Music Organizer

[Blue_Gundam2002]

I wasn't paying attention when I was installing iTunes today, so it "organized" my music folder for me. Now I have a folder for each album and artist, and inside the artist folder are more album folders Now I have 10GB of music that I need to resort by album.

Edit: Does anyone know of a program that will go through my music folder and sort all my files back into folders by album name?

[pam123]

No need for a separate program you can change the way iTunes organizes your music from with in iTunes.
Just pick your solution ( I do it by album ) and click on the header in the library column.
ID3 tags, depends entirely on the album so you may still have to go get some manually.
Also iTunes edit> preferences> advanced
And check the keep iTunes organized box.
Also, in importing, you want to have create file names with track number checked.
HTH

[Blue_Gundam2002]

Originally Posted by pam123 No need for a separate program you can change the way iTunes organizes your music from with in iTunes. Just pick your solution ( I do it by album ) and click on the header in the library column. ID3 tags, depends entirely on the album so you may still have to go get some manually. Also iTunes edit> preferences> advanced And check the keep iTunes organized box. Also, in importing, you want to have create file names with track number checked. HTH

I don't need to sort my mp3 data within iTunes, I need my actual mp3 files sorted back the way I had them. The "keep iTunes organized" box is what caused my problems in the first place. Having an album folder and then an artist folder with more album folders inside of it makes no logical sense to me.

[pam123]

Hi Blue,
iTunes sorts music by one of the column headers.
That's it.
To customize the music further to your liking you then use the play list function.
There are several pre-steps you take before you import music into iTunes and it sounds like you missed them.
That means you have duplicates of song titles but only one copy of the song ( or you could have 3 copies 2 are music and one's just the title.).
So you're going to have to backtrack.
Make a copy of your My Music file and export it to the desktop, out of harms reach.
Now open iTunes and select Edit>show duplicates.
That will show you what songs iTunes duplicated which you will then remove the duplicates of (now you know why I told you to make a copy of the music file).
That done, go into Advanced and hit Consolidate Library (this step isn't strictly necessary and it can't be undone so think it over) which will prevent scrambles in the future.
Now pick a general listing you can live with, one of the iTunes columns, and then set up the file organization you prefer with the play list function.
That's it.

edit : I've never had occasion to use this but if you're really looking at a horrendous job try Dupe Eliminator : http://www.markelsoft.com/html/buy_or_try_products.html
It's got a free trial version so you don't have shell out the cash if it won't work for you.
Be sure you export a copy of your music file before you use it.

[ogrerocks]

Originally Posted by pam123 Hi Blue, iTunes sorts music by one of the column headers. That's it. To customize the music further to your liking you then use the play list function. ...Clip...blah blah... That's it.

All that is organizing the iTunes library, not the actual files themselves.

As far as I know, there is no way to change the way iTunes organizes or names the files, which is annoying.
I haven't found an easy way to undo the renaming and moving job iTunes did.
I used to organize all my files manually and made the mistake of letting iTunes organize it for me. I found that it's easier to get used to iTunes then try to undo everything.

[pam123]

Like I said.
He lets itunes do things its' way, the one he can best live with, and then he uses the play list function to customize to his liking.