Library Organization/Consolidation problems

Before I get to my problem, I'll provide a little back story just to make things a little clearer: Recently I decided I'm going to get a new desktop, since my current computer is utterly outdated in almost every aspect, I'm very restricted with what I can do on it. It has two hard drives, both are horribly unorganized with programs just randomly installed on either one; my music files and other documents all scattered about the two as well (not to mention both are near full capacity).
So, what I planned on doing to move files from this computer to the next was with a 250GB external hard drive I have. My music is the most important thing on my computer, so those files were the first move I wanted to make. And I figured that I'd kill two birds with one stone by consolidating my entire iTunes Library (11,062 songs, 61.54 GB) onto the external HD; so everything would organized in one folder on one HD, and already transferred onto it. So I set the iTunes Media folder location to a folder on that, and began the Organize Library process on iTunes.
As a fortune of having a slow computer that's unable to handle any amount of stress, iTunes froze and the process stopped - though not too far into it. Not thinking at the time, I deleted the copied files and figured I'd just start the consolidation over again. As I was permanently deleting them from my Recycling Bin to save space, it hit me that most likely the file locations for the songs that managed to be copied were already changed to the new location on iTunes. Alas, this was the case, meaning I have countless 'dead songs' in my library now.
I have no idea what songs were affected by this at all, and I have far too many to just sort through them myself. And I just can't wipe out my Library and reinput the songs, as that would mess up my Playlists which I've spent a mind-numbing amount of time on. I'm not sure how to fix it in anyway; it's truly frustrating when things like this happen. Should I just do a system restore and recover the copied files or what? What should I do?
Thank you so much for the help! I apologize for the essay, but I like making sure everything is explained - no stone left unturned.

Hi, welcome to Apple Discussions.
If you "Get info" on a missing file and cancel when it asks you to try to locate it, then the Summary tab should show where iTunes "thinks" the file ought to be, e.g. *file://localhost/<Path to media folder>/Music/<Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<ext>*. This should let you confirm that iTunes has updated the locations of the dead tracks to point at your external drive.
Consolidating doesn't delete the old files, so if you have a recent backup of your library database taken before you started to consolidate then you could restore that and start over. If you haven't taken your own backups then you could restore the library file backed up during your most recent iTunes upgrade which will be stored in the *Previous iTunes Libraries* folder. This will lose track of any recent additions/deletions/playlist changes but may be better than starting over.
If there's any pattern to the "dead" tracks then you could manually copy these into the new location again so that iTunes can see them, but this might prove time consuming.
An alternative approach would be to try repair things by relinking to the original files. iTunes won't reveal where it "thinks" files are via script or it would be quite easy to implement a simple search & replace script, but if iTunes was managing the file & folder names then I have a script which may suit your needs. See this thread for the background or just download SwitchLinks.vbs, select a few of your missing files and double-click on the script to attempt to reconnect them.
If you're still not getting anywhere let me know where iTunes "thinks" the disconnected files are and the possible true locations, i.e. the different media locations you've used, and I'll try to come up with a tweak to make the script work for you...
tt2

Similar Messages

ITunes Library organization in one folder...

I have a Mac Mini which serves as the family Video Server to an AppleTV (and all the other Mac / iDevices we own). It is running Lion 10.7.4, with iTunes 10.6.1.
The iTunes library is set up on a connected Drobo via USB. iTunes runs on the Mac Mini's internal HD (of course), but the Library is located on the Drobo.
This is what I want: I want the iTunes folder (including the iTunes Media folder, and all the xml / library files) to all be on the Drobo, in one self contained folder, as though it was on the Mac Mini. For some reason, iTunes chooses to keep the library files etc, on the Mini itself, when the movie / TV files are on the Drobo. Everything works as it should, but I want a tidy iTunes folder on the Drobo itself, with nothing on the Mini (which will make moving the entire library easier in the future, if necessary).
Regardless of my Choosing to Consolidate library / Organize Libfary (which do nothing not even a progress bar), nothing happens.
Here is the current state of my iTunes:
This is on the Mac Mini: (contains no media files, they're all on the Drobo)
This is on the Drobo: (contains the actual movies and television show files)
This is what I want on the Drobo only, to contain everything in one folder, rather than split between two drives.
Is this possible? If so, how? Do I need to start from scratch? I will if that is the only way.
I currently have a little over 550GB of movies and TV shows.
Thanks,
Sal

