iTunes changing my mp3 file names?

[Cookiesnack]

So, like, I have all my .mp3s from my OS 8.6 iMac given nice (shortish) file names -- [artist name] - [song title].mp3. Very convenient when I burn mp3 CDs since anyone can just look at the file name and figure out who sang what.

Now, however, I've imported my mp3 archive onto another Mac with OS X. All the files went into a folder. Then I started up iTunes 4.7, added everything into the Library and away I went. Except iTunes seems to have converted the file names to just the song titles. I don't remember giving it permission to do *that* :mad:

So now I have over 400 mp3s with only [song title].mp3. Which means when I burn an mp3 CD I'm going to have to remember who performed each song. I'm old. My brain cells just don't work that well anymore :)

While I appreciate iTunes putting all the files into nice folders and subfolders with album names... I don't really need that.

Any way I can get iTunes to stop renaming file names without my permission?

It is irksome.

Thanks for any advice.

Cookie

[Bigc]

If you still have the original files just remove the one you added to iTunes, throw out the itunes Music library in your users folder, start iTunes and import (add to library) them again but turn off Let Itunes Organize files in Prefs>Advanced

You wont get the nice folders then. I assume you were burning MP3 cd's by taking them out of the Music Library and not letting itunes burn playlists?

[Cookiesnack]

If you still have the original files just remove the one you added to iTunes, throw out the itunes Music library in your users folder, start iTunes and import (add to library) them again but turn off Let Itunes Organize files in Prefs>Advanced

You wont get the nice folders then. I assume you were burning MP3 cd's by taking them out of the Music Library and not letting itunes burn playlists?

Ah... I will go and turn that thing off. Thanks.

As for the nice folders... they are, indeed, nice. But I really would rather be able to burn something onto a CD that I can recognize at a moment's notice (and without having to open up another application to read the full tags).

I wish iTunes had an option to 'organize' the incoming files by a formula similar to my preferred arrangement.

Thanks again for the response.

Cookie

[Bigc]

there is also a script (Rename Files) you can run to rename all your files even when organized by iTunes. iTunes will still see all the files and the changes will stick until you modify any song info. If you burn a cd using itunes then i think it renames the songs on the cd to songname.mp3 (with track number if that is selected in Prefs).

http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/scripts/scripts07.php?page=2#renamefiles