Understanding how artwork works in Itunes - Please help!

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Understanding how artwork works in Itunes - Please help!

Hi,

I recently spent about 8 hours going through my very large Itunes collection and added artwork. A lot of the artwork had to be manually added. To do this I selected albums/songs and hit “get info” (command I), and I added the artwork in the artwork tab. After a very long process I had every song/album showing artwork.

I’m also in the process of updating my computer (older Mac Pro) with a SSD. I’ve installed the SSD and installed a fresh copy of El Capitan. When I launched Itunes I told it not to copy the files into Itunes as I have them stored on an additional hard drive (labelled 2nd hard drive). It imported my entire collection, but now a bunch of the artwork is missing! Augh!! If I look at the Itunes folder on my 2nd hard drive it looks like I have modified every folder with this import.

When I launch from my original Macintosh HD and launch Itunes all the artwork is there. When I launch from the SSD a bunch is missing.

I really hope I haven’t lost all this time/effort with this upgrade.

Please help!

Thanks for your time!

PS. I noticed that the Itunes version on the SSD is older (12.3.3) and the version on the original HD is (12.5.5). I also notice that I cannot copy songs from Itunes (Macintosh HD) to the desktop (I used to be able to do this).

Mac Pro, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jul 25, 2020 7:25 AM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

274,258 points

Jul 26, 2020 6:09 AM in response to Gary Goldblum

Reading between the lines I suspect you have a split library, where the library and artwork files are on the source drive, but the media is on an external. In this case there are two versions of the library for the two instances of the operating system. each with its own artwork cache. See Make a split library portable - Apple Community to ensure the entire library including artwork cache is held on the external drive.

See also Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community if needed.

tt2

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Answer 2

tygb

Level 9

64,708 points

Jul 25, 2020 10:42 AM in response to Gary Goldblum

See these articles if it helps https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/music/mus69248042d/mac

https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/music/mus1c6803257/mac

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Answer 3

tygb

Level 9

64,708 points

Jul 25, 2020 8:30 AM in response to Gary Goldblum

No, you cannot install iTunes onto your external hard drive. You can put the files for the program there, but the program would still install, and run on the computer to which the hard drive is connected.

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Answer 4

Jul 25, 2020 9:19 AM in response to tygb

I know this, perhaps you didn't understand my post.

The application Itunes is installed on both of my start up disks (Original HD AND SSD). The actual music files are on a separate hard drive (which is labeled 2nd Drive). The path to this is 2nd Drive/Itunes folder.

When I booted/launched from the SSD (brand new install) I linked that Itunes to the 2nd Drive/Itunes folder. Launching that version of Itunes (from the SSD) doesn't show a lot of the artwork. When I boot/launch Itunes (change start up disk) from the original HD I see all the artwork as before.

If you look at my music folder (2nd Drive/Itunes folder) it says that the "date modified" is yesterday at 3:37pm (when I imported music into the Itunes app when booting from the SSD).

Does this make sense?

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Answer 5

Jul 25, 2020 10:29 AM in response to Gary Goldblum

Another thing I noticed is that the folder structure changed after I imported my music. For example my Itunes folder (On 2nd Drive) used to have the following folders: Album Artwork & Itunes Media. My music appeared in the Itunes Media folder, now it is just in the 2nd Drive/Itunes folder..... I've noticed that those folders are now located on my boot drives.... augh!

I really hope I haven't lost all my artwork.

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Answer 6

Jul 28, 2020 3:32 PM in response to turingtest2

Have I stumped the Apple iTunes community? Here is what I have decided to do, let me know what you think....

Fortunately I backed up my entire music collection onto a separate external hard drive a couple of weeks ago. This backup ONLY includes the .mp3 files (organized by artists). It doesn't include the other folders usually found within the iTunes folder (Automatically add to iTunes, Movies, ALBUM ARTWORK, iTunes Media, ect....). When I plug this external hard drive into any other computer I see all the artwork. I am assuming that the artwork is EMBEDDED into each .mp3 file.

I'm thinking I should launch iTunes from the new SSD and trash the current library (and delete/trash all the files). Next, within iTunes Preferences I will select (under the general tab) "copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library". Finally within the iTunes Preferences Advanced tab I will set it to "/Users/MyName/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media" and drag the copied folder into the iTunes window.

I believe this will copy my entire collection (120 gigs) onto the SSD and when I launch iTunes ALL my artwork will be there......

Is this correct???

Is the artwork embedded within the .mp3 or am I mistaken? Why is there a folder called "Album Artwork" if this is true??

Thank you for your time!!!!!

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Answer 7

turingtest2

Level 10

274,258 points

Jul 28, 2020 4:00 PM in response to Gary Goldblum

The core of the iTunes library is the iTunes Library.itl database. This stores the playlists and all of the metadata that doesn't get embedded in files such as ratings, play counts, date added etc. If you're happy to let that stuff go you can build a fresh library with the just the media files, but my recommendation would be to capture the working version of your library in your backup so that you can go back to it if you decide that you've lost something you wanted by rebuilding.

iTunes can read embedded artwork from tracks that have it. It can also download art for tracks that don't if you allow it to do so. In both cases the Album Artwork folder is used to create a cache of the artwork so that images can be presented without reading the data out of each file as it goes. The cache will be rebuilt automatically if needed.

With that all said your general approach of trashing the iTunes folder and emptying the trash should cause iTunes to create a new empty library if it was previously using /Users/<User>/Music/iTunes for the library. The media folder should get set correctly and importing the media when the Copy files... option is selected will make copies inside the media folder of anything that is added from outside. The library should populate with art for those albums where at least one track has embedded art, and iTunes will attempt to download artwork for anything else.

tt2

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Understanding how artwork works in Itunes - Please help!

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