Q: Locating files

Don't know how it happened but for some reason iTunesHelper now working !

Hooray!

tt2

Hi there, again. !

The iTunes help only seemed to function for a short period, but everything's working OK so decided to leave things as they are.

However wondering if you can help me with another problem.

Currently have some playlists I want to convert from aiff to mp3. The problem being when I do so it messes up the iTunes library.

Is there a way I can simply convert a playlist to mp3 and store it separately without effecting the iTunes library ?

Regards, Alex

A playlist is an ordered selection of tracks. You can convert each of the tracks in that playlist into mp3 versions of the same audio, and add those tracks to a new playlist. What do you want to do with the mp3 versions? Does the order matter, or just the selection? By messes up do you mean that after converting you have both copies in the library when you only want one?

One possible approach would be temporarily change the media folder location in iTunes without consolidating your files, perform the conversions, delete the new entries from the iTunes library without sending the files to the trash, and then reset the media folder. It is a little more complicated if you need to save a .m3u file for ordered playback in different software or a non-Apple device.

tt2

I was going to put a mp3 playlist on my android smartphone (not an apple device) by hopefully putting them into a file and then transferring them to the sd card on my phone. Matter of order does not matter. I did some conversions and wondered where the new mp3 playlist was and then realised that there was two copies of certain songs in my iTunes library which was not what I wanted. It then took me some time to sort out and delete all the double entries.

By the sounds of it from what you explained it's not as easy as I thought !

Convert the files, put the library in the songs view, date added order descending so the newly converted mp3 tracks are at the top. Drag and drop them from iTunes to the SD card. Once they have been copied delete the mp3 versions from your library sending to the recycle bin. You library is back as it was before you started and the SD card has mp3 versions of your tracks.

tt2

Thanks. Would never have thought of that !

Will the mp3 music files play OK on my smartphone even though it's not an apple phone ?

Absolutely.

tt2

Thank you. It worked perfectly. Easy when you know how. I also made sure I restored my import settings back to AIFF. It could be easy to forget !

Regards, Alex

Great stuff. Enjoy the music!

tt2

Hi There, it's Alex again (not been in touch since Jan) . Hoping you may be able to help me again. Recently restored my library back to iTunes and there's a problem with my playlists. They are show on the left hand side or the iTunes page but when I open them there's no music although the rest of the library seems to have been restored fully. Can you help ?

How did you restore the playlists, and from where? When you export a playlist from iTunes it normally saves them in a way that has each item at a fixed absolute file path. If the files aren't where they need to be on import the playlist name gets added back in, but there are no tracks in the list. This is one reason why I advice keeping the library in the portable layout and backing up in a way that ensures you capture the entire state of the library.

tt2

I do have the portable layout and also have it backed up with synctoy. I accidently deleted part of my library so then restored the iTunes file to an earlier date. The library reappeared intact but most of the playlists although shown were missing the songs that I accidently deleted. Have also restored the library using synctoy but it had no effect. 

A shame you didn't ask for help once you noticed you'd done something wrong. The reason I advocate using the preview feature in SyncToy is to determine if files are about to be deleted when you don't want them to be. Unfortunately SyncToy doesn't have any way of turning a proposed delete or overwrite into a reverse restore, deciding what to do needs to be considered carefully and in some cases the SyncToy partnership might need to be recreated after the library has been restored by hand. If you've replicated the deletions in the original library through to the backup then there might still be a possibility of file recovery or undelete tools, or the files could be reclaimed if they exist on any of your devices.

tt2

I did manage to restore the library, I just don't understand why the play lists didn't restore. I also have synctoy set to echo so hopefully the back up library by my understanding should have remained intact.