Renaming Music Files
How does one rename a music file on a mac? In a folder, can I click to let the artist, album, track info show up? On a PC, one could edit the tags and rename a music file by right click > properties and also sort the files by album info, artist name, track, genre, etc. info. How is this achieved on a mac?
When I edit my music tags in itunes, it seems to be only temporary because once I delete the file from itunes and re-add it, the file name and info is the same as before and needs to be edited again.
Thanks for the help.
Hi canht. Renaming in iTunes is the right way to do it. Ditto trashing and rearranging.To do it otherwise, in Finder for eg, can mess up your iTunes library. Of course you will have to rename again if you trash something and put it back. Trashing it trashes its name as well as the song.
To change details in iTunes, click on the track, hit ⌘ I, click the info tab and edit accordingly.For all the tracks in an album if you want to add the album name/artist/genre for eg, click on one track, hit ⌘ A, then info etc. You will get a box asking if you want to edit multiple items. Hit yes or OK. Good to go.
Have fun!
Adrian
Similar Messages
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How can i bulk rename music files in reverse order from artist - song name to songname - artist
How can I bulk rename music files in reverse order from artist - song name to songname - artist.
I actually dont need to rename the actual files.
Its just i have a huge txt list of 100,000 music names that are listed as so..
Artist - Song Name
Artist - Song Name
Artist - Song Name
Artist - Song Name
Artist - Song Name
Artist - Song Name
and i need this list to reverse it self so it is listed in the list as
Song Name - Artist
Song Name - Artist
Song Name - Artist
Song Name - Artist
Song Name - Artist
Song Name - Artist
Song Name - Artist
Im sure there is some kinda way to auto a mix of applescript/automator/terminal to do something like: all char before the "-" replace with the chars after the "-".
Please some one help me if you know how I can pull this offHow can I bulk rename music files in reverse order from artist - song name to songname - artist.
I actually dont need to rename the actual files.
Its just i have a huge txt list of 100,000 music names that are listed as so.
I wonder if we haven't misunderstood what you were asking for. Could it be that you have not a huge file, but just a huge list of names in many small files. If that's the case, you should rather use the following script instead of the previous one.
Since this script does not rename the files, make a backup of your files before running it.
set theFolder to choose folder -- the folder containing your text files
tell application "Finder"
set theNames to name of files of theFolder whose name extension is "txt"
end tell
set theTextFiles to {}
set theFolderPath to POSIX path of theFolder
repeat with thisName in theNames
copy theFolderPath & thisName to the end of theTextFiles
end repeat
repeat with thisFile in theTextFiles
set F1 to open for access thisFile
set theText to read F1
close access F1
set theParagraphs to paragraphs of theText
set bigList to (a reference to theParagraphs)
set theNewParagraphs to {}
set bigNewList to (a reference to theNewParagraphs)
repeat with X in bigList
set P to offset of " - " in X
if P = 0 then
set Y to X
else
set Y to text (P + 3) through -1 of X & " - " & text 1 through (P - 1) of X
end if
copy Y & return to the end of bigNewList
end repeat
set theNewText to text 1 through -2 of (bigNewList as text)
set F2 to open for access thisFile with write permission
set eof F2 to 0
write theNewText to F2
close access F2
end repeat
display dialog "Done!" buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon 1
Message was edited by: Pierre L. -
Easier way to rename music files and locate them with iTunes? Help, please!
A while back, I used a 3rd party software (Yamipod) to move all my music off of my video ipod to a new computer. Yamipod converted all of my music file names to read "album name - artist - song name", instead of how iTunes imports music "01 song name". Yamipod also created a sub-folder "1" for each album the artist has in my iTunes music folder.
For example, when in my iTunes music folder, if I click on Justin Timberlake, it will show the two albums I have "FutureSex" and "Justified". If I click on "Justified" it shows a folder "1" which I have to click on to get to the song which is then named "Justified - Justin Timberlake - Rock Your Body" instead of "06 Rock Your Body"
When in my iTunes folder, a lot of my music cannot be found (even though it is not technically lost), so I manually have to click through all my iTunes music folders to "re-attach" the file so iTunes can then play the music.