Make a split library portable
Here are the typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
In the layout above, with the media folder (everything in the red box) inside the library folder, the library is considered to be portable. A portable library can be moved from one path to another without breaking the links between the library and the media and being self-contained is much easier to backup.
You can rearrange things to make a split library portable by taking a number of small steps which don't break the library.
Before you start any media files that are outside of the media folder will need to be consolidated. If the library is in the old style layout then it should ideally be be upgraded to iTunes Media Organisation (Library > Organise Library > Rearrange files in the folder <Media Folder>) to ensure that iPod Games, Mobile Applications etc. are brought inside the media folder.
The basic non-fatal manipulations are:
You can connect to an alternate set of library files by holding down Shift (Win) or Option (Mac) when starting iTunes.
You can move the library files to a new location as long as the media stays put.
You can move the library files and the media together if the media folder is a direct subfolder of the library folder.
If you have already moved/copied the media content from a subfolder of the library folder to a different location then you only need to copy the library files for it to appear as if you have moved the entire library in the way allowed above. I.e. just copy the library files into the parent folder of the media folder.
You can rename the media folder to iTunes Media (if it isn't already) if the media folder is inside the library folder.
iTunes uses the name of the folder holding the library files as the window title. Having made a library "portable" you may need to take a final step of renaming the library folder to iTunes or, if the library files have ended up at the root of a drive, moving all of the library files and content folders into a new folder called iTunes.
After each change you need to open, test and close the relevant library before attempting another change. If a change broke the library, undo it or revert to using the previous set of library files.
In essence all you need to do to make your library portable is copy the library files into the parent folder of the media folder on the external/secondary drive and use the hold-down-shift/option-when-starting-iTunes method to connect to it. Other manipulations may be required to normalize the library so that the library and media folders have standard names.
tt2

I am trying to backup my Itunes onto my external hard drive. I am at the step where I on Itunes, click on File - Library - Organize library. I am suppose to check mark both boxes there, It won't allow me to check mark the second box, why? How to fix this.

I am trying to backup my Itunes onto my external hard drive. I am at the step where I on Itunes, click on File ->Library ->Organize library. I am suppose to check mark both boxes there, the first being "Consolidate Files" & the second being "Reorganize files in the folder 'Itunes Media'. I am able to checkmark the first box but It won't allow me to check mark the second box, why? How can i fix this? Please help!

Well you must have made a mistake somewhere. The last instruction of step four reads:
When you've found your iTunes library folder, drag that folder to your external hard drive. This will begin the iTunes backup. The amount of time the backup will take depends on the size of your library. When the transfer is done, your backup is complete and your external hard drive can be disconnected.
Normally dragging content from to a new location on a different drive will result in a copy action which is what you were supposed to do. At a guess you somehow managed to move the iTunes folder. Then when you started iTunes it created a new blank library for you assuming it had just been installed rather that raising a warning.
Close iTunes. Rename the iTunes folder on the internal drive as iTunes (Empty) then copy the iTunes folder from the external back into the User's Music folder. Start iTunes. All should be well.
When you've made sure it all works please read my User Tip and use that method to backup in future. Since you already have a folder with the backup in place you can skip the "Make New" operation in the fourth step and simply choose the external folder.
tt2

I am trying to move my itunes library from my old pc to my new imac, home sharing is on and I can see the shared library. My problem is that when I check the shared library to import it to my imac I cannot import it. Can anyone help me?

I am trying to move my itunes library from my old pc to my new imac, home sharing is on and I can see the shared library. My problem is that when I check the shared library to import it to my imac I cannot import it. Can anyone help me?

You need to transfer the iTunes Library from the most recent backup you made before the hard drive was replaced.
You can't transfer the full iTunes Library from the iPad back to iTunes.
There are third-party Windows applications that will transfer data from an iOS device, but they don't re-create the iTunes Library exactly as it was before.

