iTunes 7 : "keep library organized" the way I want?
 

Hello,
I searched inside the plist files related to itunes (in the prefs, package, etc) to find out if there was an editable option to change the way iTunes organize the files in the iTunes Music folder. Sadly I couldn't find it.

Does anybody knows how can I force iTunes to keep my files organized the way I want?

eg : iTunes Music/genres/artist - album (year)/Track# - Track Name.mp3
or even iTunes Music/artist - album/Track# Track Name.mp3

would be cool instead of the classic

iTunes Music/artist/album/Track# Track Name.mp3

Any ideas?
PS : I already use media rage, but I'd like iTunes to do all the stuff alone.

You can't alter the way iTunes organizes the files. Either you let iTunes track the file locations or you have to do it manually. I'd say let iTunes do it. It doesn't really matter what the underlying organization looks like.

What I suggest is that you let iTunes organize your music.

Then, in the location of your choice in the Finder create a Smart Folder with the settings Kind => Music => Musical Genre => Genre Name.

Thank you for your answers.
I knew that I would be advised to leave iTunes alone, but we're on macosxhints here, not on the apple discussions!
So, anyone has a trick to customize iTunes this way?

PS : the smart folder could be a good idea, but it will show me directly the files, and not the folders the files are in. So I lose the artist/album organization.

You can try...

Kind => Folders => Spotlight Comments => Genre Name.

Of course, there are still drawbacks. You have to add the genre to all the artists' folders (though I'm sure there is away to do it in batches) and you can't use a proper List or Column view until you access the artists' folder.

I've seen many (well, several anyway) people ask for things like this, but I've never understood why they want it. You can use iTunes Smart playlists (as well as manual playlists) to create virtually any list of songs which could then easily be burned to a CD/DVD or dragged and dropped into a folder where they could then be manipulated further, so I just don't see why it matters at all where iTunes stores them.

I'd love a good explanation, since to me, it's a bit like wanting to specify the individual blocks your hard drive uses to store certain files. It may be theoretically possible, but you don't gain anything from the effort. In fact, you're more likely to slow the system down!

From the few people that I personally know, the reason is that they prefer to use the Finder to locate their songs, instead of iTunes. As for why they prefer the limited Finder capabilities over iTunes, the answer was "I just do".

Yes. There are generally two ways to organize the songs:

1. Let iTunes do it.
2. Use the Finder to do it.

What's interesting about this thread is that original poster wants an amalgam of the two. He wants iTunes to organize the files in the Finder his particular way.

That's the part where they lose me.

I think that most people who ask for this haven't spent enough time using iTunes. Specifically, using Smart Playlists.

I suppose there might be a reason to want to be able to locate songs in the Finder, like if you also own a non-iPod that you need to load up with songs. But personally, I haven't looked inside the iTunes folders for so long since iTunes is the front end to it all. If I want to find a song in the Finder, I can do a Show in Finder command from iTunes and there it is.

Even easier is to drag & drop all the songs from a playlist into an empty folder. From there, upload to your non-iPod and delete the folder (the files are just copies) when you're done. No need to see inside the iTunes folders.

Here's the reason why :
Until now, I organized my library with some software : the first finds if there are missing tracks on the album (from CDDB), the second renames the files (remove underscores, etc.), the third write the ID3 tag from the now up to date filename.

All these software are pre configured to work with files organized this way :
genres/artist - album (year)/Track# - Track Name.mp3

So I'd like iTunes to be able to work hand in hand with these softwares instead of having to change my workflow.

The thing is, if it's as simple as changing a few lines in a preference file, it's great!

By the way, thank you all for your attention about my tiny problem!

The way it works is that the small fry have to work with the 900 lb Gorilla, not the other way around. You should be asking the developer of the software you've been using why it doesn't play well with iTunes.

My simple reason to hate iTunes file management is this:
1. when I add a compilation music folder it creates folders for each artist with just one song in it and has no reference to the actual album (exept in Itunes library)
2. when I want to copy music to my portable players or backup drive I do not do it via Itunes because its only God is iPod. I just drop the folder to mounted external drive.
I have tried several music managers in OS X, but they all have flaws, some more annoying than even Itunes.