Here's what I am looking for:
1. I want to rename all of my music files back to iTunes format of "track # song name" (i.e. 06 Rock Your Body) without manually retyping every song title.
2. An easier way for iTunes to "find" all of my music instead of me manually pointing to each and every file. I have all the music, I just have to manually show iTunes where each of the 1600+ songs is located, which is a long and tedious process that I do not have the time or patience for.
I would greatly appreciate any advice on how to manage this without going bonkers.
Thank you!!Well, the one problem you have is that for the "Move" function, the source file input should be wired to the output of the "Build Path" function, not to the duplicate path out of the "List" function. Also, you need to pass the error cluster around with a shift register. Otherwise you will not catch an error that may have occurred during one of the file rename operations.
-
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 ProActually, 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. -
Best way to orginize music files and folders, renaming relivant attubuties
Hi
Im just at the start of trying to organize my music files and folders and trying to get back to grips with making sure all music files in a folder have the same genre, album name, have a vaild track name.
Couple of questions.
What is the best free software to change all the relivant tags?
Should I just wipe out unnecessary tags and keep the most basic ones.
What I want is my ipod to be easy to navigate, for it to be easy to play what I want and to have images for all music, I am happy to copy down images manually.
Oh and I want to do it to the source files, which I should be able to take a back up at the end incase.
Im also wide open to advice and tips, like please let me know what I should be aimming for here, im going to spend about 12 hours ahead of me copying my music to my computer and trying to fill my 64gb touch up so its healthly for my ride to work and when I ride my bike for exercise.
Thanks very much.
budThis has probably been answered somewhere else already (many times!), but I did a search and couldn't find anything. If someone could point me in right direction that would be great
Thanks
Steve -
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 -
Hi there,
So, I realize now that what I did was stupid...but it's done and now I need to find a solution. I have an external drive with over 38,000 music files so I decided I would consolidate all my music into one location. By doing this, I renamed file locations, renamed artists (corrected spelling, etc.) and when I thought I was done (and so proud of myself), I noticed that iTunes now no longer knew where to find anything.
I searched these forums and the internet and I can't seem to find a solution to my problem. Everything I find involves moving the file through iTunes. Well, since I've already passed that point, I was hoping there's an easy way to help iTunes find my music (rather than album, by album - as, with the size of my library...it would seem like an impossible task).
The other problem I see is, I have several different iTunes folders in my computer. This is probably due to upgrading systems (computers...not iTunes), obtaining an External Drive, etc. I'd like to clean this up somehow but each time I try to...it seems that I make it worse.
Anyone out there able to help me?
Thanks!The exclamation mark for missing files is shown if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a label change. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use CMD-I to get info, then say no when asked to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. I can provide a step by step guide if you give me the two paths.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps and locate the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links, which should work if they are in the expected layout.
tt2 -
I want iTunes to reconstruct its index of my music.
We accidentally moved files around in my <<C:\Documents and Settings\Jordan\My Documents\My Music\iTunes>> directory. We tried to move them back, but anyway, the iTunes program now no longer can find/play the titles that the opened iTunes page/Library displays.
I had previously copied/syncd all my iTunes music to my iPod. I tried syncing back to the PC from the iPod. No improovement.
At the moment, my dad is on my computer, logged in under his name (with administrative permissions). It seems that looking at my iTunes music under his login is still working OK.
I do not have my music backed up to the "cloud".
What are my options?The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.
If you have to resort to trying to pull back the library from your iPod see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2 -
Cannot locate original music file error message???
cannot locate original music file error message ??? i transferred to a new laptop then some of my music collection seems to get this message .
This happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout,or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes .
tt2 -
How do I manage music files using iTunes in the iCloud?