Where is the file button on itunes, i am trying to do this File LIbrary Organize Library Consolidate Files

I cannot find the file button to do this for the old ipod library and new library to work togetherFile > LIbrary > Organize Library > Consolidate Files

Press the CTRL+B keys and the top bar menu will appear. File/Library/... etc. is on that menu.

Good Morning. I'm having a problem using both my Photoshop elements and premiere programs. I've installed the programs, redeemed my code and entered the serial numbers, and created the adobe log-in. I am able to open up the organizer without problems,

Good Morning. I'm having a problem using both my Photoshop elements and premiere programs. I've installed the programs, redeemed my code and entered the serial numbers, and created the adobe log-in. I am able to open up the organizer without problems, but when I try to open up the photo editor (either by trying to open up the program from the main menu, or right-clicking on a photo in the organizer to edit in elements), the program asks me to sign in to adobe (which I can do and it doesn't give an an "incorrect password" or log-in ID error) then accept the terms and conditions. When I click to accept the terms and conditions, nothing happens and the editor fails to open. Everytime I click on the program, I get this same "loop" of signing in and accepting T&C's, but the program fails to open. Any advice?

Premiere Elements 10 is now 64 bit, but not PSE10.
Take a look at your scratch disk set-up and if you have a spare volume, allocate that first before the C drive. Elements use scratch disks when it gets low on RAM.
Click image to enlarge
Turn off face recognition and the auto-analyzer to improve performance.
When editing photos or videos check the task manager to see what background processes may be running and end them temporarily if not needed.

Organizer/catalog problem

getting: "a problem accessing Organizer catalog. It may be in use by another process or a disk error occurred". Can you help? Sorry - I'm using Elements 5...

From: photodrawken
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 2:39 PM
To: Ermineglen
Subject: Organizer/catalog problem
Re: Organizer/catalog problem
created by photodrawken in Photoshop Elements - View the full discussion Much thanks to you - appreciate it. Glen...

Does upgrading from Premiere Elements 12 to 13 solve the Organizer thumbnail problem?

Thumbnails do not show up after importing clips into Premiere Elements 12 Organizer. I've tried right clicking on a clip and telling it to recreate the thumbnail but it doesn't work. I've tried refreshing and repairing the catalog. I've even started a new catalog and reimported the files. The system says it's creating thumbnails but they still do not show up. Does upgrading from Premiere Elements 12 to 13 solve the Organizer thumbnail problem?

listiak
That is one of those questions best answered by evaluating Elements Organizer13 with your specific files in your specific computer environment.
Each of the Elements Organizer versions often appears to carry along its own baggage.
One of the things that came up about Elements Organizer 13 thumbnails recently was a problem with files with MPEG2
video compression. The Adobe word on this was that this is only an Elements Organizer 13 tryout issue...supposed not to exist
in the purchased version.
ATR

Zen 32GB and CreativeMediaSource organizer potential problem?

I'm using Windows XP home/ SP3
Hi!? And thanks in advance for any help with this...:-)
I just bought a used Zen 32GB player ( I haven't received it yet) and already know it's missing the installation CD. I'm anticipating some problems that hopefully will be addressed here.
I DID read the FAQ for the Zen player but stil not completely clear (sorry!)
I already have CreativeMediaSource 5 Organizer on my computer from my VisionM and Vplus players.
) Without the installation CD, will my computer automatically recognize the new Zen 32GB player?
2) Will the CreativeMediaSource 5 organizer work to transfer files with the Zen? I find this to be the easiest way.....don't like using Windows Media and synching.
3) Assuming that I absolutely need the installation CD, where exactly do I download the origianal install software-
? Creative Support>Downloads...Zen Player page..
[url="http://support.creative.com/downloads/welcome.aspx?nDriverType=-#" rel="nofollow">Creative Media Explorer Software Pack 6.70.6 for Creative ZEN player ?
[/url]
OR...
[url="http://support.creative.com/downloads/welcome.aspx?nDriverType=-#" rel="nofollow">Creative ZENcast Organizer 2.0.0 Suite[/url]
Or....
[url="http://support.creative.com/downloads/welcome.aspx?nDriverType=3#" rel="nofollow">Creative ZEN Starter Pack .7.0[/url]? (only compatible with Windows 7?)
When I receive my used Zen player and want to clean it out and restore it to it's original config,
what should I do and in what order? ie:? firmware update, application download, charge the player etc...
Thanks so much. I know I've asked alot of newbie questions but I've never bought a product before without the included software.
- Bob

