moving music files in itunes

[lomein]

as a regular 9:30 board stalker I know you all are experts on everything in the natural and metaphysical world, so maybe someone can help me with this:
 is there any way to easily move all the music on my computer to my new external hard drive without having to manually redirect every individual album in itunes? unfortunately most of my music is not in the main "itunes music" folder so I can't just change the preferences in itunes to read them from the new drive. I want to keep all my ratings and play counts, etc so I don't want to delete my whole library and load it in again. but I was just wondering if there was a way I could do it in less than 900 hours.
 as a sidenote how do you organize the music files on your computer? I hate mixing up the files from my cds and the ones I download but it's making transferring my music to another hard drive a big pain in the ass.

[HoyaSaxa03]

Originally posted by lomein:
  as a sidenote how do you organize the music files on your computer? I hate mixing up the files from my cds and the ones I download but it's making transferring my music to another hard drive a big pain in the ass.

just write something in the "comments" section of your iTunes tag to denote where the file came from ... i put stuff like "eMusic", "myCD", "[insert friend's name]" ... then you can always create smart playlists to sort your music by source

[Seth Hurwitz]

I don't remember the answer to this but I do remember finding it on the iTunes forum on the Apple site and/or the Help menu in the program

[beetsnotbeats]

AFAIK, when you designate a new location for iTunes the program will ask if you want to move all of your tunes there, regardless of where they are presently and how many different locations you already had.

[vansmack]

Originally posted by lomein:
  as a regular 9:30 board stalker I know you all are experts on everything in the natural and metaphysical world, so maybe someone can help me with this:
 is there any way to easily move all the music on my computer to my new external hard drive without having to manually redirect every individual album in itunes?

Are you moving them there for backup or is that where you want to store them?
 
 And if the asnwer for backup, you're screwed.  You'll have to do it individually.
 
 If the anwser is to move them there, then you would this:
 
 Edit--> Preferences
 
 Click the Advanced Tab.
 
 Under "iTunes Music Folder Location", click Change (for WIN users, it should say something like C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music)
 
 Find your new drive and folder and click it (or create a new one).
 
 But here's the catch: if you check "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" and "Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library" then your entire library will be moved to the external drive into one folder.  It sounds like you don't do that and like to keep music libraries in at least 2 different root folders, and this solution won't work with that.  It might be decision time for you....

[vansmack]

Originally posted by lomein:
  as a sidenote how do you organize the music files on your computer? I hate mixing up the files from my cds and the ones I download but it's making transferring my music to another hard drive a big pain in the ass.

I used to have to folders: Ripped and downloaded but it just wasn't worth it in the end.  Like you, when I went to backing up the music, it wasn't worth it any longer.  Now it's all in one folder called itunes music on the local drive and mirrored on an external drive for backup.
 
 I'm also anal and burn to DVDs every 4-6 months, and send the DVDs to an offsite location like my office or a friends house.

[lomein]

thanks for your suggestions...I ran out of hard drive space on my computer so that's why I'm moving my music to the new hard drive. I will be deleting most of it from my computer but I want to keep some stuff on my laptop so I can listen to it when I'm not home, which is why I don't want itunes to organize everything for me. I'm considering just having itunes sync it up for me initially and then unchecking that box and redirecting some albums to come from my computer. unfortunately I'm so anal I will have a cow if itunes messes up my organizational system too much. do they rename the file folders of stuff you have downloaded that aren't in the 'itunes music' folder when they move them there?

[Samantha]

My mind is getting all confuddled with figuring out how to get my entire music collection from the downstairs pc, up to my new pc in my room without an external.  the problem is I want quick and easy.  I JUST NEED MY DONOVAN FIX OK.
 
 I'm not really asking for suggestions since I'm retarded and I'd probably fuck anything up, I'm just bitching.

[vansmack]

Originally posted by lomein:
   I will be deleting most of it from my computer but I want to keep some stuff on my laptop so I can listen to it when I'm not home, which is why I don't want itunes to organize everything for me.

I do two things for this. (1) If you have an ipod, you can plug your ipod in and play the music off the ipod via iTunes without copying to your hard drive. (2) Without an iPod, you can spend $20-$40 on a flash drive and keep 2 Gigs to 4 Gigs on the flash drive and listen to music off of it, again, without copying to the hard drive.  
 
 

Originally posted by lomein:
  do they rename the file folders of stuff you have downloaded that aren't in the 'itunes music' folder when they move them there?

The file folders in your new directory will be set up via the itunes default which is:
 
 [Drive letter]:\itunes\itunes music\Artist Name\Album Title\# track name.mp3

[James Ford]

I think the title of this thread sort of summarizes my problem, but i'll describe it anyway. Hope some of you might have an answer for me.

I have a pc with itunes and a laptop with itunes. Some of my music (which I rip from CD's) is stored on the PC, some of it on the laptop. Neither contain all of my music. From each of those, I copy selected stuff to my classic ipod.

I had a version of Itunes on my laptop that allowed me to rip a new CD to my Itunes library and then drag that and copy it to my IPOD. That's how I was getting any new music I bought on CD onto my IPOD.

