Why is Music Folder So Large?

At the bottom of my iTunes window, it shows my library has 23,346 songs, which accounts for 80GB on my iMac. However, when I check the iTunes Music folder, it says it has 25,649 files, and takes up 120GB. Why is this so much larger???
I do not have much album artwork included. The album artwork folder is only 65MB.
Since I have used 75% of my 500GB hard drive, I am looking for places to save space. Any ideas why the Music Folder is so big?

Your Library view shows how much music iTunes knows about. It doesn't include video for example, you would have to look in your Video window for that. Podcasts etc, are separate too.
Also, if you ever deleted tracks from iTunes without 'Moving to Trash', they will still be in your Music folder.
As there is a less than 10% difference in total files, but a 33% discrepancy in size the likeliest cause could be video - do you have video?

Similar Messages

Why is music folder not recognized and what can I do to solve this problem?

I had to reformat my computers hard drive and re installed iTunes version 6. My songs were in iTunes 5 before the system crash and now that I have fully restored my computer, I cannot import my backup music folder into the iTunes library. I have over 5,000 songs on a self powered USB drive and iTunes does not recognize it. How can I import the songs from my USB drive to iTunes 6? I'll be really glad if someone could suggest a solution.
P4 3.4Ghrtz Windows XP

See if any of these things will get the videos app working again.
Quit the videos app completely.
Go to the home screen first by tapping the home button. Double tap the home button and the task bar will appear with all of your recent/open apps displayed at the bottom. Tap and hold down on any app icon until it begins to wiggle. Tap the minus sign in the upper left corner of the app that you want to close. Tap the home button or anywhere above the task bar. Try the videos app again.
If that doesn't work, reboot the iPad. Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons.
If that fails, try this. Swipe to the right from your first home screen to get to the iPad Spotlight search. Type in the name of the movie in the field at the top. When the movie appears in the search - tap on it and it should start to play. Let it play for a minute or so - hit done - go back to videos app and see if all is OK.

Itunes says my music files are 6gb, my user/itunes music folder says its 23gb. I am trying to move it from old/new mac with 8gb ipod

I am trying to move my sons library to his new mac using his 8 gb i pod as a hard drive.....
itunes 9.0.1 says his music files is only 6gb. But when I go to transfer his itunes folder it says his music folder is 23gb. I know I can home share transfer but his wireless is down. Either way I am wondering
1) why is Music folder so large compared to my music library?
2.) Can I simply move the 6gb of music and the playlist info etc....using his 8gb ipod?
3.) Can I delete his previous library files ?

No, I have the music I want to move from the laptop to the phone selected. Then I go under file, devices, and try to click sync but it is not available to click.

Lightroom 3 Slideshow - no music folder

Hi does anyone know why the music folder is now gone??? I can see what Adobe are trying to do with fit music to
pictures, but what do you do if you have a wedding client sat in front of you with 300-400 edited images???
In Lightroom 2 we simply put a number of 'wedding' type songs in a folder and played their images of their day?
Lightroom 3 is a disaster for us if this is no longer available...
Can anyone help???
Cheers
Pete

Hi John, I agree, this is the only bit missing for us now.
We never used LR and iTunes together, I mean with folders and files, we always created new folders with music inside.
In LR2 we used to have a couple of folders with different music in it, depends on age of client etc, what shoot it was etc, so it was easy to watch their images here in our office and quickly choose the correct folder that suited them. Now it is way more complicated.
We have just had a wedding couple in and we used LR2 to show them their pics, how sad that we use LR3 to edit and LR2 for display, I hope Adobe correct this.
Cheers
Pete