Re: Zen 32GB and CreativeMediaSource organizer potential problem?OBeen addressed on another forum. Yes, CMS5 will be useable with the player so you don't really need to install anymore software for it. If you insist on having more then this is what you can install. It is for XP [url="http://support.creative.com/downloads/download.aspx?nDownloadId=049" rel="nofollow">here[/url]. For converting Video files to play on the player I use & recommend this one has a preset for the player fast simple & free. [url="http://eng.kipple.pe.kr/doc/badak/" rel="nofollow">here[/url] The first thing you should do is charge the player fully.You may not need to do any firmware updating since the player has been previously owned & has most likely been done. Even if it has not I personally don't think firmware should be meddled with unless it is absolutely? necessary .

ITunes library consolidation problem

Hi,
I'm stuck on this one. I used to have a large iTunes library that I stored on a pocket drive external to my laptop. I've recently cut it down from 150Gb to about 113Gb, which I figure I can copy back on to my laptop (130Gb free space). However iTunes is insisting that there isn't enough space on my drive, even though there should be a spare 17Gb. Are there any settings that might be making iTunes think the library is bigger than it is?
Thanks,
Sam

It turns out my hard drive has some corruption errors and needs repairing. The finder > info on the drive was registering a different size to that calculated by a finder window and Disk Utility.
Off for a restart and repair (touch wood).
Sam

Demlo - A dynamic and extensible music library organizer (in pure Lua)

Demlo organizes your music library automatically and dynamically. It runs a chain of user-defined scripts using variables such as tags and file properties. This way it yields virtually unlimited customization power to the user.
Use case
As an example, consider a music library that is a a perfect definition of chaos:
No folder structure.
Tags are not homogeneous, some entries are filled, other not, it varies from file to file.
Some files have bad audio quality.
Audio codecs are not always the same. Some file are CBR/VBR, lossless/lossy, ...
mp3's ID3 tags are a nightmare.
Covers are sometimes embedded in tags, others are of terrible quality.
Features
A few scripts are already provided and they give a good example of what you can do. You can choose to use them, to rewrite them, or to write a new script from scratch. You can preview changes, and once you are done you call the program over you music library, it will process everything in one single run!
Scripts can be chained: this feature makes Demlo extremely flexible and powerful!
Move all files according to a unique, yet dynamic folder hierarchy. For
instance, setting
output.filename = table.concat {library, '/', o.artist, '/',
not empty (o.album) and (empty (o.date) and o.album .. '/' or o.date .. ' - ' .. o.album .. '/') or '',
empty (track_padded) and '' or track_padded .. ' - ',
o.title}
will move "john doe - 1. intro.ogg" to
"/home/$USER/music/John Doe/2013 - Great Album/01 - Intro.ogg" if there is an album and a date,
"/home/$USER/music/John Doe/Great Album/01 - Intro.ogg" if there is an album and no date,
"/home/$USER/music/John Doe/01 - Intro.ogg" if there is no album.
Case checking: a powerful script that will turn everything to title case. It supports special cases such as Roman numerals, McDonald, etc. It also supports a list of exceptions (e.g. AC-DC, DJ, feat., etc.).
Encoding: you can conditionally re-encode you files, so you can choose to only re-encode files with some particular encoding settings. You can set the desired bitrate, etc.
Covers: automatically remove embedded covers, remove duplicates, remove files beyond/below a quality threshold, etc.
Different kinds of music: classical, OST, and band songs have usually different kinds of tags and folder structures. You can manage different audio libraries easily by setting the corresponding "library" variables.
Edit tags of a file set with your favorite text editor.
Support for cue sheets. (Both external and embedded.)
Demlo can be interfaced with any other program, both ways. (X calls Demlo or Demlo calls X.)
MusicBrainz support for online tagging and cover fetching.
Technical characteristics
This program is completely written in Lua. Its only major dependency is FFmpeg. A few Lua modules are required, which should not eat more than a few KiB on your drive. This leads to a lightweight codebase for a portable and extensible program.
Dependencies
ffmpeg
lua (>= 5.1)
lua-dkjson
lua-filesystem
lua-llthreads2
lua-penlight
lua-socket
slnunicode
chromaprint (optional)
History
This program is based on Musish by the same author.
The original program was written in POSIX shell but suffured from many limitations as well as performance issues. It was rewritten in Lua to circumvent all those issues while applying minor changes to the CLI options and to the variable names. The syntax of the script changed to Lua as well. Here follows a list of major changes:
Traversing folders recursively is no longer a security issue.
Overall performance got boosted by a factor of approx. 2.
Scripts and configuration files are sandboxed, which means they can no longer contain harmful code. However it is no longer possible to chain scripts.
All tags are processed dynamically, no more hard-coded tags.
Links
Official web page
Arch Wiki
AUR package
Issue tracker: Please file bug reports there thanks!
Last edited by Ambrevar (2015-02-20 09:22:22)

