file names behind the scenes.

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How to make iTunes detect the new location of music files?

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