So for a long, long time it had been asking me if i wanted to download a new version of itunes. Stupidly, I finally said yes. Now I have a version of Itunes that allows me to rip a CD to my library, but I don't see a way to drag the results over to my IPOD. It does ask me if I want to synch up my IPOD to my Itunes library. But I DON'T want to do this, because presumably it will erase all the current contents of the IPOD (much of which is from the PC) and replace it with the contents of the laptop Itunes library (which only contains a portion of my music, and has stufff i don't want to put on the IPOD)

So what do I do? I'm assuming I could uninstall the new version of Itunes and download the older version (?) that I had? But am I right in thinking that would then delete my library? Is there a way to do ripping to library/dragging to IPOD that I was previously doing in the current version of Itunes that I'm not seeing?

[Yada]

I think the title of this thread sort of summarizes my problem, but i'll describe it anyway. Hope some of you might have an answer for me.

I have a pc with itunes and a laptop with itunes. Some of my music (which I rip from CD's) is stored on the PC, some of it on the laptop. Neither contain all of my music. From each of those, I copy selected stuff to my classic ipod.

I had a version of Itunes on my laptop that allowed me to rip a new CD to my Itunes library and then drag that and copy it to my IPOD. That's how I was getting any new music I bought on CD onto my IPOD.

So for a long, long time it had been asking me if i wanted to download a new version of itunes. Stupidly, I finally said yes. Now I have a version of Itunes that allows me to rip a CD to my library, but I don't see a way to drag the results over to my IPOD. It does ask me if I want to synch up my IPOD to my Itunes library. But I DON'T want to do this, because presumably it will erase all the current contents of the IPOD (much of which is from the PC) and replace it with the contents of the laptop Itunes library (which only contains a portion of my music, and has stufff i don't want to put on the IPOD)

So what do I do? I'm assuming I could uninstall the new version of Itunes and download the older version (?) that I had? But am I right in thinking that would then delete my library? Is there a way to do ripping to library/dragging to IPOD that I was previously doing in the current version of Itunes that I'm not seeing?

Ha!!! Coincidentally, I'm up in PA and my pops ended up erasing his entire iPod because of this. If you go to library and start dragging things to the right, the iPod option automatically pops up. It's kind of hard to explain, but if you grab any songs and start pulling to the right, the option to drag to the iPod should come up.

My next piece of advice is stop using iTunes. 

[James Ford]

Thanks, I'll give it a try when i get home tonight!

I think the title of this thread sort of summarizes my problem, but i'll describe it anyway. Hope some of you might have an answer for me.

I have a pc with itunes and a laptop with itunes. Some of my music (which I rip from CD's) is stored on the PC, some of it on the laptop. Neither contain all of my music. From each of those, I copy selected stuff to my classic ipod.

I had a version of Itunes on my laptop that allowed me to rip a new CD to my Itunes library and then drag that and copy it to my IPOD. That's how I was getting any new music I bought on CD onto my IPOD.

So for a long, long time it had been asking me if i wanted to download a new version of itunes. Stupidly, I finally said yes. Now I have a version of Itunes that allows me to rip a CD to my library, but I don't see a way to drag the results over to my IPOD. It does ask me if I want to synch up my IPOD to my Itunes library. But I DON'T want to do this, because presumably it will erase all the current contents of the IPOD (much of which is from the PC) and replace it with the contents of the laptop Itunes library (which only contains a portion of my music, and has stufff i don't want to put on the IPOD)

So what do I do? I'm assuming I could uninstall the new version of Itunes and download the older version (?) that I had? But am I right in thinking that would then delete my library? Is there a way to do ripping to library/dragging to IPOD that I was previously doing in the current version of Itunes that I'm not seeing?

Ha!!! Coincidentally, I'm up in PA and my pops ended up erasing his entire iPod because of this. If you go to library and start dragging things to the right, the iPod option automatically pops up. It's kind of hard to explain, but if you grab any songs and start pulling to the right, the option to drag to the iPod should come up.

My next piece of advice is stop using iTunes. 

[sweetcell]

WinAmp can be used to send/sync MP3s to your ipod, that's what i use.  a lot simpler than itunes.

i haven't used itunes in a while, so i might be wrong here, but i don't think it allows you to sync to two different computers.  if you want to send songs from computer A to the ipod, itunes will first wipe the songs you sent from computer B.

[James Ford]

We shall see tonight.

I had an older version of itunes on both computer A and computer B previously and it allowed me to do it (pull from both). I still have the old version on the PC, so presumably I could still do what i was previously doing on the PC but not on the laptop which I upgraded. Unless what Yada says works.

edit: I may have previously been using WINAMP on the pc, it's been awhile since i used the pc for that. In any event, I'll have to play around tonight.

WinAmp can be used to send/sync MP3s to your ipod, that's what i use.  a lot simpler than itunes.

i haven't used itunes in a while, so i might be wrong here, but i don't think it allows you to sync to two different computers.  if you want to send songs from computer A to the ipod, itunes will first wipe the songs you sent from computer B.

[Yada]

We shall see tonight.

I had an older version of itunes on both computer A and computer B previously and it allowed me to do it (pull from both). I still have the old version on the PC, so presumably I could still do what i was previously doing on the PC but not on the laptop which I upgraded. Unless what Yada says works.

edit: I may have previously been using WINAMP on the pc, it's been awhile since i used the pc for that. In any event, I'll have to play around tonight.

WinAmp can be used to send/sync MP3s to your ipod, that's what i use.  a lot simpler than itunes.

i haven't used itunes in a while, so i might be wrong here, but i don't think it allows you to sync to two different computers.  if you want to send songs from computer A to the ipod, itunes will first wipe the songs you sent from computer B.

As long as you're not automatically syncing, you should be fine... but the new user interface for iTunes is complete garbage.