I hoped the structure I presented was clear enough. No, all/majority of tags would be a little too much, but genre, different release types, file types and some other basic distinctions, yes and tagsfs will probably help with that. There are special folders like [Compilation], [High Voltage SID Collection] and probably others in the future, maybe with help of tagsfs. Compilations and Artists are prepended by the leading letter of 'sorted artists/albums' level. Then albums/artists are sorted/presented in the manner visible in the Picard script:
$if($eq(%compilation%,1),
%COMPILATION%///%FIRSTLETTER%///$if2(%ALBUM%,%NONALBUMTRACKS%,[Other]) - $if(%DATE%,[%DATE%],),
%FIRSTLETTER%///$trim($if2(%ALBUMARTIST%,%ARTIST%),.)///$if(%DATE%,%DATE% - ,)$if2(%ALBUM%,%NONALBUMTRACKS%,[Other]) )
$if(%RELEASETYPE%,[%RELEASETYPE%],)%BARCODE%$if(%INCOMPLETE%,[%INCOMPLETE%],)[%EXT%]///
$if(%DISCNUMBER%,%DISCNUMBER%-,)%TRACKNUMBER%. %ARTIST% - %TITLE%
Picard has preview examples, so copying the whole script into file naming script under options should make this definitely clear.
Ambrevar wrote:Thinking about it, a similar feature is provided by most library managers where you can choose filters and tree structure and so on. It remains virtual though, it does not touch the filesystem. Is it really necessary to you to have that sort of view directly on your filesystem? The problem of the filesystem view seems very complex to me.
Not all devices provide that capability. It is more pleasant to work with that approach than previous structures I used, remember that I can restructure the whole library at any time and probably copy the local one elsewhere using the new structure, but I have not looked into that yet.
We probably have very different experiences, I see this as very comfortable and convenient. Before that I had been using folders for different file types in the main directory, but it ended up with so many entries for FLAC and MP3, that parsing that directories in a player or any maintenance using a file browser/terminal was too troublesome/slow. So I reduced the number of files, by using the alphabet and additional characters as sorting mechanism. And since that was one step away from separating compilations from albums/single releases, I did that also. Now I can access the whole library very quickly, even when one or two additional characters need to be typed.
Ambrevar wrote:Furthermore, would you consider this to be an automated task or a manual one? Using your example, how can a program know that Lauge & Baba Gnohm is both Lauge and Baba Gnohm if no tags says so?
Both, I want as always full control. MusicBrainz [database] relations.
Ambrevar wrote:Hard links do not work for folders.
Symlinks cause problems with most file browsers that do not follow them during copying.
I do not recall writing they should link folders, the directory structure would have to be [re]build and then files [hard/sym]linked, which might pose a maintenance issue, although deleting links and empty directories not really, but "leftovers" like covers could block cleaning. *The only file browser* I would recommend is Proto from a very friendly Polish programmer named Mieszko Lassota, but it is, or at least was last time I checked, Windows only and slowly further developed, although still kills every mc, mucommander and ranger on sight, that is how I remember it. SpaceFM is bearable, but I still only use rsync to copy files and see no point using anything else.
Ambrevar wrote:Can you elaborate on this? What are the limitations of Picard beyond symlinking? It could be interesting to know what feature you would like.
The recursive/linking aspect it the main point here. I hope this is not too big of a disappointment. Having too long names has also been a problem in few cases, classical music if I recall correctly, but those are limitations of the file system, however even that could be overcome with Picard, but the code would not be as easily readable as it is now. The question would be what should be abbreviated/priorities, what to do when after abbreviation the directory/file names are still too long and so on. I had to do it by hand these few times. Picard does not handle covers/images well in my experience, but I used something else for that, puddletag I think. I would have to continue to organize the library to remember.
Furthermore, not all media players/organizers do have the capability to get exactly this structure with formatting, leading letters and distinction between compilations and albums being two examples. Browsing this robust file structure with ncmpcpp is very efficient, I almost never use the library view. As long as a media player has the browsing capability, I have the same view/behavior. And other hardware also works without issues. Yes, it basically comes down to having the file system do, what media players should, however with a few exceptions I had only positive results for more than almost two years now. Do you now see benefits of having that file structure?
Again I will take a look at your tool, when I find some time and what progandy suggested also of course. How do you save your music on the file system?
Edit: Style. Clarification.
Last edited by emeres (2014-09-12 13:02:34)

