Itunes directories in my music folder??

I’m wondering here, can anyone explain to me what the reason that there are multiple iTunes directories and config files in my music folder? This is a place where I keep my music and there is no facility i can see to have iTunes move its directories/files elsewhere or atleast in its own program directory, and these directories are regenerated if deleted once iTunes is started again.
It seems strange. This is a folder within my profile directories where one would keep their music files and my music folders (grouped my artist then subdirectories for albums). I in no way want to see program data mixed in with my music. This will cause me to back up that program data and have to deal with it again when I go to restore my music from my network storage device back to the local machine in the advent of a failure
Can anyone help me with this issue of poor programming on the part of Apple? I mean is there a setting that I’m not seeing in the preferences that would remove or move these files and folders out of my music directory WHERE I ACTUALLY KEEP MY MUSIC DATA?

Hi, welcome to Apple Discussions.
This is the standard layout of the iTunes library.
The top iTunes folder is normally placed inside your profiles "Music" folder on both Macs & PCs. iTunes has long since morphed into a media player rather than just a music player but until both the Mac & PC operating systems change thier default set of pre-defined user folders to include a media folder then Music is as obvious a place as any to put the library.
There are two main components to the library, your media files (all inside the red outline) & the database files (everything else). An advantage of keeping everything together is that you do in fact backup both the database & the media files when you make your backups. This model is much easier to archive & restore (either in part or as a whole) than the hidden databases, caches & licence files that Windows Media Player uses.
I would heartily recommend that you learn to live with the layout that iTunes want to use, but if you prefer you can create a new library anywhere you want. Just press & hold SHIFT immediately after clicking on the icon to launch iTunes for options. Once you've created a library elsewhere you can disable to options to *Keep iTunes Music/Media folder organised* and *Copy files to iTunes Music/Media folder when adding to library*. You can then maintain your Music folder as you wish and import into iTunes only those items that you want it to know about.
FWIW I have my library in D:\iTunes and redirect Windows Media Player to D:\iTunes\iTunes Media to look for content... I also manually manage the file & folder names because personally I don't like iTunes' habit for clipping these to about 40 characters.
tt2

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I need to get the music off my Ipod Nano 2nd GEN onto either ITunes or in a music foldes on my new computer. Not all the music was purchased from Apple Itunes HOW DO I DO THIS WITHOUT LOOSING ALL MY MUSIC??

I have not had a computer for several years and I just got a new one. My old computer got a virus and when that happened all my music was lost. Thank goodness I had it all on my Ipod Nano 2nd GEN. Now my problem is that I don't know how to get the music off my Ipod Nano onto my new computer!!! I was able to get the songs that I purchased thru ITunes by just authorizing my new computer. But I have alot more music that is on my Ipod nano that I can't put into my ITunes library. In fact, I can't even get my music into a file folder on my computer!! I really need help. I don't have any copies of the music anywhere else and some of it is hard to get. How do I get my music either into ITunes or into a file folder on my new computer or even if I could get my computer to recognize my Ipod and sync all the music into windows media or something like that. Every time I connect my IPod all that happens is that it tells me if I sync the IPod that it will replace all the music from my ITunes library on to my IPod. And I am guessing that means all my music on the IPod will be erased. PLEASE HELP ME!!!! Thanks from the bottom of my songsters heart

From the OP: "My old computer got a virus and when that happened all my music was lost. "
They don't have the music on their computer so they cannot transfer the iTunes folder, from the computer to their iPod and then to the new computer. And if they try to enable disk use on the iPod it will erase all the music that is on it. The method you cited is moving the files in a data format using the iPod as a flash drive. It doesn't work if they are in music format. That is why I suggested Yamipod.

ITunes no longer organising music folder???

Hello,
I've had my iTunes lib on an external for years now and no problem. I just updated to the newest version of iTunes and now everytime I add a new album it no longer adds that album to the correct artists folder. YES, I do have the "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organised" button. That is why I am so perplexed! I have restarted and nothing... I have selected an entire artists 3 albums that I have and done apple-i and changed all the artists name so that they are literally identical and still the music folder has the older 2 albums under the artists name and the recent one i've added all by its lonesome???
anyone else having this problem?
any help would be greatly appreciated!

Yeah, I've tried that... When you have that box check (keep folder organised) it USUALLY keeps your folder organised based on what you have in the "Artist" field, and indeed 99% of my iTunes lib is that way but every new album I add is not taking???
It is as if I don't have that box checked. That is the best way to describe this problem. The problem being that I do - and it refuses to organise by artists which is going to leave me a very messy music folder!
anyone else with this problem?

Why am i receiving error message "the ipod cannot be synced. an unknown error occurred (13019)" when i try to move a song from my itunes library into my music folder on my ipod touch?

Why am I receiving the following message when I try to move a song from my iTunes library into my iPod touch's music folder?
"The iPod cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (13019)."
It was working just fine. Then all of a sudden this error message popped up.