Why don't all my iTunes Library songs show up in my music folder

I have a lot of music in iTunes (16,000 plus songs) and they are stored on a LaCie external hard drive. Just recently I discovered that when I click on the file folder where all the music is stored, only files starting with A through B are listed. I can play anything in iTunes ~ nothing is missing, but the list of music when looking at the file with Windows Explorer is incomplete.
The reason this is of concern is because I am trying to back-up my music to DVDs (just for safe keeping in case of a hard drive crash). I have tried to do this several different ways, but nothing has worked. I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that maybe the directory of this large folder holding all my music files is incomplete or corrupted. If I run the Windows Back-up program on the folder, it acts as if only the A - B files are there and only creates a back-up of them. I know the rest exists because I can play them from iTunes. We are talking over 55 gigs of files that are not listed.
I am trying to back-up my library, but I think there is an underlying problem that is causing whatever method I try to fail. Is there anyone out there who can explain what is going on?
My question is two fold:
Why doesn't the list of songs in iTunes match the contents of my music folder?
How can I creat backup DVD's of 60 gigs of music?
Thanks in advance for the help!
Dell Dimension 4600 Windows XP

Is that not a way to relocate the files? In other words, I have 16,000 plus songs in iTunes and they are all playable. They must be on my external hard drive in the file I have named "Art's Music" (verified by the check you suggested in your first reply). Let's assume that I want to put them all on a different external hard drive (my C drive is not big enough). What steps should I use to relocate my entire library? The plan I had in mind was something I found at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
Is this going to work?
I am going to borrow a friend's unused hard drive for this and then put it back on my hard drve after I reformat it.
Dell Dimension 4600 Windows XP

I have a large music collection in My Music which is where my Itunes music is. I use Itunes match now and possibly it is what is causing my problems but can't be sure. I keep getting a new My Music folder when I go into itunes so I have 2. what can I do

Hi. I have a very large my music folder on my C drive. This is were all of my music is including itunes. However, when I go into itunes, it sets up a new my music folder. If I erase the new folder, it comes back the next time I go into itunes. It is just a very small folder vs. the large 132 GB file named My Music. What is this new one and why does it keep getting generated vs. Itunes just using the large My Music folder that has all my music. The small My Music it creates is 134 MB. Does this have something to do with using Icloud and Itunes Match? I find it confusing to have two my music folders.

Final Cut is a separate, higher end video editor. The pro version of iMovie.
Give iPhoto a look at for creating the slideshow. It's easy to assemble the photos in an album in iPhoto, put them in the order you want and then make a slideshow of them. You can select from various themes and transitions between slides and add music from your iTunes library.
When you have the slidshow as you want use the Export button at the bottom of the iPhoto window and export with Size = Medium or Large.
Save the resulting Quicktime movie file in your Movies folder.
Next, open iDVD, choose your theme and drag the QT movie file into the menu window being careful to avoid any drop zones.
Then follow this workflow to help assure the best qualty video DVD:
Once you have the project as you want it save it as a disk image via the File ➙ Save as Disk Image menu option. This will separate the encoding process from the burn process.
To check the encoding mount the disk image, launch DVD Player and play it. If it plays OK with DVD Player the encoding is good.
Then burn to disk with Disk Utility or Toast at the slowest speed available (2x-4x) to assure the best burn quality. Always use top quality media: Verbatim, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums.
The reason I suggest iPhoto is that I find it much easier to use than iMovie (except for the older iMovie 6 HD version). Personal preferences showing here.

Why is Itunes cluttering my music folder with system files?

Ok i was using windows 7 before this and it was fine. Then i reformatted my drive and put windows 7 again. Downloaded latest itunes v9 and installed. Copied my entire music library backed up on my external hd and copied it to the music folder under the libraries section. In windows 7 the "my music" folder under user>documents and settings is actually the same as the "music" folder in the libraries on your pc. The music folder in libraries simply can compose of multiple folder so it simply displays all the contents of the "my music" folder and can also include other folders.
Anyhow itunes screw up indexing my library but thats a whole problem of another sort. The main issue is that after it sees my music library and after I have downloaded something it does this. http://img169.imageshack.us/i/65030372.jpg/
In that link as you can see in music under libraries it just leaves all those system and downloaded files.There actually ends up being hundreds after it gets album/song artwork since each artwork picture comes up as a ict2 file.
However if i go to the my music folder in documents and settings it neatly tucks away all those files into their respective folder in itunes media or artworkd, despite the few core library files. http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/5956/55950795.jpg
AT the moment i have deleted all the music in my library. Deleting those system files simply makes itunes no longer see an library. I have tried reinstalling with no avail. Why is it putting everything in folder in my music but not doing the same in music-libraries which is the same identical folder.