Iphoto and aperture library file folder problem

Hi all,
I have a problem.
I want to have aperture and iphoto folders organized as itunes files fiolder. is possible?
I see in my aperure library that master folder (I have selected the option copy files in library) there are many and many date folder (many of them are empty) and I don't like this method of organization.
if I don't check the option to copy files and keep my database with only thumb, I have the problem that if I modify or delete a photo the original remain untouched.
please there are solutions?
davide

"(where?)"
Where you specify. Please see section 6 on this page (the User Manual is slightly out-of-date -- substitute "Original" for "Master"):
Choose a location for the imported files by doing one of the following:
To store imported masters in the Aperture library: Choose “In the Aperture Library” from the Store Files pop-up menu.
To store imported masters as referenced image files, audio files, or video files in their current location: Choose “In their current location” from the Store Files pop-up menu.
To store imported masters as referenced image files, audio files, or video files in the Pictures folder on your hard disk: Choose Pictures from the Store Files pop-up menu, and then choose whether you want the files moved or copied to the Pictures folder by clicking the “Move files” or “Copy files” button.
To store imported masters as referenced image files, audio files, or video files in a location other than the Pictures folder: Choose “Choose” from the Store Files pop-up menu and select a folder. In the dialog that appears, choose a location to store the imported masters, then click Open. Choose Project Name from the Subfolders pop-up menu to specify that the files be stored in a folder with the same name as the project. Choose whether you want the image files moved or copied to the new location by clicking the “Move files” or “Copy files” button.
" (are you sure? I don't find this option)"
I'm pretty sure. From
Deleting Images from the Browser
If you delete the last version in a version stack, Aperture asks whether you want to delete the master. If you confirm that you want to delete the master, the master is moved to the Aperture Trash.
When an image is represented in the Browser by a single version, you can select the version and delete it, and the corresponding master is deleted as well.
When you empty the Aperture Trash you should get a dialog box similar to this one. Note the field with the check box:
(Screenshot)

STUCK in consolidation problem...help

I've always been worried about moving all my music to a separate drive, but I did it , , and here's my status:
My Library in iTunes = 22.39 GB
New drive, (H), where I moved the library = 9.47GB
When I went to my laptop's hard drive to delete the music from there, this is what I see:
I have 2 "MY MUSIC" folders, both on my (D) drive, , one in path D:MyMusic/iTunes/ (5.13GB), , and another , D:Jamie's Documents/MyMusic/ (12.5GB) . .
So, , I'm confused if the consolidation truly worked, , as seen above the size of the library doesn't match with the size on the new external drive --
I'm guessing the tunes in that second location went nowhere, , and how do I get them all where they need to be? Also, when I get everything consolidated correctly, what exactly do I delete? For example, in my iTunes location, there are four things present, 1)iTunes Music Library (with an icon of the world), 2)iTunes Library (with a eighth note as an icon), 3)Previous iTunes Libraries (regular folder), and 4) iTunes Music (regular folder) --
Please help me figure out this mess! I don't want to lose any music, but I really need to move to external drive...
THanks