Try here:
iTunes: Error 13019 during sync

ITunes created a second "Music" folder within root folder

I've had pretty fair luck for years with iTunes, and then today hit several snags. I had some settings go South on me after some resets from iPhone issues.
Today I noticed that when I added a new song file to the library, it was copying the file into the designated Media Folder (I use the "Music" folder) but leaving an original in its original folder. Copying instead of moving the file. Previously when I did this, the files would be moved into the Music folder and be organized into artist sub-folders, and there wouldn't be another copy left behind in the original folder.
So I tried to "Organize Library" and it went through the entire library, created a new "Music" folder into which it put some (not all) songs and files into new subfolders.
Now I have a "Music" folder with lots of empty folders (but not all, so I can't just delete them all without openoing each one first) and another "Music" folder within that folkder with a bunch of new sub-folders.
Additionally, my poriginal issue is still present, it is copying, not moving files when I add them to the library.
Any thoughts?

I found and answered your post in the other thread regarding the extra layer of folders but it looks like you've moved on already.
Perhaps my script ConsolidateByMoving will do what you're after with regard to moving files in this thread.
tt2

Syncing ITunes with My documents music folder....?

Was just wondering if its possible to sync ITune with the music folder on my computer as it gets annoying having to add new music manually, especially as Windows media player does this automatically without causing duplicates...

iTunes doesn't do folder monitoring.
One possible workaround is to look at 3rd party solutions such as iTunes Library Updater:
http://itlu.ownz.ch/wordpress/?page_id=2
Article about automating updater
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/itunes/hack-attack-automatically-sync-itunes- to-any-folders-175161.php
iTsync, a non free commercial program is another possibility although I don't have any experience of either myself.

Not all my music is showing up in itunes widow - although the music folder is full of music

I have transfered my music library from an older compter. All the music folders are now in the new compter itunes music directory.
But only a few of them are showing up in the itunes window. And those were all copy on the same date. What's going on here and how can I get all my music into my itunes?

File>Add to Library
Select the ENTIRE music folder.

ITunes jumbo sizes my Music Folder - copies every song twice!

*Here is my problem:*
Three days ago I had 70+ GB free on my 500GB internal hard drive. Today I have 3.62 GB free. I believe that iTunes is at fault.
*Here is what happened:*
I was lounging around my apartment with iTunes playing after having just upgraded to version 7.4.0. When I came back to my iMac, I had two alerts on my screen saying that my hard disk was full. (Screenshots available on my .Mac page at <http://homepage.mac.com/mk2ja/Sites/DiskFull/>.)
In my iTunes Library, it shows that I have 16.65 GB worth of music. But when I go to my Music Folder, it shows that I have 70 GB of music files. "How can this be?" I asked. Well, it turns out that SOMEHOW nearly every one of my songs has been copied and renamed back into the same folder.
For example -
A song in the folder +username > Music > iTunes > iTunes Music > The Beatles > Greatest Hits 1962-1970 > Hey Jude.m4a+ now also has sisters named +Hey Jude 1.m4a+ and +01 Hey Jude.m4a+.
In this true-to-life example, the album that contains only 25 songs in my Library has 74 songs, yes, SEVENTY FOUR songs, when shown in the Music Folder. So what should be only 68.3 MB is actually 202.3 MB on disk.
I have regained about 3 GB of my space by going through my Library, song by song, and making sure it only occurs once in my Music Folder, but I still have thousands of songs left to go through. And it *****.
Now, to be completely honest, I have noticed this phenomenon before. I have known that several albums' folders were housing duplicates, and I had been slowly working my way through correcting them all when I had time. But the sudden loss of about 70 GB and crippled me completely is just really ticking me off. This is like the last straw after having a bad week with iTunes already... first, album artwork started randomly disappearing. Then, if iTunes was paused while I went to class, it would have to be Quit and reopened before I could play again. And it jumbo sized my Music folder?? Come on! What ever happened to "It just works"!? Ah!
So...
If somebody could let me know WHY iTunes hates me, and what I can do to fix it. Please, that'd be great.
If anybody from Apple who works in iTunes reads this, could you please work on making iTunes NOT do this in future? This isn't the first time it has copied my Library, as I mentioned above.
Thanks for your time.
And please.. tell me how to make it stop!

First off, I am still trying to figure out why iTunes copied all the songs in my Library, as I described previously.
However, I seem to have finally found the culprit of my lost disk space. After approximately six weeks of going through tons of files, I finally came across a file of the same size as the space I had lost before: theHardDrive/Library/Logs/Console/501/console.log.5 was a 76.71 GB file. Yes, you read that correctly - 76 gigs! I just deleted the entire 501/ folder and now I have regained all that missing space, for which I am elated.
But can somebody tell me why the heck iTunes thinks it needs to copy those files?! I'm glad it wasn't iTunes that caused that particular instance of missing space, but I have nonetheless been deleting unnecessary copies of songs for all these past six weeks to regain some of that space bit by bit (or byte by byte, if you will). And I know that there are still extraneous copies for probably more than half of the remaining songs in my collection.
All for now...
mk2ja

Everytime I open iTunes it deletes my music folder.

it replaces it with an empty my music folder, i cannot find my music anywhere on my computer.

