I have attempted to clean up my iTunes library by deleting a bunch of songs. I did this from iTunes. My iTunes media folder is an external hard drive. I put all deleted music into the recycle bin and emptied it.
However the music is still listed in my external drive media folder. This is the drive that iTunes stores and reads music from.
How can I fix this? I want all those deletions to also be deleted from the hard drive.
Windows, Windows 6
See Make a split library portable - Apple Community for background on the standard layout of the iTunes library. Ideally you would use something like <Drive>\iTunes\iTunes Media folder as the media folder even if you have a split library so it could be easily made portable if and when it is time to move the library to a new drive or computer.
When deleting content from iTunes it will only offer to send files to the bin if they are inside the designated media folder. If they still haven't been deleted then possibilities are some form of permissions problem (see Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows) or interference from anti-virus software.
If needs be I have a script called KillSelectedFiles that can be used to delete tracks from iTunes and delete the underlying files whatever their location.
tt2
When you say it is simply the name of the song, that would be an unusual item to be left in the media folder. Is there a file type or visible extension for these items? The items you deleted from iTunes would typically have been .mp3,.m4a,.wav, etc. audio files. Depending on the original source of these items you might have had additional content stored alongside the media that was never added to iTunes, in which case iTunes wouldn't clear it up when deleting media.
tt2
Why A Mac,
iTunes can "store and read music from" anywhere. So first, make sure that is actually your currently designated iTunes Media folder location by looking at iTunes Preferences, Advanced tab.
Also, on the Advanced tab, click Reset Warnings, in case the notification got accidentally turned off.
Why A Mac,
It is possible that "move to trash" is not working on your computer (although it certainly works fine here, in iTunes 12.9.2).
Please check whether you have multiple copies of the audio file to begin with. You would know this if the file that is exhibited by "show in explorer" before you delete is not the same one you are looking at afterwards.
Why A Mac,
Under normal iTunes organization, the media folder would be iTunes//iTunes Media, not /iTunes. That is why it is not offering to delete the file.
"Consolidate" will find any library entry whose file is not in the designated folder, and put a copy in the designated folder. It does not erase the leftovers, however, that will be a manual job.
Why A Mac,
When you delete a song from the library, do you or don't you get the dialog about "move to trash," as below?
Why A Mac,
When you delete a song from the iTunes library, it will give you the option to delete the underlying audio file, but only if said file is located in your designated iTunes Media folder. If it is located elsewhere, as it appears to be in your case, you will have to delete the file manually.
If you are not sure where the file is, right-click the library entry and choose Show in Explorer. (Reminder: do this before deleting the library entry!)
Yep, looks like an error in that command. Launch the command prompt, then type these lines in one after the other and press enter after each one:
G:
CD iTunesMusic
del /s /q /f /a ._*
del /s /q /f /a .DS_STORE
Alternatively you could try my script CleanDeadArt which I've just updated to remove these files. It will also clean up any folders that only contain these files or left over artwork after previous removal operations.
tt2
Thanks for the help but I figured out an easier way - for me. I just did a file search in my iTunes Media folder for files ._* That gave me all those useless files in one spot, then I just sent them to recycle bin and deleted. There were 21,000 files but they were easy to identify as the file size was the same at 4KB.
No wonder I was thinking iTunes was not deleting from the hard drive.
Thanks again.
As I stated in the original question the iTunes Media Folder IS my hard disc containing my music library. iTunes accesses the hard disc to retrieve and edit and play music from it.
I deleted from iTunes where the media folder was the hard disc location.
Would checking "Organize Files" - "Consolidate" fix this?
I have no duplicates. I wrote down some songs and their location to check to see if they were deleted. All my music is stored only on the external hard drive. - "G" That's where I'm checking for songs not deleted.
So I'm looking at how my computer files are organized. I have a "C" drive and I have an external drive "G"
The "G" is where my media files are, but when I go into File Explorer the "G" drive is listed twice. Once under "This Computer - "C" drive and again by it's self.
Is this how the files are supposed to be organized? When I look at the two "G" drives both say "Modified" 2012, not 2019.
Any thoughts??
Thanks
"he media folder would be iTunes//iTunes Media, not /iTunes. That is why it is not offering to delete the file."
I don't get what you're saying. My iTunes library is located in the "G" drive under the file "iTunesMusic".
That's where iTunes has been locating songs to play. Why would I need //iTunesMedia when the location of the songs in Advanced -Preferences is "ITunes Media Folder Location" "G\iTunes"
I should point out that the music files that are deleted on iTunes but not from the media folder do not play music - what's there is simply the name of the song.
I also solved my hard drive duplication as this turned out to be a Windows bug.
OK, I'm still trying to figure this out. Now I'm not sure if I did delete from Media Folder after all. How iTunes organizes the Media Folder is quite confusing.
I've been switching back and forth from iTunes to my Media Folder trying to trace deleted songs. What I'm running into is files I don't understand.
For example: I have a working song titled "Baby, Without You by Danny Monday. It plays on iTunes. In the Media Folder it shows as 02 Baby, Without You and as an MPEG Layer 3 Audio (3.81 MB), with the Album, Artist, Genre, etc. listed. Clicking on the file gets it to play.
But underneath that file is another with almost the same name but as ._02 Baby, Without You and the size is 4 MB. The file does not list details only "Specify" artist, album, genre etc. Clicking on that the file brings up the iTunes screen with the song but it does not play.
As another example is a folder labeled "Warning Warning, clicking on that opens another folder "Open The Iron Gate 1973-1977, click on that and I get a file name ._Version with no information and it does not work.
Sorry for the long post but can someone decipher all this for me?
Thanks
Deleting iTunes Music from Media Folder?
