Sorting my music library

Is it possible to have an artists songs alphabetized while the artists names are in alphabetical order in the music source list?

No, when you sort by artist the secondary sort is album and then by track number. Don't think there's any way to change that to sort by artist and then song name.

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I installed ipod & it sorted my music library...UGH! WHY?

So I have an ipod mini. I have had it a few months now and something has been bothering the heck out of me and I want to know if there is anything I can do about it.
When I first installed itunes on my computer, it re-arranged my music library and put everything into categories according to artist. Now, whenever I add a song, it makes a new folder with this new artists name and puts that song in that folder. Know what I'm saying?
Now, my question is, how do I change this? I tried taking songs out of folders, and just leaving them in the main MUSIC folder, but then when I click my MUSIC folder open, they are back into a new folder with that artists name.
HELP! I just want my songs to be how I had them and not in all these folders!
Can anyone help or know what I am talking about?
THANKS!!
Amanda

Okay, I have deselected that option - THANK YOU!!!!!!!
I suppose I have to go in and manually take the songs out of the litterally 2000 folders in there to get rid of all those artist folers, hey? There is no way I can just tell it to take everything out of those folders all at one time?
Thank you so much for your help!!!!!
Amanda

How do I sort my music library in my ipod while connected to iTunes

Hello -- I have over 8,000 files on my ipod -- How do I sent up the colums on the device via itunes so I can sort the contents of the ipod?

You can get better response if you post in iTunes forum.
But giving it a go.
At the Menu->Click View->Column Browser
Select the column you want to sort by (Artist, Album etc)
You might want to read about Albums and Tracks, as most often, iPod don't sort the same way as iTunes.
http://www.samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp
Have a Nice day!

Within Music Library can anyone please explain why when I select the option to sort 'Album by Artist' a number of tracks are being treated as separate albums? How can I correct this? I have tried to 'drag and drop' but that doesn't work.

Within music Library can anyone please explain why after I select the option to sort 'Album by Artist' a number of tracks are being treated as separate albums? How can I fix this? I have tried to manually correct by 'drag and drop' individual tracks but that doesn't work. My music library includes a number of repeat album artwork images simply because not all tracks are being listed under the one album making my library more difficult to use than it should. Any advise would be appreciated.

See Grouping tracks into albums.
tt2

Music library sorting keeps changing

i have my music library set to sort by "album by artist/year". i use itunes in grid view so i go back and change artist, then go through their albums. for reasons i just cannot pinpoint, itunes changes my sorting back to albums alphabetically. it is the column with the track numbers: http://i.imgur.com/jBTQE.png
i try to reproduce the error by going into the itunes store, by scrolling up and down, using the get info window, but something else is triggering it. there is no connection to the artist i'm viewing. if i set my preferred view to one artist, it works with all, but soon enough it switches back to the other column. what is causing this?
all i want is itunes to sort by my preferred album by artist/year.

I am having the same problem but research into the subject seems to suggest that we are the only ones. I can't find anything useful on this or other forums on how to resolve the problem. It is quite frustrating as I am a very organized individual. I even went through my entire library and checked/corrected all of the album year information. I also have the album by artist/year option selected in two fields ( above the album artwork on the far left and in the album field above the written name). I have gone through one artist at a time and clicked on the option which fixes it but ten minutes later I can go back and there in alphabetical again! It seems to be random as to which artists it changes as well because it doesn't change all of them just some, but to no rhyme or reason as to which ones. I am getting sick of clicking the option every time I open an artist and it's back in alphabetical. Why can't it just stay in the selected sorting order? If either of you or anyone else has figured out how to fix this please let me know, it's making me want to throw my macbook pro into something solid!

Music library sorts differently on iPhone and iPad

Odd issue... My music library sorts differently on my iPad and iPhone music app despite having identical setting (ie. sort by album artist toggled off)
Album View... On my iPhone, the first album is A-Sides by Soundgarden. On the iPad, the first album is Hunting High and Low by A-Ha. iPhone sorts by album, iPad by artist in this view.
Artist View.... Both devices list A-Ha first, as well as a compilation album they appear on. The iPhone displays Take on Me by A-Ha as the only track on this album. The iPad shows Take on Me first, but then displays the 19 other tracks on this album, all by other artists.
Any insights? Thanks!