This is just a thought, because I've not played with Windows 7, but near the top of your 1st image it says *Music Library, Includes 2 Locations*. I think you're looking at a view there which will display the contents of all possible music storage locations and the contents all of their subfolders, i.e. like a search result box. The other image corrsponds to a regular folder layout. iTunes stores an Album Artwork folder inside the main iTunes folder along with it's main database and a number of other supporting files. These files are required for iTunes to work so you can't just delete them. If you want to look at your media folders the use Windows Explorer to look inside *iTunes\iTunes Media*.
tt2

I have 100's of CDs that I have downloaded to my itunes library and they are in the library playable but they do not show up in the C drive under the iTunes Music folder under users. Why are they in the libary and not in the itunes music folder. Win 7 OS

I have 100's of CDs that I have downloaded to my itunes library and they are in the library playable but they do not show up in the C drive under the iTunes Music folder under users. Why are they in the libary and not in the itunes music folder. Win 7 OS. When I look in the library under the get info screen it says they are in the folder itunes music, under the c: drive but when I actually go to that folder to look for them they are not there....HELP!

Hello RumDog,
I think this article will help you find the media in your library.
Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Discovering and changing the iTunes Media folder location
Note: You would usually only change the iTunes Media folder location to share music between accounts on the same computer. See this article for specific steps on how to accomplish this. Also, see this article if you want to know how to move your music to a new computer.
Mac OS X: Click the iTunes menu and choose Preferences.
Windows: Click the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
Click the Advanced pane. iTunes displays the location of your iTunes Media folder.
You can then:
Note where your media folder is, such as for backing up your media.
Use the Reset button to reset it's location to the default (which is the iTunes folder).
Click the Change button to select a folder for a new location. Once you change this location:
If you make a new or alternate iTunes library, the new location will be used by that library.
Existing files will not be moved unless you choose File > Library > Organize library and choose the option to "Consolidate files."
From: Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Cheers,
Sterling

Why has itunes moved my music files out of the Music folder?

To my horror I just found out that itunes has moved folders (albums) out of the Music folder, Ive always found those folders very well organized (music, movies, podcasts, etc) now Im seeing some albums mixed with those folders (out of the music folder) and some albums IN the music folder as well, even worse I have the same folder inside Music and out!! with a few tracks on each, but in iTunes everything looks normal and it plays the album as usual, Im losing my mind over this I cant find a way to fix it, I even started moving them manually but there are too many, and for the duplicate folders I have to move the tracks that were moved. Any idea on why did this happen? I dont want to move the folders and lose hours only to find out that itunes did it again!! I thank you very very ver much in advance.