It would be quite feasible to write an AppleScript that created (and kept up to date) a completely separate hierarchy of either Finder aliases or symbolic links that pointed to the actual files that are under iTunes' control.
You could of course make this "shadow" hierarchy use whatever organization you desire.

iTunes is perfectly capable of grouping compilations. See:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301172
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304297

Chris

The first doesn't sound like it would be dependent on file arrangements in
Finder. Such a script would only need iTunes' Library file to fulfill its task.

As for the second and the third, they sound entirely unnecessary. How can
any of that business even matter? iTunes knows where the files are, their
actual file names and/or location paths are of no consequence whatsoever.

As styrafome noted: iTunes can show us any file we want via command-R.
And if iTunes isn't running, Spotlight can fill in nicely (even metadata-wise).

Once in a blue moon I go into Finder and move something just for the heck
of it. But even that is essentially a waste of time. It simply doesn't matter.

The purpose of music is to be listened to. Gone are the days we needed to
physically stack LPs, CDs, and tapes alphabetically, chronologically, etc.,
in order to find them. As styrafome also indicated: iTunes is the front end
to all that drudgery, so we shouldn't concern ourselves with the minutia of
precisely where something is stored, or what its exact name happens to be.

As for letting iTunes (physically) "organize" my music, I say: no way José.
Put my stuff somewhere when I give it to you, and don't lose track of it.

That's enough.

-HI-

Do you care what blocks the hard drive uses to store each of the files? If you don't care, then please tell us why this is different from where iTunes stores them.

I'm not being flippant here. If you let iTunes store your music, it will put them in folders in such a way as to allow it to quickly retrieve them. If you do it yourself, you're asking the OS to store them so that you can quickly retrieve them, but you still aren't controlling where they're saved!

What's more, I'd bet that iTunes can retrieve them much faster than you can. Smart playlists for example, are updated virtually instantly, and with search criteria that a human would likely not remember, let alone follow accurately.

Just for clarity, I think vanakaru was referring to the "mounted drive" of his non-ipod mp3 player.

I'll throw my support behind the "let the database manager manage the database" idea. iTunes is designed so that you don't have to concern yourselves with file layouts.

Jacky14: There are plenty of ID3 taggers and other software out there that will cleanup filenames etc. Why don't you have a look at them. Especially have a look at http://dougscripts.com/ He has some scripts that plug directly into iTunes to do things like strip underscores out, and reverse, artist name - song name titles etc etc.

I have one as well. I even asked and got a good answer a few weeks ago here on these forums. In my case, I needed a way to restrict certain songs from younger kids in our household. The suggestion I got was to manage the iTunes library myself, create two directories (one with restricted tunes and one with family-friendly tunes) then restrict access to the one folder via permissions. I guess I then manually add the directories to iTunes and those without access to the one directory would never see the songs within. To be honest, I haven't taken that leap yet, because (1) I like how iTunes maintains the library personally and (2) am unsure I'll be able to keep up with the mainenance on my own.

Maybe this weekend...

Interesting. I guess what's really needed is a way for iTunes to have multiple locations for music folders and a way to put passwords or user level permissions on each. Maybe in version 8?

In the meantime, you might try sharing selected playlists from your admin account and let the kids access them from their accounts. It requires you to keep iTunes running and your account logged in, but it shouldn't be difficult.

Ah, yes, well...I failed to mention the main question I had been asking in that other thread.

I actually share playlists from my account now, but when you share playlists, the others cannot use them to create their own playlists or burn cds.

My original off-topic question was my desire to have a central library of EVERYONE's music on a networked HD, thereby allowing everyone to use the songs as if the files were located in their own directories, but still control access to certain music.

I think you can do that. I have my iTunes library on an external hard drive that I only turn on if I want to listen to my music. On rare occasions, I've added music to iTunes without the drive turned on. What happens is that iTunes puts the music in the default location: ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
When I turn on the external hard drive iTunes sees my main library and the music in the default location.

****** Important: I haven't verified this procedure, so you may want to test it on a duplicate song. You can create a duplicate by converting a song to a different format. *******

To duplicate this on your setup, open iTunes and create a playlist with all the songs you don't want the kids to have access to, select all of them, then drag & drop them to an empty folder on your hard drive. When you're sure you've got them all backed up, delete them from the iTunes library and then disconnect from the network drive. Finally, import them back into iTunes before you connect back to the network drive. They should appear on your system, but not others, since they won't be on the network drive.

****** Important: I haven't verified this procedure, so you may want to test it on a duplicate song. You can create a duplicate by converting a song to a different format. *******