# How to deal with pure fascist itunes song managment?



## Mac_Daddy (Aug 10, 2011)

Does anyone know how to deal with iTunes pure evil-fascist-idiotic song management? No matter how I prep the song folders so iTunes will hopefully catalog them properly upon import, no matter how I import them or change the iTunes management options, iTunes makes a complete mess of the song folders. Songs are taken out of the folders I put them in and given their own folder and scattered about in a schizophrenic fashion so I can no longer listen to the whole album/folder in iTunes. It's pissing me off something fierce. I miss the simple way Windows and whatever media player I decide to use just leaves the folders alone as I set them up and plays them automatically as they appear without putting them through a F-U filter. 

Oh and yes I bought hard copies of the music and had already put them on a external drive years ago. Any tips appreciate. I hate iTunes about as much as I hate Window's blue screen of death. A lot.


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## [email protected] (Dec 26, 2010)

Uncheck the iTunes Preference setting "Keep the iTunes Media folder organized"?


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Mac_Daddy said:


> Songs are taken out of the folders I put them in and given their own folder and scattered about in a schizophrenic fashion so I can no longer listen to the whole album/folder in iTunes.


... make playlists?


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## [email protected] (Dec 26, 2010)

Lars said:


> ... make playlists?


I don't think the OP is talking about in iTunes management, but the core folder structures... Maybe not. That's how I read the OP.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

[email protected] said:


> I don't think the OP is talking about in iTunes management, but the core folder structures... Maybe not. That's how I read the OP.


I know - but I fail to see why you need to rearrange the folders in ~/Music/iTunes to listen to your albums -- make playlists in iTunes that are irrelevant to the folder management.


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## Mac_Daddy (Aug 10, 2011)

I did uncheck folder management option and it still did it. I just can't fathom why iTunes feels the need to rearrange the files. The actual folder structure in the iTunes media folder gets messed up as well as how it lays out in iTunes. I look for the album to play and it's separated 12 different ways. Now, I can download a various artist compilation album from iTunes and it's all together in one place. I import my own files outside of the iTunes store and iTunes screws it all up. Seem this is Apple's way of boosting their iTunes sales. I don't want to even use iTunes to play music. Just can't understand what process iTunes goes through to catalog the music in the music folder. 

I dunno. I'll try again. I'm just use to my old computer that would just read the folders and play the music as is.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

Mac_Daddy said:


> I did uncheck folder management option and it still did it. I just can't fathom why iTunes feels the need to rearrange the files. The actual folder structure in the iTunes media folder gets messed up as well as how it lays out in iTunes. I look for the album to play and it's separated 12 different ways. Now, I can download a various artist compilation album from iTunes and it's all together in one place. I import my own files outside of the iTunes store and iTunes screws it all up. Seem this is Apple's way of boosting their iTunes sales. I don't want to even use iTunes to play music. Just can't understand what process iTunes goes through to catalog the music in the music folder.
> 
> I dunno. I'll try again. I'm just use to my old computer that would just read the folders and play the music as is.


Chances are the ID tags on the mp3 files are different. If you have one that says "Guess Who" and one that says "The Guess Who" it will put them into different folders. The same goes with album names. If its music that has been downloaded, uhhh, "without purchase" quite often the track names are screwed up. iTunes uses that info to determine what folder it stores things in.

But really, who cares where the music is stored as long as iTunes can read it and play it fine.


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## Mac_Daddy (Aug 10, 2011)

I'll investigate. But I swear it's bought music. For example, Lee Perry Arkology 3 CD box, which I bought and ripped years ago. I took the songs I liked, put them in 3 folders for all three discs, put these three folders in another folder with Artist name. Well, that didn't go in iTunes. Maybe I didn't fill out the MP3 song id's well enough. On a PC this is no issue, but iTunes wont even register that the files are in the music folder until I let it scan through and shuffle things around.


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## Digikid (Jun 22, 2010)

Making Playlists does nothing. After an import they need to be sorted AGAIN. Same thing happens with videos as well as audio.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

Mac_Daddy said:


> I'll investigate. But I swear it's bought music. For example, Lee Perry Arkology 3 CD box, which I bought and ripped years ago. I took the songs I liked, put them in 3 folders for all three discs, put these three folders in another folder with Artist name. Well, that didn't go in iTunes. Maybe I didn't fill out the MP3 song id's well enough. On a PC this is no issue, _but iTunes wont even register that the files are in the music folder until I let it scan through and shuffle things around._


Well, that is how it works. You need to import the music before iTunes will read it. Its iTunes, not winamp.