Sadly this is a bug that I have been able to relicate on 3 different devices, and that has NOT been fixed by 7.1.2
To replicate, you need an "oldish" device (iPhone 4 & 4S, iPad 2 & Mini), and an iTunes match subscription with quite a few songs.
Start from a clean slate:
- Switch off iTunes match (settings / apps store or music)
- Kill all apps
- Reboot
- Reset (home +power until apple appears)
Check available space on settings / general / about
Then:
- Activate iTunes match
- Play some non locally stored music
- Wait
Yesterday, it took 1h for my iPad mini with 5.3GB available to show the "storage almost full" message and 0 bytes available
Note that I have tried with a full reset and it does not change anything.
To solve the problem:
- Switch off iTunes match
- Reset
The memory is now back (but I cannot use iTunes match)

Added albums to iTunes, but they do not show up in the Music Library view.

I imported some albums and the albums do not show up in the Music Library view, however I created a playlist containing all songs added today and they show right up. Is there a fix for this?

They don't show up at all or they don't show up where you expect them to?
The iTunes Library is divided into a number of sources, Music, Podcasts, Books etc. Each file added ends up in just one of these sources depending on its *Media Kind* plus any playlists for which it has matching criteria.
Settings such as *Part of a Compilation, Sort Artist* or *Sort Album Artist* can make albums appear in an unexpected location within Music.
See http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp for more on organising things in iTunes.
tt2

HT4913 If the music library on my iPhone will be deleted when I enable iTunes Match, does that mean that I will not be able to access that music library when I temporarily turn off iTunes Match on the iPhone, e.g., when on the subway & can't connect to Ma

I have subscribed to iTunes Match and have employed it to listen to music on my Macbook Air and iMac. On these devices it seems to operate by streaming music to the device rather than deleting the device's current iTunes library and downloading songs as they are played from iTunes Match. Not so on the iPhone as far as I can tell. Consequently, to date I have not activated iTunes Match on my iPhone 4S. I presently have 40-50GB's of music on my iPhone, sync'd from my iTunes music library on my Macbook Air. I am concerned that if I enable iTunes Match on my iPhone I will lose the music library already on my iPhone, as Apple seems to be representing that once iTunes Match is enabled on the iPhone the current music library, carefully compiled, will be gone from the iPhone forever (unless I later re-sync it from the iTunes library on my laptop), that it will be deleted. Although this would free up a lot of space on my iPhone, I bought the 64GB phone just so that I could keep a lot of music on it and accessible at all times. I am concerned that in certain instances, say if I am in the subway and want to listen to music on my iPhone but don't have internet access below ground, that I won't have much music to listen to, only those songs previously played and thus downloaded onto the phone from iMatch, presenting me witrh a rather limited choice of music to play instead of the 40-50GB's I now have to choose from. Apple seems to have presented me with the choice of the lesser of 2 evils: i) enable iTunes Match and lose the music library already on the iPhone in exchange for access to iTunes Match and a greater number of songs than I can fit onto the phone (my library exceeds the phone's capacity) when a Cloud connection is available or ii) don't enable iTunes match and limit myself to only those songs, a considerable portion of my library to be sure but not all of it, that I can fit in the phone's storage space, i.e., the 40-50 GB's I have on there now. If I choose the latter course, each time I purchase an album I'll have to delete another album to make room for it on the phone. Apple thus offers me a sort of Hobson's choice, bad all the way around. Do I have this right? The Apple techs I've spoken to don't seem to have a handle on the "deletion" aspect of enabling iTunes Match on the iPhone. Right now, I'm too scared of "losing" my iPhone music library to enable iTunes Match on the iPhone. [Possible work-around, albeit a pain in the ***: I suppose that I can enable iTunes Match on the iPhone and spend the next couple of weeks 24/7 downloading songs from my iTunes Match library back onto the phone to replace at least some of those deleted when Match was enabled, thereby rebuilding a proxy library on the phone itself to play when I'm stuck in a tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan while maintaining access to thee larger iTunes Match library, more music than my phone will hold, once we come back into the light and my Cloud connection is restored.] Comments, suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you.

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

How to change the "home" computer for a iPod touch 3G (iOS 4.2.1) and an iPad 2(iOS5)? Music library has been already moved to iTunes on the new computer.

