Organizing/Renaming Files In itunes

Hi,
I am using windows, and having around 1300 tracks of different singers. I have personlized the tracks in different folders. I have also renamed all the tracks according to my choice. recently i have started using Iphone/itunes, when i transferred my music to itunes, it all renamed itself, i.e. itunes is giving the names of these tracks according to their Original names and info (from website or CD), whereas I have arranged and renamed all the tracks according to my choice.
Please advice what should I do, as its very difficult for me to find the tracks with itunes info, as many tracks dont have even names, they have some numbers rather, given by website or CD.
Thanks,

If you let iTunes consolidate and organize the files, which is the easiest way, then it would end up as <Media Folder>\Music\Moby\Moby\03 Go.mp3.
Or you could use the Auto-Organize Files... feature in MediaMonkey before you add things to iTunes if you have a specific layout in mind.
Or you could take my ConsolidateByMoving script and adjust it for your needs.
I'd recommend the first option though in practice I use a custom version of the last. This means I sometimes spend more time managing the library than listening to it which isn't to be recommended. If your files are tagged and accessed via a library then the filenames themselves are pretty much irrelevant.
tt2

Similar Messages

How to edit move rename files in iTunes

how to edit move rename files in itunes

I don't like iTunes.
I don't want iTunes to keep the physical location of my files because they can be on a SD card, or an USB drive and i don't want iTunes to stop me from playing a song because it cannot find it anymore.
So i would like to use physical files just to upload to iTunes Match and then delete the link to the physical file.
If needed, iTunes Match will download the file.
The problem is just that i would like to delete all references to physical files to make iTunes Match download the file only when needed and stop using the first version i had given to it
maybe i could have a Apple Script to check if there is a physical file referenced and if so delete it to have only the Cloud version

Itunes or apple tv renaming files in itunes library with 01 or 02 prefix

Hi,
I have my itunes library located on and external drive connected to my imac. This is networked to my 2 soon to be 3 apple tvs via ethernet cat6 cabling. Due to my rural location I can not stream movies so I have to purchase and download them to watch the following day. My mac is left on with itues running so I can access the content and is usually downloading content over night. If I check the movie directory using finder my movies keep being renamed with either a 01 or 02 prefix. Sometimes this results in the apple tvs being unable to find movies because the file names have been changed. Does anyone know which program is doing this and why?
Thanks

In Imovie there is no option to share to iTunes, but there is an option to share to an iPod - and it says this option formats the movie for an iPod and imports it into iTunes. I did that, and it still won't play in iTunes. BTW my iMovie is 6.0.4
Richard

Music files getting renamed (why?), iTunes loses them

This has happened once every month or two since I started using iTunes on my laptop. I haven't been able to figure out what triggers it, but every now and then my music files get renamed. Not all of them, but, for example, this time every song on 24 albums out of about 100. It's always entire albums. When it has happened, I double-click on the song, I get the message saying the "original file could not be found", then I re-find it and it starts playing. When it starts playing, iTunes will usually rename it and/or move it to another folder. Sometimes the album ends up in the "unknown artists" folder, or in the "compilations" folder, but once I track it down (through iTunes "do you want to find it") it gets moved back where it belongs.
It was only this last time that I noticed that these lost files were not only getting moved, but they were getting renamed as well. When everything's working fine, my music has been moved and named like has been renamed by iTunes and looks like "C:\My Music\The Dresden Dolls\The Dresden Dolls\03 Missed Me.mp3". Some process in iTunes or in Windows is renaming only certain albums to look like "C:\My Music\Stephen Lynch\A Little Bit Special\10-Gerbil-Stephen Lynch-A Little Bit Special.mp3".
When the files get renamed like this, iTunes can't find them anymore until I go in and fix things, file by file. This takes forever. If not for the fact that I need to preserve my playlists and my play count numbers, I would just blast the whole library and reimport the folder, but I can't do that.
So, any one have any ideas why this happens, how to keep it from happening, and a way to fix things while preserving my metadata without having to double-click on a few hundred songs?
Windows XP Pro

Actually, I found a good solution based on another question. If I re-import the folder, it finds all of those misnamed files and adds them to the library. Then I tell iTunes to keep my music folder organized, and it fixes all the file names and folders. Then after I make sure the original entries work again, I can sort the list by date added, and delete the new entries.
But I still have no idea why those albums are getting renamed. It's not just the most recent ones or the oldest ones, it's not ones that haven't been played, it's just random-seeming.

Renaming files on both iTunes and the Windows file system

I use the voice memo app on my iPhone to record things and sync them to my laptop with iTunes. In the past when I renamed the files from the date/time default inherited from the phone, the change was copied to the file stored on the laptop -- so I could change the name to "Joe Bloggs speaks" and then find the file in the iTunes folder on my machine with the same name. Since upgrading to 10.5.1, this has changed. Now I alter the name in iTunes and when I click on "find the file in Windows Explorer" it still has the orginal date/time name on the M4A file. Is there something I can tweak to get back the useful function I had before? Or can somebody in Apple make sure this is function is restored in the next iTunes update.