HW: HP laptop running win 7 and itunes 10.6.3.25; home sharing is on; itunes match is on;
iPhone 4S w/iTunes; itunes wifi sync will use the hp laptop; itunes match is on; use cellular data is on sho all music is on; auto downloads for music is on; icloud says 4.1 gb available
I have about 1000 music files on my pc
I spent 3 hours sending them all to itunes match
now I have:
duplicate tune files on my phone
files on my pc that lost their track/artist info and now appear as Track 1 (2,3,etc)
i have listened to all of these and renamed them manually
music files that were on my phone are now missing
music files that were shipped on my pc that I never played/wanted are on my phone
In addition, I used to be able to select and play music from "music" on the phone through the radio in my car. Now, the selected music only plays through the phone speaker, while, at the same time, the radio starts playing the entire library in alphabetical order from the first song title.
This is a nightmare.
How do I delete unwanted tunes from my iPhone? How do I get everything to match up? How do I wipe all the music from my phone and my laptop so I can just start over?
much gratitude and many thanks.
And if anyone can tell me how to change my "name" in profile, that would be great too.should have mentioned:
iphone is connected via usb to pc and they are on the same wireless network
itunes on the pc occasionally freezes/loses the iphone (it disappears from the device list)/says it does not recognize the iphone
all device, app, and os updates have been run in the last week.
All of this misery started on Tuesday--i spent 3 hours on the phone with an apple tech to step me through the match process, and didn't discover all the problems until a few hours later.
Thanks again... -
Some iTunes music files on my PC have become corrupt or disappeared and I would like to know how to force a sync from my iPad to overwrite replace these files. iTunes recognises that an album exists and what the tracks are but fails to find them when I want to tranfer them to my iPhone.
This happens if the files are no longer where iTunes expects to find them. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the files, or that the drive they live on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. Or if you post back both paths I can usually spot if it is a layout problem and suggest an easy fix.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes.
tt2 -
How to I move my music files from FAT32 to HFS external drive
Hi-
I am using iTunes 11.0.1 in OSX 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on an early 2008 MacBook. I followed instructions at
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
It worked fine and now my ~120 GB of music (and ~20 GB of video) is on an external drive "Tardis" and iTunes works well. The only data on "Tardis" is my Apple-named iTunes media folders/files inside a folder called "iTunes." My iTunes library files are on my MacBook and being backed up (along with other personal data) by Time Machine to another external HD "Rivendell."
Unfortunately I did not realize "Tardis" was still formatted as FAT32 and I cannot include it in my Time Machine backups. I want to move my music files to an HFS+ drive so that Time Machine will back them up.
I am keen on keeping all the metadata associated with my music files, as I've spent a lot of time organizing and tweaking, and want the play statistics also. There is a lot of classical as well as rock/pop/alternative and a smattering of jazz.
Is there an easy way to get my music to an HFS+ drive? I did find a possible method here:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/9690221#9690221Re: How to move my iTunes library from an external FAT32 drive
This says to get a new HFS+ drive, then use equivalent of http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449 to consolidate to new drive.
I can do this, however it took iTunes ~12 hours to "consolidate" my files from internal HD to external FAT32 drive "Tardis". Now I would be going from one USB 2 drive to another USB 2 drive. Is there a faster way?
Is it possible to:
get a new drive and format as HFS+
copy everything over from FAT32 "Tardis" to new HFS+ drive (using "finder"), keeping the entire file structure
disconnect "Tardis"
rename new drive to "Tardis"
open iTunes and have things work
Seems to me copying is much quicker than "consolidating". I've done both recently.
If the drag-copy method causes me to lose metadata, then it will not work and I have to use the long consolidate process.
Thanks in advance for any help.
-AdamPossibly,
You will need some data recovery software, it will cost $100 approximately, I can recommend Data Rescue by Prosoft.
Until you get that eject the drive and leave it that way until you are ready to try and recover your files.
Then start using a backup system, this could have been avoided for less money than the software will cost. -
Playing a music file with QuickTime
I am new to QuickTime programming. I am using Quick Time Version 7.4.5 on Windows Vista. I am simply trying to play a music file as a movie, no video. It successfully creates the movie object and the control displays but no music is played. I am using QTOControl (COM libraries for use with .net) for Windows. Can anyone tell me what I am missing in the below code snippet?