Why do you want to manage the files manually anyway?


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## Mac_Daddy (Aug 10, 2011)

In a nutshell I want to be able to play a whole album/cd. So I search for the artist, then the album I want to listen to and press play and voila. Some of my imported music in iTunes is broken up to multiple folders, a scattered mess. Not all mind you but enough that I gotta figure out how to import it cohesively.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

Mac_Daddy said:


> In a nutshell I want to be able to play a whole album/cd. So I search for the artist, then the album I want to listen to and press play and voila. Some of my imported music in iTunes is broken up to multiple folders, a scattered mess. Not all mind you but enough that I gotta figure out how to import it cohesively.


Why are you browsing the library manually? None of what you want to do can't be done in iTunes itself.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

Mac_Daddy said:


> In a nutshell I want to be able to play a whole album/cd. So I search for the artist, then the album I want to listen to and press play and voila. Some of my imported music in iTunes is broken up to multiple folders, a scattered mess. Not all mind you but enough that I gotta figure out how to import it cohesively.


I think you might be a candidate for different software. 

iTunes is more of a database than a music player, you surrender your music (and videos, apps, ebooks, and soon wallet and watch) and it takes care of the rest. Then it syncs your content with your apple tv, iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc. The point isn't to play files you find in finder, its to keep everything together. How iTunes does it may be a mystery, but it does work.

Have you tried playing with the ID3 tags? Find an album that iTunes is spreading through different folders, select all the songs in iTunes, then retype the artist name & album name. Click OK and let it process. Now check the iTunes music folder and see if it has placed all the songs in the same folder. This will of course only work if you have iTunes checked off to manage the songs automatically.


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## Mac_Daddy (Aug 10, 2011)

Will do on the ID3 tags. As for clarification I open iTunes and I go to listen to an album and discover the songs are not all in one place but multiple places and in a different order. Not all albums, but some. I suppose I'll figure it out. Just switched to Mac and I never did like iTunes and now that I must rely on it it's become a little more irksome to me. I suppose I'm use to winamp and regular folders. 

Ranting a bit I know, hopefully I will get my music listening on the Mac set up so it's not frustrating.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Mac_Daddy said:


> Will do on the ID3 tags. As for clarification I open iTunes and I go to listen to an album and discover the songs are not all in one place but multiple places and in a different order. Not all albums, but some. I suppose I'll figure it out. Just switched to Mac and I never did like iTunes and now that I must rely on it it's become a little more irksome to me. I suppose I'm use to winamp and regular folders.
> 
> Ranting a bit I know, hopefully I will get my music listening on the Mac set up so it's not frustrating.


Honestly, you're better off to try and cooperate with the system than work around it. iTunes is pretty efficient at sorting and organizing your media and letting you access that media many different ways so that you find a method you like it. I'm quite fond of smart playlists and genius playlists for example. There's really no need to re-organize all your folders, but if you really want to make it easy to find your songs outside of iTunes, just make sure they are in the Music folder (under 'Places' in the finder), then > iTunes > iTunes Music where they are then sorted by Artist. You can easily choose particular artists, albums, etc. within iTunes, but if you really want to store your folders in one place, just store them by artist in this location. If you really want to re-organize your folders some other way, you're a sucker for punishment, and you might try a different app. I have no clue what to recommend because iTunes works so well for me for all my music, TV shows, podcasts, movies, apps and what have you.

One cool thing I've also found is that when my hard drive is getting too full, I move the entire artist's folder out of the Music folder and into an external hard drive. I get a ! beside the song in iTunes, but that's because iTunes doesn't know where to look for the song now. Easy to fix—just tell iTunes the new location and all is well again. It's quite seamless actually and allows for a very large iTunes collection, larger than the capacity of the computer even. I think you've really got to let go of the PC mentality a little and try to see the great benefits here, especially the time YOU don't have to spend sorting and organizing.


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## NFtoBC (Jun 24, 2011)

I'm really confused by the comments of the OP. I too had ripped all my CDs to my windows box, then moved them enmasse to a NAS media server. The files included albums, compilations (various artists) and some home recorded music compilations (i.e. no metadata). When I imported the files into iTunes on my new Macbook Pro, the folder structure was maintained. When I open iTunes, the music is ordered by artist & album from A to Unknown Artist: Unknown Album. In iTunes I can easily listen to any album in track order, and the next, and so on. If I want to listen to a specific selection of tracks then I need build a playlist, which I can then play. The files are also in artist / album order in my iTunes Media folder.