Do you have a Sony Vaio? Many Vaio owners have seen this exact problem. There is some Sony media management software often preinstalled on Vaio systems that causes a conflict with iTunes saving its library database file. See this Apple support article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2715
and Redkeefy's post in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8537277#8537277
Other computers may have media management software that would have a similar effect, though I haven't heard of any specifics.
Hope this helps.

ITunes' Library "populating' Purchased Music folder

It seems all of the music I've copied off of CDs has migrated from my iTunes Library folder and now shows up in the 'Purchased' music folder. Those items that have been purchased show up twice. I'm hesitent to 'delete' anything from the Purchased folder for fear of losing music.
1. Why/how did this happen?
2. How can it be resolved?
Tks!
Dell Dimension Windows XP

Exact same thing has happened to me. Could do with advice also

ITunes never remembers my music folder location on MacBook Pro

I keep all my music on a file server, every time I reboot my MacBook Pro iTunes reverts my iTunes Music folder location from the network share to the local directory which is stored on the local laptop. Why the **** can't iTunes remember this location? It is extremely frustrating that I have to continously check if the save location is set to my server and if I forget I then have to move all the songs that I get from the store or make from CD to the server. There has to be a solution for this.

Hi,
I have exactly the same problem using Windows. There are four PCs on my network sharing a common music library on a mapped network file server that runs 24/7. On every single PC when iTunes starts it refuses to recognise the mapped drive and reverts to the default folder on C: drive. EVERY time I want to use iTunes I have to change the location of the iTunes music library in the preferences back to the mapped drive.......its a real pain. As the drive is running 24/7 Windows recognises it immediately it boots up, but not iTunes...oh no. Why is such a simple thing so problematic? Surely this is basic stuff!

How do I stop itunes from creating a 'Music' folder inside my music folder?

I'm trying to set up my library on a new computer and I'm running into a very BIG problem.
Previously, I had let iTunes manage the directory structure, which in my opine does quite well: Artist / Album / Song. Trying to import the library into the new computer is causing a new folder to appear at the Artist level, called 'Music', and the artist directories are moved under it as they get imported.
This makes no sense to me. The versions of iTunes are the same: 9.0.2 - and this was NOT done whenever I imported a CD. The settings are the same - I like the settings a certain way and I made sure of that. The 'let itunes mange...' is checked on the new computer just like it was on the old. But the new computer is refusing to let the music stay in the same structure as the old one did.
The only real difference I can think of is that I'm trying to import the directory containing the structure, rather than importing them disc by disc, and that I'm trying to import the library from the library directory itself (ie: importing c:\itunes when the library is also sourced at c:\itunes). But I've done this before with previous versions of itunes without this problem occurring. How come the old versions knew how to handle this as expected, but the new one doesn't?
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Reading through that article - there's two important pieces of information.
1 - It says that you have to select "Upgrade to iTunes Media organization" in order to enable this so-called feature, which is still unchecked on my machine (ie: I didn't do it).
2 - It says that it's enabled by default in iTunes 9.
Kinda conflicting there, it still says it ISN'T enabled on my PC but I apparently have to deal with it anyway. Why bother pretending to give me a choice at all if it's just going to be enabled by default?
I'm gonna go wipe itunes now and start at version 8 - maybe the upgrade path will keep my directories the way I like them instead of itunes lying to me about the new media layout.

ITunes Library VS other Music Folder

Hi,
Situation:
- I pasted a folder (named mymusic) full of music files (mp3) and movie files, to my Mac Book Pro (MBP).
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My question:
Can I delete the original 'mymusic' folder?
If I delete mymusic folder, will all my music remains safe in the iTunes Media folder?
If Yes, then what about the artwork (album cover image)?
I put album covers images in mymusic folder. If I delete the folder, will the cover image stays safely in iTunes Media folder?
Thanks.

erocky wrote:
orgnaized the library with "Reorganized files int the folder iTunes Media".
According to iTunes Help:
"To create folders (Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Audiobooks, and so on) inside your iTunes folder, and place all your imported media files in the appropriate folders, select 'Reorganize files.'"
That means that the files are copied into the iTunes folder. Once the copy is done, there is no further connection to the source files, and they can be deleted.

HT1848 How can I get a copy of my entire music library on iTunes to the 'My Music' folder on my computer?

I have a bunch of music that I have bought or downloaded from a variety of places. I would like a copy of ALL my music on my computer, not just iTunes, so I can put songs on other devices, such as my phone. How can I copy my entire iTunes library into a folder on my computer (which is an Acer with Windows 7)? Thanks!

If they are in your iTunes library, they are aready on your computer.
To see the location of a particular song file, right-click its library entry and choose "Show in Explorer."
To copy it to another location, use Copy & Paste, as you would with any file.

ITunes Mantch and managing music folder structure

Hi,
My current music collection is organized on disk using a folder structure of [ARTIST] > [ALBUM] with the songs in the Album folders. If i enable Match and then delete my music and redownload it. will Match default to some kind of logical /file folder structure or will the subsequest downloads be random? Hope the question makes sense. Thanks in advance...

iTunes Match works well with the iTunes options to organise your library - found under the advanced preferences tab. Using this approach typical organisation is by artist by album.

Itunes directories in my music folder??

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