Music Folder Larger than iTunes Library

It sounds like you have deleted songs or books from your iTunes database without deleting the files from your hard drive.

If you delete a song in iTunes you are asked if you want to also move the file to trash. If you don't move it to trash the file remains in your iTunes folder but doesn't appear in the iTunes library.

Im having the same problem,

itunes reports my library contains just over 60gbs of music and the real music folder is running at 64.7gb

I have been very careful to delete from library (ie remove to trash on deletion)

perhaps its album artwork content ? (which i hate !) but it shouldn't be 4gbs of difference

any ideas anyone ?

regards

adream

Hey,

This might seem drastic, but hopefully it'll work for you. First, I would back up your iTunes library XML folder- located in ~/Music/iTunes/. It will be called "iTunes Library". Make a copy of it, and put the copy on your desktop or some other place you'll remember.

Then, drag your entire music library folder into the library area of iTunes, having it add any files back that aren't in the library. After that, a simple Edit-->Show Duplicate Songs, combined with some manual combing-through should fix it.

Hope that helps,
-Matt

PS- Although I don't think this solution is as risky as I'm making it out to be, don't blame me if something happens!

I don't think there's anything to worry about. I bet if everyone on this forum compared iTunes "sizing" of their Library vs. how big the Finder says their Music folder is, everyone would report discrepancies in the order of +/- 10%.
In my case, my Library says it is 9.8GB while the finder reports 9.2 GB.

When I look at individual files in my Library, iTunes often reports them as being 0.1-0.2 bigger than what the Finder says. It must have something to do with rounding or something similar.

Hello Katie Floyd :
Two parts stuff one part same stuff , uhg . Is there an approach using the

new features such as Automator to track 'em doun ? There is nothing trivial

about combing through one let alone many gigabytes . I delete doubles

now a days. I have a distaste for wasting things complicating that . So to

search through thirty gigabytes of Home folder iTunes to reconcile

twenty gigabytes in the Applications iTunes Library is bewildering . For

backing up files it seems ditzy to pay for any more than necessary . I

use the music fairly thoroughly and dislike repeat sounds . This means

to me then that the Application is fairly clean of duplicates . The Edit

show duplicate songs is handy . Frederick

Doesn't iTunes compress files.

Hi Joe

I don't think so , it can organise and play what you put in the library .

You can change formats with iTunes and that might affect the size

of the file , however trivial that is its interesting . The finder

can archive files with a light touch . Frederick

I agree, this seems to happen when track info is changed. that won't create duplicate songs within the iTunes interface, but on the hard drive it creates new duplicate files without deleting the old ones. I just discovered the exact same problem, but my disk space difference is more drastic. iTunes says that my library is 66.73 GB but my "iTunes Music" folder is 94.23 GB. I have been anal about changing the ID3 Tags on my files when I'm unhappy with the results I get from CDDB, and as a result it looks like I've unwittingly created thousands of useless duplicate files.

This is a very big problem.

Does anyone know if there is a script available where I can scan the iTunes Music folder to identify and delete every file that isn't associated with the iTunes interface library?

I agree, this seems to happen when track info is changed. that won't create duplicate songs within the iTunes interface, but on the hard drive it creates new duplicate files without deleting the old ones. I just discovered the exact same problem, but my disk space difference is more drastic. iTunes says that my library is 66.73 GB but my "iTunes Music" folder is 94.23 GB. I have been anal about changing the ID3 Tags on my files when I'm unhappy with the results I get from CDDB, and as a result it looks like I've unwittingly created thousands of useless duplicate files.

This is a very big problem.

Does anyone know if there is a script available where I can scan the iTunes Music folder to identify and delete every file that isn't associated with the iTunes interface library?

Find or search, describe specific changes before and after - organise !

Todd:

I don't think that changing ID3 tags can create new files - have you ever done a Consolidate Libarary from / to an external drive?

Lita

Hi. I just did a quick and simple fix. It worked for my particular situation, hopefully it will work for others.

1. Drag the entire iTunes Music folder into the iTunes Library window.

2. If you have a large music folder, go make a sandwich. This may take a little while.

3. Thankfully, only the "duplicate" files will be added to the iTunes library.

4. Sort the entire iTunes library by date added

5. Select all the files that you just added, and delete them.

that's it. no Apple Script or Shareware necessary.

Lita -

To reply to your comment "I don't think that changing ID3 tags can create new files." -- I believe it can. In the course of identifying the duplicates I took several minutes to do a random sampling/speed read. Sure enough, all the tracks I stopped to think about were ones for which I made multiple ID3 tag modifications after the initial iTunes import. Granted, I wasn't able to replicate this a few minutes ago, but I can tell you that some of the duplicate tracks I deleted were tracks that I was just making ID3 tag changes to yesterday.

Todd , if this works well it is terrific . If your paying attention you

really cannot make it worse . I just tried it with Fantasie in C minor,

KV 475 and it said it was going in , the big green plus sign , and

did not Bravo . I like this .
Frederick

If you have enough room on your hard drive to temporarily hold a second copy of all your music, then there is a very easy way to make sure you don't have any 'extra' music files.

- Go into iTunes preferences, to Advanced, and change the location of your iTunes folder to a newly created folder (make sure it is not in the current Music folder. You might want to name it something like 'consolidated music' for clarity.) Click OK.
- It might take a few minutes for iTunes to update the database. It will not move or delete anything at this point.
- Next, choose the 'Consolidate Library' from the Advanced menu. This will copy ALL the music in your library to the newly specified location. It may take a while.
- When the consolidate is done, verify that the music has indeed been copied. Then you can delete the old, oversized folder.

You should be good to go.