My guess, as a recent adopter of a Mac (though a longer term user of iTunes), that somehow some of the track information has been lost from the OPs music file system. The statement that he is just saving the tracks he enjoys listening to on his computer suggests the files have been managed in a fashion to cause iTunes confusion. There are also situations as stated above, where the metadata changes on CDs during different time frames or pressings. 

I suggest using the 'Get Info' function in iTunes to review the metadata associated with some of the files to see what info is attached. I also suggest spending a bit of time (as I had to do) to understand how OS X manages files. I find if I think of working from the application to the file, rather than the file to the application, my head hurts less. Thus, I look for music in iTunes, photos in iPhoto, etc., rather than finding the file in the filing hierarchy, and opening it. Apple's way seems to allow the user to have one big file pile, and sort that pile in various ways, whereas Windows seems to require a user managed hierarchical filing system. Might be a right-brain left-brain thing.......


Edit: added information


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## broad (Jun 2, 2009)

Lars said:


> ... make playlists?


qft.


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

Mac_Daddy said:


> I did uncheck folder management option and it still did it. I just can't fathom why iTunes feels the need to rearrange the files. The actual folder structure in the iTunes media folder gets messed up as well as how it lays out in iTunes. I look for the album to play and it's separated 12 different ways.


Is this album a compilation, by any chance? Or are half the songs "featuring" another artists. iTunes will organize songs by artist, then album. So if a compilation is not marked as a compilation, it will be split up by artist. As well, if the Album Artist field isn't set in the tags, it will split the tracks up by "Artist featuring Another Artist".

To fix this, in iTunes, select the tracks in the Album and Get Info on them.
- Check compilation if it is a compilation.
- If it is one artist, but many tracks feature another artist, set the "Album Artist" field to be the main artist.

If iTunes is still set to manage the library, it will put them back to the right place.

I don't know why unchecking "Let iTunes manage my library" (or whatever it's called) didn't work. You do realize you have to throw out everything and reimport. It won't put already copied tracks back to where they were imported from.

Also, I don't know why you are using the Finder to start playing music. Open iTunes, choose the album in there and start playing.

After fixing that, I see no reason why you wouldn't want to let iTunes manage the files. It isn't random, the method it uses to distribute is based solely on the ID tags in the tracks. If those are correct, it'll do the right thing.


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## wonderings (Jun 10, 2003)

Not sure if this changes anything, but did you also uncheck "copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library"?

I wanted iTunes to keep my music organized on my PC, and had the Keep iTunes Media folder organized, but didn't have the other checked, and it would always look in the folder I originally had the music, till I checked that second box.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I also find the management feature abhorrent and it's difficult to get iTunes to stop doing it. What a mess it makes of things. I used one of those iTunes organizer utilities at one point and it began to examine the files and ascribe artists to them. A spoken-word album by Boris Karloff was attributed to Eminem.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

I still don't understand why it matters if your iTunes folders/arrangements aren't proper -- you're looking at your library in iTunes, not the Finder. Organize your media in iTunes and forget what it looks like in the Finder.


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## Mac_Daddy (Aug 10, 2011)

I have to admit how iTunes stores and catalogs music is a bit confusing. Like apparently stores in more than one location and rebuilds song lists based upon another file or something. Like deleting an album from the folder and yet iTunes still lists it and plays it or if you physically drag and drop into the iTunes music folder iTunes will not see the file unless you get it to rescan and catalog everything. I've done the deal with removing certain reference files from the iTunes folder and then reimporting the XML file. 

I think hayesk is on to something. It seems it's my compilation albums that are having the problems. They get split by artist and I don't need a 1 track album for one artist. I'm definitelygoing to take the advice and check to make sure the albums read as compilations. Thanks.

*Note: In iTunes I want to play a compilation album whole, not by artist. Thus the organizational issue.


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## wonderings (Jun 10, 2003)

Mac_Daddy said:


> I have to admit how iTunes stores and catalogs music is a bit confusing. Like apparently stores in more than one location and rebuilds song lists based upon another file or something. Like deleting an album from the folder and yet iTunes still lists it and plays it or if you physically drag and drop into the iTunes music folder iTunes will not see the file unless you get it to rescan and catalog everything. I've done the deal with removing certain reference files from the iTunes folder and then reimporting the XML file.
> 
> I think hayesk is on to something. It seems it's my compilation albums that are having the problems. They get split by artist and I don't need a 1 track album for one artist. I'm definitelygoing to take the advice and check to make sure the albums read as compilations. Thanks.
> 
> *Note: In iTunes I want to play a compilation album whole, not by artist. Thus the organizational issue.



