Setting correct Media Folder in 9.0.2

Question

Since version 7 (or before) I had always set as Itunes Media folder location a share on my Nas like "Q:\Music" and the two options "keep organized" and "copy when adding" checked.
Itunes was able to create under Q:\Music the folder with the artist name and inside this the album folder etc.
Starting from 9.0.2 (I think...) with those setting I have a strange behavior.
If I leave Q:\Music as folder location, when I add a song he create the artist folder in Q:MusicMusic
Actually, he create a second "Music" subfolder inside mine.
So I though to cheat him setting "Q:\" as folder location, but in this case he create the artist folder on the ROOT of the disk !!
Is this a bug ? what can I do to restore the previous situation ?
Thanks in advance
Message was edited by: SandroRiz

Answer 1

@ Wakefields3 - Sorry not to have picked up on this earlier...
Wakefields3 wrote:
Hello tt2, I have been reading these posts and trying to get my head around how iTunes works.
Currently I have D:\music and all the folders beneath this, including a new iTunes\Album Artwork and iTunes\Media.
We previously had an earlier version of iTunes but have since purchased a new computer and loaded v9.
Today I was looking at my folder structure and noticed many duplicates and incorrect spellings, so decided to manually go through and tidy up (using Windows 7 explorer).
Now of course my iTunes library is showing many songs that it can't locate (go figure I should have just left the awful mess alone). I don't really want to have to go through and manually locate each file.
Not a good move - unlike Windows Media Player, iTunes won't watch your media folders and catch up if you move things about manually. Changing files names also has no impact on tag values so changing the name of the Artist folder won't correct what you see in iTunes or on your iPod.
I use iTunes Folder Watch (iTFW) to catch files that for one reason or another have been added or removed from the media folders. It's not so bad on adding new items but it rescans the libary after each delete which is rather inefficient. I've not used the feature but FolderWatch can try to maintain the rating if it can see a file has just moved location.
If you want a simple list of all files that can no longer be found in iTunes create an empty playlist called Found. Select the Music source. Select all items with CTRL-A. Drag this selection onto the new playlist and hover over it holding the mouse button for several seconds until a number displays how many items should be copied. Release the mouse button. Although the number will be the number of items in the Music source only items that can be found will be added to the list. Make a new Smart Playlist called Missing. Match all rules *Playlist is Music* and *Playlist is not Found*. This playlist should contain all the items that are not where iTunes expects them to be and thus have a little exclamation mark. They can be removed en masse from iTunes with CTRL-A to select and SHIFT-DELETE. You can then add the currently unlinked files using ITFW or just get iTunes to scan your entire media folder.
Note if you have any WAV files these don't support tags so data could be lost if you remove & add in this way. These are best reconnected by attemtping to Get info and then searching for the file in the new location before you worry about repairing the rest of the library.
We also have an AppleTV, some movies and some tv programmes, and an iPod Nano that we have to keep track of.
We have some old folders under Various Artist and Various Artists - no real consistency there.
iTunes likes to put compilations in a Compilations folder. It has a custom tag field not used by other media management tools called *Part of a compilation*, any file with this flag set will be put in *Compilations\<Album>\## <Name>* and may be treated slightly differently on various flavours of iPods. Everything else is sorted as *<Album Artist|Artist><Album>\## <Name>*.
For more gory details see my page at http://www.samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp - if you decide to let iTunes manage things then leave iTunes to tidy up as you update tags, otherwise I'd suggest standardising on Various Artists or using the Compilations folder before the tidy up described above.
What I want to know is how to make maximise iTunes and help it work best.
Use iTunes to manage your library where possible rather than Explorer or other tools. It's also a good idea to switch off the media update & organising features in Windows Media Player so it doesn't fight with iTunes.
Therefore:
1) Should I really change my folder structure to D:\iTunes?
Not unless you want to. If the library was in the standard structure as in the illustration moving from D:\Music\iTunes to D:\iTunes would be trivially easy, but given that things are slightly disorganised I'd leave that until later.
2) If so, can I just manually move the folders to be under D:\iTunes
You would just move the folder iTunes from D:Music to D:\ then delete D:Music. Note Vista/Win 7 make this trivial manipulation complicatated by calculating the size of all the files that are going to be "moved" instead of getting on with it. They should in fact all stay just where they are with the one folder entry being maipulated. When Windows finishes the folder move click the icon for iTunes and when prompted naviagte to the library file in D:iTunes.
3) How do I get the iTunes library to ignore the old path and look only at the new one (if I do move the folders)
When you move the library this way iTunes should realise that the media folder location has changed and update the preference accordingly. You can check under *Edit > Preferences > Advanced*.
4) If I do this I imagine I then let iTunes organise the albums - this is currently turned off.
You don't have to do this... I manage my library manually as I don't like iTunes truncating file & folder names and prefer to keep a few sections of my library separate. WIth iTunes set to "Keep organised..." any updates you make to tag info. in iTunes should get reflected in the file strcuture and there's a valid argument that the underlying files & folders don't really matter, what matters is what you see inside the various applications you use to manage the library.
5) And the big bug gear that got me into this trouble in the first place - when I import an album sometimes the artist's name is incorrectly spelt - is there a way around this?
You can edit details before or after importing from CD. If you let iTunes manage your files then file & folder names get updated (with some limitations on string lengths), otherwise if you want to manually manage then you should where possible update in iTunes, tweak track names in Explorer (or use another tool), remove from iTunes and then reimport. This should be done Album by Album or Artist by Artist and iTFW can help catch any strays.
6) And finally, I don't have the media for most of these songs - we left it in storage when we shifties countries, so I can't import again.
Backup, backup, backup... As long as you have the files you can rebuild the library. Once you get your library organised backup the whole thing...
*Fast backup for iTunes library (Windows Only)*
Grab SyncToy 2.1, a free tool from MS. This can copy your entire iTunes library & any other media folders onto another hard drive or network share. You can then use SyncToy periodically to synchronise or echo your library to the backup. A preview will show which files need to be updated giving you a chance to spot unexpected changes and during the run only the changed files will be copied saving lots of time.
tt2