I have a iPod Touch (3rd gen) that has not upgraded it's OS beyond iOS4.2.1 even if I have tried connecting it into iTiunes I have a iPad2 which has been recently upgraded to iOS5 . Both were connected to a laptop computer that my husband will take with him when he moves to a different city. I will most probably buy a second laptop sometime, but meanwhile I want to tether my iPod touch and iPad 2 to my desktop PC for now. Before I took the plunge, I had a few questions which I am hoping this forum will help me answer
1. How to switch the Home PC for these devices? I have already transfered my Music library on to my Home PC and then downloaded and reorganised with iTunes. Since I am reorganising the library anyway I don't minding removing all my music from the iTouch and set it up from scratch for the music. However, I removed all musci from theiTouch, changed it to manual mode and connected it to the desktop- It's detecting it fine- but it still is not the home computer for the iTouch- everytime I try to put new music in it- it is deleting everything old- I can't see the same controls as I see from the laptop at all- how to rectify this? To I need to set this up as a new iPod (restore route)?
on the touch I have very few apps and don't care about them. on the iPad I do have a couple of valuable apps that I want to hold on to- so have n't tinkered with it at all- what is the smoothest way for thsi transition? The iPad doesn't have any music on it at this time, but what to do if I want to transfer some?
2. Is there a way I can store the organised iTunes info in any way- like I said I might buy a new laptop in a few months but do not want to reorganise my iTunes over agaoin- it' a fairly large collection most of which is n't purchased from the iTunes store.
3. Why sin't my iTouch 3G upgrading- it's stuck on iOS4.2.1 but iTunes doesn't show any updates- even with chck updates button iTunes show that it is a current version.
thanks for reading through and any help that I can get to sort this mess out.

The recent release of iBooks 1.2.1 has corrected the problem of the missing Dutton edition of Winnie-the-Pooh. It may have been there with the previous install of iBooks but it would never display in the bookshelf. After updating iBooks to 1.2.1, the Dutton version (the one included with iBooks) suddenly appeared on the bookshelf. So it was a software glitch after all and not a fix Apple chose to document explicitly in the update.
Message was edited by: Rick Lang

Itunes won't find 'itunes music library' on external hard drive by default

I have my Itunes library saved on a wireless external hard drive. When I open itunes for the first time after a re-start it won't automatically detect the itunes music library file and I have to point it to the correct folder on the external hard drive. Once I do this everything works perfectly until I re-start my mac and then I have the same problem.
One of my friends has told me that macs won't automatically connect to wireless devices like windows does but he thinks there is some software that enables it to do so. I presume this would sort the issue out or alternatively any other suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks for any help

Your external HD needs to be mounted before launching iTunes or iTunes will create a new blank library on your startup drive.
You can add your external HD to the list of startup items in  > System Preferences > Accounts to avoid this problem.

I have just put an audio book into my iTunes music library. When I tried to transfer it to my iPod shuffle it rearranged the tracks so that they are in the wrong order. How can I put them in the order they appear in the book?

I have just put an audio book into my iTunes music library. When I tried to transfer it to my iPod Shuffle it put the chapters in the wrong order i.e. Chap 1, Chap 10, Chap 11 etc. rather than Chap 1, Chap 2, Chap 3 ... How can I get it to put them in the order they appear in the book?

First, we need to know if the audiobook chapters are being treated by iTunes as music files or as audiobooks. If they are not audiobooks purchased from the iTunes store, they might be getting "shuffled". You will need to look at "File" - "Properties" (I think - I don't use iTunes under Windows - or right-click on the file and choose "properties") and look at the media type. If it is "Music", change it to "Audiobook". If this is not the problem, or does not fix anything, please post back.
Actually, looking at your post again, a second thought occurs to me - assuming there are less than 100 chapters in the book, just renaming them with a leading zero on the first nine chapters might do it. A computer will alphabetically sort filenames in the order you quote (1, 10, 11, 12, 13, ... 2, 21, etc.) but a leading zero will fix that (01, 02, 03 ... 10, 11, 12)

How can I find tracks in itunes Music Library that I have NOT copied to my

HI,
I have more tracks in my iTunes music library than will fit on my iPod. for each track in my iTunes music libary I'd like to see whether or not that track is also on my iPod. I know I can do this track by track by looking up each track in the iPod directory but that could take months. What I want is to be able to filter or sort my iTunes music library by this attribute so I can visually scan down the list and see what I'd like to move over to the iPod (after making space on the iPod by deleting songs I'm tired of)
How can I do this and what version of iTunes is needed.
thanks -- Dan

The .xml file is basically just a playlist of your entire Library. You can create one by going to your main Library List view and click File > Export.. - then just save a new .xml file to the desktop (or wherever).

Why is my iPod Touch messing up the music library?