1,223 + 2,591 = 3,814 songs. Is this what you have in the iTunes Library? More, as there as some now on the ExHD? Are you sure that your Library is complete (within iTunes)?
Here's what I would do. The complexity will depend on your need to maintain any important Playlists you have, and the need to retain any Library metadata (Ratings, Play Counts, Last Played, Date Added attributes). If you do not need these data points, it becomes (relatively) easier.
High-Level Steps:
- Manually copy all the music folders (Artist/Album) onto the ExHD from all locations
- Make copies of the current Library database files (the ITL & XML files)
- Export all important Playlists to an XML file for re-import later
- Save all your Ratings, Play Counts, and Last Played attributes with Otto's SaveRatings script
- Delete all the current references within iTunes (keep the music files on the PC)
- Set up your Preferences to make the ExHD your Library location - Uncheck the 'Copy files to Library' selection for now - Let iTunes organize your Library if you desire
- Rebuild your Library from the files on the ExHD (File=>Add Folder)
- Re-run Otto's SaveRatings script to drive in the saved attributes
- File=>Import in the XML Playlist files to rebuild your Playlists
The trickiest part is manually copying all the music folders to the ExHD. Windows Explorer will not create a 'union' of two same-named folders. It will overwrite one with the other. In other words, you cannot drop the 'Compilations' folder from one drive onto the ExHD without overwriting the one there.
I would suggest copying all the various music folders to the ExHD into different folders, then moving the sub-folders around on the ExHD to their correct placement (in the Artist/Album schema). Just be careful.
Make sure you know how many music files you currently have, then verify that you have moved all of them to your ExHD structure. Once done, you can then 'Add' them to a blank iTunes Library. Then leave it at that, or add the metadata and Playlist info back in.
Once the complete transfer is verified and working, you can go back and delete all the music files on the main PC. Just make sure that you have all the music on the ExHD and within iTunes (as references pointing to the ExHD).
That’s a general overview. Digest this and post back with any questions or comments before you proceed. As I mentioned initially, you can omit some steps if you do not need/care about Playlists or metadata.
Here is the SaveRatings script info:
You can keep the Ratings, Play Count, and Last Played attributes with Otto42’s SaveRatings tool:
http://ottodestruct.com/iTunes/SaveRatings.zip
See: http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=428299&messageID=1275577 for directions (also below):
“Download this: http://ottodestruct.com/itunes/SaveRatings.zip . It's a program, just run it like any other program. Run it on the machine where you're copying the info from BEFORE you move the files to the new machine. Click the "Save Ratings" button and it'll create a ratings.xml file. Now when you move the files, move the program and this file as well. Then after you make your new iTunes library, run it again and click the "Restore Ratings" button. Voila, all your information is back in the Library. Well, most of it anyway, it's not perfect. It'll tell you what songs it couldn't figure out though, and there's usually not very many.”

I have lots of audiobooks in my library. The problem is each individual cd is listed, it makes my library list very long and when one cd is over I have to click to the next. I would like it to be one big file in order.

I use my Itunes for all my audiobooks. Right now I may have a book that has 28 Cd's. having many books with many cds in the library makes the library list long and ugly. I would like to consolidate the 28 cd files into one large one. but not screw up the indiviual chapters on each cd. I know Left Click, get into I can orginize more information, under options I have labled them audiobook, but that dose not seem to murge all the cds into one. any ideas?