I had a similar problem with a compilation album I made myself, it was an easy fix though in iTunes preferences. I think I had to make sure this was selected:









When I didn't have that selected, my compilation album was 18 different artists, same album, but iTunes saw them each as their own album, despite them all having the same album name.


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

Mac_Daddy said:


> In a nutshell I want to be able to play a whole album/cd. So I search for the artist, then the album I want to listen to and press play and voila. Some of my imported music in iTunes is broken up to multiple folders, a scattered mess. Not all mind you but enough that I gotta figure out how to import it cohesively.


Just curious, but why not search for the album, and not the artist. Or if you can't remember the name, in the browse pain, select the artist, then the album, and then select "All Artists" again and it'll show the whole album. Basically you're un-searching the artist part.


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## Mac_Daddy (Aug 10, 2011)

Managed to get it all sorted. It appears the ID3 tags were the issue, more so compilation albums. Essentially you have to edit the tags so that the album(s) appear as you like in the browser. Now, I still approach music listening in the old school way, like I had a physical CD or LP in my hand. iTunes seems to be developed by people who never held a hard copy of music, ever. At any rate for a single disc compilation I unchecked "part of a compilation" box because that breaks up the album. I also omitted adding individual track artist and sort by such as that also breaks up the album. Strictly album name and main artist/producer. For multi disc with various artists I do the same but make sure to ad "disc 1 of 3" and the like etc. That way I get one album listed with all tracks in order on all three albums (though I can't see the albums as separate entities they at least follow in succession). 

So for example Lee "Scratch" Perry Arkology 3 disc set is now listed in iTunes neatly as:

Album/Artist

Arkology
Lee "Scratch" Perry

Track 1-16 (followed by)
track 1-16 (followed by)
track 1-16


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## Paul82 (Sep 19, 2007)

This is the reason there are separate artist and album artist tags... Put the actual artist in the artist tag and put Various artists or something similar in the album artist tag... When determining if songs are from the same album iTunes looks at the album name and album artist tags.


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

Mac_Daddy said:


> Managed to get it all sorted. It appears the ID3 tags were the issue, more so compilation albums. Essentially you have to edit the tags so that the album(s) appear as you like in the browser. *Now, I still approach music listening in the old school way, like I had a physical CD or LP in my hand. iTunes seems to be developed by people who never held a hard copy of music, ever.* At any rate for a single disc compilation I unchecked "part of a compilation" box because that breaks up the album. I also omitted adding individual track artist and sort by such as that also breaks up the album. Strictly album name and main artist/producer. For multi disc with various artists I do the same but make sure to ad "disc 1 of 3" and the like etc. That way I get one album listed with all tracks in order on all three albums (though I can't see the albums as separate entities they at least follow in succession).


That is an interesting statement since I can't seem to find a piece of software that is more oriented towards whole albums, iTunes has multiple options to keep things organized. Oh well


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Indeed, Jason, you are correct.

In point of fact, iTunes' organization is no mystery whatsoever. It's very simple:

Artist
Album
Songs

There ya go! That's the entire structure right there. Shocking.

Of course, what's key to this is remembering that computers (all computers) are stupid. They are just not smart enough to know that "Guess Who" and "The Guess Who" are the same band. So if the tags aren't right, that can cause an issue.

If you want to play an entire album, no problem. BUT you should make sure that the album name and artist name exactly agree on all songs in that album (this is automatically done in the "ripping" stage, or can easily be done manually in the "batch editing" stage if needed). That way, those songs are not only grouped together in the iTunes library, the files are LITERALLY grouped together on the disk under the album name.

Overall, though, I have to add my agreement to the idea that it's generally best to let the computer do the WORK of organizing the music rather than you doing it (other than the occasions where a song has been mislabeled; in my experience this nearly ALWAYS comes from "downloaded" [ahem] songs rather than bought-from-iTunes or ripped-from-CD songs).

ADDENDUM: I did forget to mention that the one minor failing in iTunes is that it is possible for some albums to have different artists on them, which of course isn't well-suited to iTunes' organizational hierarchy. This is easily corrected, as pointed out earlier, by selecting those songs and getting info on them and checking the "compilation" flag.


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