Hello,
My iPod Touch is having weird issues with the Music library. I think it started in 5.0.1 but it may have been from 5.0, I'm not too sure about it.
Problem description:
My problem is that my Artist list is corrupt, and my Album list as well. Let me give an example.
Artist list, Alphabetally according to my iPod:
I
Iron Maiden
Jurk
J
Incubus
Jamiroquai
K
Linkin Park
L
Liquido
Kamelot
As you can see, these artists aren't properly sorted alphabetically. I've tried looking at the Info on those files but my iTunes on my iMac shows the proper order just fine, it's the iPod that's messing up. Also my albums seems to be able to appear under different bandnames, sometimes the full album but sometimes only a couple of songs.
What have I tried so far?
I've tried resetting its settings by going into Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset settings. All that did was messing up my library even more. I had about 18 GB's of music on the iPod but my library suddenly showed only about 25% of that. When I checked the content via Settings -> General -> Info (or About?) it said I had only abou 2 GB's of music on it. However, when I connected the iPod to my iMac, my iTunes told me I still had all 18 GB's on the iPod.
I've tried removing music from the iPod-iTunes sync, and adding it after a sync. Although this did make an artist re-appear, it seemed to mess up the library even more.
I've just tried restoring the iPod. It's been cleared entirely, and then I re-sync'd all my 18 GB's of music and a couple of apps. However, now the library is messed up as previously mentioned.
What am I looking for?
Any advice of tips on how to correct my music library. The alphabetical-order-that's-messed-up is only a minor issue because they're still there, it just annoys me that it's not the way it should be. The albums that are messed up between bands is more annoying because now I can't properly play full albums.
Thank you for reading this rather long message, and hopefully you can help me out.
Kind regards,
Roald

Hey, Roald.
I'm not entirely sure this will help your problem, but since it sounded a lot like my own issue, I thought I'd mention it -- just in case.
I updated my ipod recently to iOS5 and just noticed that some of my artists were messed up -- not necessarily listed under the wrong letter, but some were repeated in both English (as I have them in iTunes) and in Japanese, elsewhere in my music list, which was completely surprising. It also made some of my music show up under completely different names, like the composer instead of the soundtrack, etc. I searched iTunes, in the preferences, and the syncing screen, looking for some sort of setting -- but found nothing.
Eventually, I checked my ipod's actual settings for the 'music' app. There's a setting there that says something like 'sort by album artists', which appeared to have been switched on automatically with the OS update. I flicked it to off and restarted the ipod -- and the ipod's issues were fixed. :3
I don't know if this might be a solution to your problem, but try it anyway! I hope it helps.
-Nirama.

Music library after data recovery - ID3 tags all over the place

Hi,
For a short time there i was using my external drive as my music library, while i sorted enough space ot run it from C:
However, that didn't last long and i was asked if i wanted to reformat the drive.
Using Easeus I was able to recover the mp3s. But they're all over the place i.e songs labelled as one thing will be something else, about 70% of the time. Also some songs randomly chnage to others.
Is there any method i can use to resolve any of this, without re-doing my entire collection?
thanks for any suggestions
matt

The best option is to recover from backup, but I guess you don't have one. You can also recover from an iPod if you have one:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9990366#9990366
Failing that, are you certain that the tags are wrong in the actual files, the tags are part of the file, so I am surprised if they were changed if you were able to recover the files successfully. It is hard to see how they could be messed up if the file is OK unless something else messed with them.
I am afraid you have a lot of work ahead of you. You might be able to use a tag editor to get tags from the internet - MP3 tag is an example, but I think the tracks need to be arranged into CDs for this to work.
There is also something called PicardTagger which is supposed to use the audio footprint of the file to identify it, but I have no experience with it myself.
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/PicardTagger

Hi, Unfortunately my Laptop has died (which had my iTunes on it). I want to ensure my music on my iPhone 5 and my iPad Air are backed up. Also, I want to sort my music in the way I used to with iTunes. How can I do this with just these two devices?

Hi, Unfortunately my Laptop has died (which had my iTunes on it). I want to ensure my music on my iPhone 5 and my iPad Air are backed up. Also, I want to sort my music in the way I used to with iTunes. How can I do this with just these two devices, i.e. NO Computer? Can the iCloud help? Why can't I download iTunes (i.e. my library as I saw it on the computer) to these devices? Thanks to anyone who can help me here.

You can change the email address of one's appleID...
I'd recommend changing moms email to yours to get a good backup on the Mac
Then switch mom's back to hers
Then change your account to the same email you used.
I've done something similar when I needed to update my Apple account (one ID changing email addresses and phone)

Sorting my music library

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