iTunes on a Mac may be more forgiving if you move things around manually, but it isn't really recommended.
Here are typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
If you have upgraded from version 8 (or earlier) to iTunes 9 (or later) at some point, then your media folder (everything inside the red outline) may still be called iTunes Music instead of iTunes Media. The extra Music folder inside the media folder is used if you had an older library and have allowed iTunes to Upgrade to iTunes Media Organization (iTunes 9) or used File > Library > Organize Library > Reorganize files in the folder "<Media Folder>" (iTunes 10/11). Depending on your choices for Keep iTunes Media folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library plus a little bug in which one build changed the name of the file storing the choice of layout it is quite easy for some of your files to be organized according to one layout and some the other. (Recent installs of iTunes on a Mac now give the library file the .itl extension)
Assuming you're happy letting iTunes organize your files the following steps should tidy things up (should it be necessary):
1. Select File > Library > Organize Library... > Tick Reorganize files in the folder "<Media Folder>" and click OK. Skip if this option is grayed out (already upgraded) or you prefer the older layout.
2. Select File > Library > Organize Library... > Tick Consolidate files and click OK. This will bring any files currently organized outside the designated media folder into it. N.B. This will create duplicate copies of any file that needs to be consolidated, and you will need to manually clean up afterwards.
3. Select iTunes > Preferences > Advanced tab, uncheck Keep iTunes Media folder organized and click OK.
4. Select iTunes > Preferences > Advanced tab, check Keep iTunes Media folder organized and click OK. This triggers iTunes into reorganizing everything according to your preferences.
5. (Optional, if applicable) Close iTunes, rename the media folder iTunes Music as iTunes Media then restart iTunes. Check under iTunes > Preferences > Advanced tab that the location has automatically updated. If you can't access the media for any reason just undo the folder rename.
PS If you really prefer the older layout, but it is already in the new one then, edit the hidden file .iTunes Preferences.plist in your media folder and change the integer from 1 to 0 before doing step 3.
You should backup your library before attempting any major reorganization.
If iTunes is still creating files or folders in the wrong locations there is a possibility of permissions problems. Offhand I'm not sure of the correct OS X terms but on Windows both the system and user accounts should have full access permissions to all files & folders within the iTunes folder in order for it to work properly.
tt2

Why am i receiving error message "the ipod cannot be synced. an unknown error occurred (13019)" when i try to move a song from my itunes library into my music folder on my ipod touch?

Why am I receiving the following message when I try to move a song from my iTunes library into my iPod touch's music folder?
"The iPod cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (13019)."
It was working just fine. Then all of a sudden this error message popped up.

Try here:
iTunes: Error 13019 during sync

Large Collection, Re-Adding Music Folder . . . Best Practice?

My wife and I have a very large collection of music that we have been trying to incorporate into a single library for our laptops to use. I think I have it mostly figured out for sharing a library (found an article about using synctoy in Windows to essentially mirror the libraries from a shared network drive while using the same physical copy of music files on a network drive. This seems to be working so far, but...
In the process I have been moving from having a mirrored copy of music on each laptop (via an external USB drive on each laptop) to consolidating that into one music folder on the networked drive. I've got it just about complete but I ran an xcopy script again to ensure all music files from those drives really made it in entirety to the networked drive AFTER adding folder to library in iTunes. Now of course iTunes doesn't know those new files are there and they are all over the place, not in just one directory.
Now the question, if I select add folder to library in iTunes again selecting the entire music folder so it will pick up those new files, will it create duplicate entries in iTunes? Or should this work ok?
Is there an easier way to do this?

I think it will not add duplicates. It might if you also tell iTunes to add music to the iTunes library as well. Here is my tip and what I do.
I make a music library folder called "Music Library", in there I store my music via artists (each in their own folder), and then albums in sub folders. I name the folders exactly as they are embedded in the mp3. I know this is not necessary but that's just me. For my compilation music I have a folders called compilations and again the albums are stored in sub folders named after the album.
I also name every file with the track, artist and title (I use mp3Tag for this) so every track on my system looks something like this
"01 The Who - I'm A Man.mp3"
Now I use iTunes to get encode and get track info but that's it, I then do the renaming manually.
Now that I have all this done and backed up on DVD's I can move, reload etc etc when I want to. I have it all on external hard drives as well.
So finally I ensure that my iTunes default library folder is always empty, that way whenever I delete all or part of "My" library iTunes does not ask me if I want to delete them from the hard drive.
Manually adding the top level folder to iTunes does not duplicate anything. I regularly delete my library and reinstall it. This does not take long, I also save playlists and import them back as well.
Letting iTunes organise your music is OK for some but not me, for one thing it does not add the artist to the actual filename, crazy if you ask me, specially if you want to do other things with the files. Of course Apple does not want you to do other things with your music.
If you look on this forum at posts relating to iTunes has deleted my music, or all my files are missing or iTunes can't find my music, I bet that the people all let iTunes manage their music library and turn on the sync function. I used to have some of these issues but not anymore. I deleted files from my hard drive twice by accident, and I'm an experienced computer user. Now I'm 100% trouble free thanks to doing things manually and making my own music folder.
Message was edited by: Stubchain

Why are my artist folder located in my Itunes Media folder, not Music Folder?