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using QTOControlLib;
using QTOLibrary;
namespace WindowsApplication2
public partial class Form1 : Form
public Form1()
InitializeComponent();
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
string errMsg = "";
try
axQTControl1.ErrorHandling = (int)QTErrorHandlingOptionsEnum.qtErrorHandlingRaiseException;
axQTControl1.URL = "C:\\path to music file.m4a";
axQTControl1.CreateNewMovie();
if (axQTControl1.Movie != null)
axQTControl1.Sizing = QTSizingModeEnum.qtMovieFitsControl;
axQTControl1.Movie.AutoPlay = true;
axQTControl1.MovieControllerVisible = true;
axQTControl1.Movie.Play(1.0);
catch (COMException ex)
// catch COM exceptions from QT control
errMsg = "Error Code: " + ex.ErrorCode.ToString("X") + "\n";
QTUtils qtu = new QTUtils();
errMsg += "QT Error code : " + qtu.QTErrorFromErrorCode(ex.ErrorCode).ToString();
catch (Exception ex)
// catch any exception
errMsg = ex.ToString();
if (errMsg != "")
string msg = "Unable to create movie:\n\n";
msg += errMsg;
MessageBox.Show(msg, "Error", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
}Open the activity window while the MP3 plays. You will see it (Xbytes of Ybytes incrementing higher). Double click on it. Winds up in your downloads folder and you probably have to rename it.
You can often right click on embedded video and the save as source/as quicktime is there as well.
You can set preferences to open Quicktime in a player vs. embedded (which is what I do) and then you can saveas in the player window. -
Last iTunes update 10.2.2.12 deleted all music files and all artwork
Within the last month I got a notice to upgrade Apple iTunes and Quicktime software which I did not thinking anything about it. I have used myiPod since then but not in iTunes at all and no synching. I have about 225 CD's loaded in iTunes plus some other music from Home Sharing that my son/daughter bought with our account in the iTunes store. I recently got a new double CD requested for my birthday and decided to load it into iTunes and on my computer. It had problems automatically recognizing the CD so I checked all the settings and they were correct rebooted my computer and one CD loaded not the other and had to reboot again to get the second to load. But also I noticed ALL ALBUM ARTWORK was gone. Both the album artwork I got from Apple and the Album artwork I loaded (the bulk of my CD's are older CD's so the Apple iTunes store does not have the artwork typically) was missing. I thought that was a little odd but iTunes has done this before after updates but usually ONLY with the album artwork I loaded being missing. In any case I tried Get Artwork via the iTunes sote and got error messages that Album artwork could not load. I also then tried to load the artwork manually and iTunes music library rejected it. Then I tried to play a song listed. It said the song is not there. Now all of my music is listed in my iTunes library, but apparently NONE of it is actually there. I go to where iTuens Music Library and sure enough only the last 4 CD's are there. Apparently the last Apple Update deleted all the music files, and all the artwork with it, yet still lists them in iTunes but they are nowhere to be found. Before I go into my backup files on an external hard drive, it appears others are having this issue too, and I am wondering if anyone has actually got a simple fix from Apple or not. .
Follow up - I could not locate any of the files on my "c" drive of my laptop. Realizing that I am gonna probably have to reload everything from my external hard drive backup I went ahead and just started the process. I uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes software, which turned out to NOT be required at all as when I reopened iTunes all of the music files were again listed just as before but none of them were actually there or the artwork. I then copied all the music files/folders over into the iTunes music folder and about 90% of them then showed up with about 98% of the artwork. The other 10% just had to be matched up as the music was there but iTunes was not looking in the right location for it now, most likely different folder names. So after about 6 hours I am back to having everything back on the computer and reorganized again. I am now going to back up again (in multiple locations - 2 hard drives and I may add a flash drive backup too) and then do the inevitable scary Apple sync. I find it funny that with other company's software that syncs, it actually syncs, where Apple sync software seems to look for items to delete from one source or the other during its sync. They really should rename it because it is not a true "sync". In any case I was happy and surprised to find that about 98% of the artwork came through with the music which never used to happen in the past, so that saved a lot of time to say the least. To anyone who ever does anything with Apple or Windows software updates, all I can say from years of experience now is backup, backup, backup, and backup prior to updating.
-
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.
DavidDid 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
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