Under the Edit > Preferences > Advanced tab do you have Keep iTunes Media folder organized? If not then iTunes won't move/rename files as you edit them.
I'm not able to check myself just now, but I suppose it is possible that renaming has been disabled on Voice Memos so the original date & time can be recovered from Explorer and it would stop voice memos moving into your music folders after an edit instead of being in a predicatible location.
tt2

What is causing this? The file "iTunes Library.itl" does not appear to be a valid iTunes library file. iTunes has created a new iTunes library and renamed this file to "iTunes Library (Damaged) 4". This happens everytime I start iTunes lateley. Help!!!

Everytime I open iTunes lately...I get all my music thrown out of the library and this annoying message come up...The file “iTunes Library.itl” does not appear to be a valid iTunes library file. iTunes has created a new iTunes library and renamed this file to “iTunes Library (Damaged) 4”. Is this how an apple works? It doesn't? Why all of a sudden is it doing this? Please help. Thank you.
David

Did you happen to bring this iTunes library over from a windows machine? You might read this kb article to see if it helps http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451

How can I get iTUNES library to display renamed files and folders (renamed with Windows Explorer)?

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?
(Even when I relocate "lost" tracks in iTunes (using the drop down menu facility to view in Windows explorer), although iTunes will then play the track, and knows where to find it, it refuses to display the track with its correct (new) name, or show it the correct (new) album. That means I have lots of things called "Untitled" and "Track 01" etc, all of which have actually been renamed, but iTunes does not seem to have the capability to recognise the changes and update its library listing. Another example - a Tchaikovsky CD with 3 major works in 13 tracks insists on displaying in iTunes as 13 tracks in one album, despite the fact that I have reorganised the tracks into 3 albums - two being Swan Lake and The Nutcracker - and renamed the individual tracks to a more useable format.)

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 ...

My computer The File "itunes library.til" does not appear to be a valid iTunes library file. iTunes has attempted to recover your itunes library and renamed it to "iTunes Library (Damaged itl)"

My computer crashed when I was using Itunes. I got everything up and running and got this message "The File “itunes library.til” does not appear to be a valid iTunes library file. iTunes has attempted to recover your itunes library and renamed it to “iTunes Library (Damaged itl)” Everything loads up put in takes 10 min. then my music playlists are deleted everytime I turn Itunes on. What can I do to solve this problem? Thanks.

Hi shyanne23,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. If your iTunes library file has become damaged in some way, you may want to try recreating your iTunes library and playlists by following this article:
iTunes: How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451
Cheers,
- Ari

Why has this occurred The file "iTunes Library.itl" does not appear to be a valid iTunes library file. iTunes has created a new iTunes library and renamed this file to "iTunes Library (Damaged)".

My itunes library suddenly that the file “iTunes Library.itl” does not appear to be a valid iTunes library file. iTunes has created a new iTunes library and renamed this file to “iTunes Library (Damaged)”. I use an external hard drive for my Itunes.

The library file appears to have been corrupted. You say you use your external drive but is the whole library on it or only your media? No matter, you will have to rebuild the library file:
iTunes: How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451

HT1473 How do you rename files on a playlist within iTunes? Trying to rename some files from audio CD. Thanks

How do you rename files on a playlist in iTunes? Don't see a rename function and want to rename files coming in from audio CD as "track one." Thanks

Right-click the track, choose Get Info, and go to the Info tab. Overtype the Name (and/or any other information that you want to change) with the new information. Click OK when you are done.

ITunes forgets library, loses previous ones and won't rename files

Ok so had it up to here with some unimaginably bad software design in the last couple of weeks.
Order of issues: I updated iTunes, which is now on 10.1.0.56 (btw I can't get it to update to iTunes 11 as it says that the server cannot be contacted).
On reopening iTunes my library had disappeared. I searched online, found all the stuff about bringing in your previous iTunes library, except there is no folder named 'Previous iTunes libraries' in my iTunes folder. Also, I am aware that the issue may have been caused by AVG, which I have now updated so hopefully that will prevent it happening again.
So I just imported all the files into iTunes again, hoping that it will have updated all the tags for the 60gb+ worth of music, and would just put all that info back.
Instead, it turns out a whole load of music is incorrectly named, failing to pick up folder tags which are actually attached to the files (example: 8 Springsteen albums compiled into 1 'unknown album' folder, despite the fact that the files themselves are all correctly tagged with the albums.)
Going into the file structure, I've noticed that all these files were moved out of their folders and into
So I selected said set of albums and asked iTunes to get the track info, but iTunes told me that it can't find information for songs not imported using iTunes - I'm pretty sure most of them were in fact imported using iTunes though. Even if they weren't, the tags are there, but iTunes won't read them.
So as I said I have about 60gb worth of music on this computer and it's now a mess - is there ANY way out of this which doesn't involve a few days of my life spent changing things in iTunes? I know the easy way would have been moving the previous library but seeing as this doesn't actually exist... Help!