Hi Terence:
so that sounds like better news...I should be OK when this happens?
Essentially my events become albums...I still have the separation ..correct?
Why would this be a problem?
This was a response from an earlier post from Vanoord that concerned me: quote..see next-
Events has been removed from Photos - it's replaced by 'Moments'.
'Moments' are like 'Events', but split up by the software and you have no control over what goes where, or what they're called. If you've got 300 Events now, you can look forward to about 3,000 'Moments'.
This response implies that all my 300 events will become separated into thousands of moments. What does this mean? Is this true?
Won't my Events just become albums as you suggested?
I have years of events that have accumulated and collated photos. They must stay separated.
****the other thing I was unclear about was the synching part..
Example:
I have 300 albums with 30K photos distributed in various numbers in each album ( used to be events according to your response)
I add some photos in each album each day
I set all my devices to the cloud etc...
the cloud synchs from my designated "source" Macbook...
the cloud sees this and uploads
then the confusing part...the other devices ( MacBooks, I pad, i phone) all will see the synch and can then be designated to download to each device in the original form as we view it on a Macbook or i phone? What does "full resolution" or optimized previews mean as Leonie replied above?
I need my JPEG images for my education keynote presentations and e mailing images as required from each event as needed ( soon to be albums)
Thanks again...just want to understand what is going to happen

Musish - a dynamic and extensible music library organizer (in CLI!)

Note: this program is deprecated and has been superseeded by Demlo.
Musish organizes your music library automatically and dynamically. It runs a user-defined script using variable such as tags and file properties. This way it yields virtually unlimited customization power to the user.
Example: your music library is a a perfect definition of "chaos".
No folder structure.
Tags are not homogeneous, some entries are filled, other not, it varies from file to file.
Some files have bad audio quality.
Audio codecs are not always the same. Some file are CBR/VBR, lossless/lossy, ...
mp3's ID3 tags is a nightmare.
Covers are sometimes embedded in tags, you have a lot of bad quality covers.
A few scripts are already provided and they give a good example of what you can do. You can choose to use them, to rewrite them, or to write a new script from scratch. You can preview the changes, and once you are done you call the program over you music library, it will process everything in one single run!
Move all files according to a unique, yet dynamic folder hierarchy. For instance, setting
filename="$library/$artist/${album:+${date:+$date - }$album/}${track:+$track - }$title.$ext"
will move the "john doe - 1. intro.mp3" to "/home/$USER/musics/John Doe/2013 - Great Album/01 - Intro.ogg".
Case checking: a powerful gawk script that will turn everything to title case. It supports special cases such as Roman numerals, McDonald, etc. It also supports a list of exceptions (e.g. AC-DC).
Encoding: you can conditionally re-encode you files. For instance, if the input is lossless, you can encode to FLAC, if it is lossy, you can encode to OGG. You can choose to only re-encode files with some particular encoding settings. You can set the desired bitrate, etc.
Covers: automatically remove embedded covers, remove duplicates, remove files beyond/below a quality threshold, etc.
Different kinds of music: classic, OST, and band musics have usually different kings of tags and folder structure. You can manage different audio libraries easily by setting the corresponding "library" variables.
This program is completely written in POSIX Shell + gawk. This leads to a lightweight codebase (less than 1000 lines), and near universal portability.
Dependencies:
ffmpeg
POSIX awk
POSIX shell
Optional:
cuetools
jshon
AUR package: git version
Official web page: https://bitbucket.org/ambrevar/musish
Please file bug reports on the issue tracker, not on this forum, thanks!
Warning: this program has been tested for a while, but some bugs might still be floating around. Make sure to backup your data before proceeding.
Last edited by Ambrevar (2014-09-11 09:32:49)

FFmpeg is always run, at least for the metadata editing part (i.e. tags). It does not necessarily means that the audio track will be changed.
If no script is provided, the file is not reencoded. Actually it is not modified at all. This is the 'raw default' behaviour with -s "".
However the default configuration file sets a "default" script that is run by default. This script does always transcode. This is a debatable choice: maybe I should remove the default script and let the user choose his/her own default script. What do you think?
Regarding the lossy trancoding, the rules are as follows: if the output format is the same as the input and bitrate is still the same, we do not transcode. But for some reasons you may want to lower the bitrate (e.g. smaller file size), in which case we do transcode.
Another major reason for lossy transcoding: switching from mp3 to a decent format (ogg, aac...). An mp3 music library is a nightmare to maintain (different ID3 version, CBR/VBR, etc.).
The man page definitely needs some clarifications. Feel free to comment!
Last edited by Ambrevar (2013-12-09 14:49:52)

Library Organization/Consolidation problems

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