I recently got a new computer and moved my itunes library to this new one. Everything is working fine, but itunes just reorganized my entire library. As of a couple of days ago all my artist folders were under itunes media\music, but now all the artist folders are just in the itunes\itunes media folder. The artist folders are mixed among my mobile application and home video and podcast folders. There is still an itunes media\music folder and there are a couple of artist folders remaining in my music folder but they're all empty. My preference has 'music\itunes\itunes media' as my Media Folder location under preferences and 'keep media folder organized' and copy files to itunes media folder when adding to library' are both checkmarked. Why did it move all my artist folders out of music and into my root folder and how can I get it to move all the artst folders back to the itunes media\music folder?

nevermind fixed it File>Library>reorganize

Why are apps appearing in my music folder?

Just wondering if I can delete these ".IPA" (iOS App) files and .XML files that have appeared in my Music folder. I'm on a PC, so the files are assigned to iTunes, but I still don't know why they're here. I think they appeared after I synced my iPod Touch (2nd Gen) with the computer. There's also over 300 "ITC2" files which I have no clue about. All the app files are apps I have on my iPod, so that much makes sense, and some of the "ITC2" files are the same name as the 2 books I have on my iPod. All the others are just things like "4C9515F643471A36-D9A5A87B5F4A4EDF.ITC2". I just want to know if I can delete them really.
Thanks
PS: Isn't leaving iOS app files lying around kind of asking me to share them for free on the internet? Just saying.

Here are typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
.ipa files are your apps and should end up in Mobile Applications. .itc2 files are cached artwork and should end up in the Album Artwork folders. These are normal parts of the iTunes library and should be left alone. I can't tell exactly what you did when you connected your device but it looks like you allowed iTunes to transfer your purchases into your library. This is a good thing. If your iPod was lost, stolen or damaged, you would have the files needed to rebuild your setup on a replacement device.
The iTunes folder is normally created inside your profile's Music folder, with the iTunes Media folder inside iTunes. If the files in question are appearing outside of the normal folder structure outlined above then perhaps you have the wrong setting for the media folder.
tt2

HT1473 why does itunes media folder location in windows 8 goes to \username\music\music when pointed to the my music folder

I have recently decided to upgrade to windows 8 and with it clean out all the music in my itunes media collection and start fresh.
Before I start to download my purcharsed iCloud music or import my cds I set my media folder location to be "c:\users\username\my music\"
and the below images show the outcome, which seems like its a bug and it annoys me.
so now i have a folder called music inside the my music folder in my users profile, this seems really stupid i hope its a bug that gets fixed
if i set it as the below then all the music artists folder names appear straight under c:\users\username\
Why does the extra \music\ folder get added ?!?!!??? it just makes it messy.

Here are typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
Essentially iTunes wants to put its content into <Media Folder>\<Media Kind>\<Subfolders>. See make a split library portable for reasons why you should stick to the default layout for the iTunes folders (media folder inside main iTunes folder), and Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely for suggestions on how to set out the library for use by both applications.
tt2

HT2470 Why won't Itunes store my music library in my User/Music Folder, if I select my user name as a storage location in Itunes, Itunes creates folders for artist name right in my user folder, instead of in my user/music folder

Why won't Itunes store my music library in my User/Music Folder?
If I select my user name as a storage location in Itunes, Itunes creates folders for artist name right in my user folder, instead of in my user/music folder. This gets especially annoying because if I tell Itunes to store my "media" in my user/music folder, Itunes will then create a folder named "music" in my "music" folder and will also create additional folders in my user/music folder location to store other non-music media in as well. It is very annoying to see this lack of affinity for folders between two Apple created programs.

Help iTunes locate your media folder:
No content shows up in iTunes after updating
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1967

Why is Music Folder So Large?

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