To clarify, currently on the 2TB external drive are music and videos. I want to split them up and hopefully save some space - and maybe foresee problems in the future when I hit max capacity on the 1TB external, and think about a 4GB (not the best option I see at this time) or another 2 2TB drives.
Doesn't the Library file just save locations when iTunes closes down so everything should be OK? I mean, the prog can recognize everything, it just won't download to anything, even if I move from the external drive an older movie to the new drive, it refuses to "see" the movie so I can download it.

Since updating iTunes and Mavericks, every time I import m4v files into iTunes it renames all the files to "Avidemux". what's gone wrong?

Since updating iTunes and Mavericks, every time I import m4v files into iTunes it re-names all the files to "Avidemux". what's gone wrong?

(By the way, would I need to use also the red and white phono cables also to get sound?)
Yes, S-video cables do not carry sound.
When you import 16:9 into DV Widescreen, make sure that you have UNchecked 'automatic letterboxing'.
In Preferences, is the project set to the correct standard?
29.95 fps = NTSC
25 fps = PAL.
BTW, this is actually the iMovie 5 forum, but no matter!

Changing directory structure & song file locations: iTunes query

I have an external hard-drive which I have loaded with thousands of songs over the years but have never really used it. Now, I want to organise my iTunes songs but my limited knowledge has brought me to a stop... Please help!
On the external HDD, songs are located all over the place - the directory structure is bad - and I want to simplify it under a new structure. Some songs are also on my iMac's HDD which I also want to centralise on the external HDD. What is the best way to do this?
Also, I don't have any play lists organised so I don't mind if I loose the library information and start again UNLESS the library information also includes SONG information (artist, title, etc.). Could it be a good idea, then, that I simply start again? Specifically:
1. Can I just use Finder to move files around and change the directory structure on the external HDD?
2. Can I start from scratch and copy all the music files onto a new external HDD with the new, simple directory structure I want and then re-point iTunes using the "iTunes media folder location" tab? Will I lose all the song file information?
3. What do I do with the iTunes library? Is it best to "reset" the library somehow or should I do all of this moving using iTunes and therefore avoiding dealing with the library file?
Thanks!!!

Driggs wrote:
1. Can I just use Finder to move files around and change the directory structure on the external HDD?
you could use finder, but it would be far better if you'd let iTunes handle the moving and organizing.
2. Can I start from scratch and copy all the music files onto a new external HDD with the new, simple directory structure I want and then re-point iTunes using the "iTunes media folder location" tab? Will I lose all the song file information?
if you want to start from scratch, i would leave the files where they currently are. again, let iTunes handle it (see below).
3. What do I do with the iTunes library? Is it best to "reset" the library somehow or should I do all of this moving using iTunes and therefore avoiding dealing with the library file?
i would start over. launch iTunes with the option key pressed. click on +create library+. in iTunes, go preferences > advanced and point iTunes to the desired location (i.e. your external drive). in the same tab, disable +copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library+ temporarily.
now start adding content (file > add to library). when done, go back to preferences > advanced and re-enable +copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library+. next, go file > library > organize library and select both options like so
hit ok. iTunes will now move files as necessary and organize them. when finished, your iTunes music folder on the external drive will look like this
none of your music files will be renamed. artwork you added manually will be retained, however, artwork that came with purchases from the iTunes store may be lost. that can easily be added later on though.
post back if you need further advice.
good luck !

PSE6 Date listed twice in organiser - after rename files

In Photoshop 6 downloader I put name and date taken in rename files - this gives me the imformation I require in Windows - My Pictures ie name and date, how can I prevent the date listing in Photoshop organiser before and after the file name?
Is it possible in organiser to auto hide the task pane instead of having to go to window hide task pane every time?
How can I tone down the horid dark background?
Barry.

What did you wind up turning off? I keep looking at the options, but I can't figure it out. The things that seem closest is the one in general about keeping the iTunes music folder organized and copying files, but I don't have either of those checked off.

ITunes update corrupted some of my music files so iTunes can't find the file, nor music I bought from the iTunes store.

After an iTunes generated update of iTunes, some of my music can't be accesed any more. When I try to play the file, iTunes says it can't find the link. This also happens with music I purchase from the iTunes store, so I've lost all this music; do I have to re-buy the purchased music again? My iTunes program is on my C drive, and the music library is on my D drive. In iTunes, I've set the ripped music to be placed in my D drive. The lost links are on some music files, but not others which do play music. Some compilation music files were split up into individual files, usually without LP art attached. Some album art was placed on wrong albums as well. Music with lost links have a ! mark beside the song name. File info says the link is on my C drive, but I can't find it there. Any ideas on how to get these lost files back. Thanks, Moizy.

Try this...
Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash
Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.
See iTunes Folder Watch for a tool to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
When you get it all working make a backup!
tt2

Organizing/Renaming Files In itunes

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for