Some entries in iTunes just don't want to cooperate

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Level 1

12 points

Some entries in iTunes just don't want to cooperate

I am reorganizing my music within iTunes, editing songs and groups of songs within the Get Info dialog box. By default, iTunes wants to separate the work of a particular artist into separate albums because of things like multiple artists. That and most other things I can deal with but there must be something else that iTunes uses for organizing songs that is invisible to me. For example, if I have a number of individual songs from one artist that all come from different albums and I want to gather them all together into one album, I know how to do that; or at least I thought I did. Some entries seem to want to resist being grouped together. I have gone so far as to write down every single selection, text (including capitalization and spaces) or any other parameter on every last item in every tab and double and triple checked to ensure everything except the song titles and track numbers was exactly the same. iTunes still will not combine the songs into one album. When I say I am matching stuff I mean I synchronize absolutely everything from the artwork to the file locations, the year, the compilations tick-box, the sorting, everything. If it is something that can be changed from within the Get Info dialog box I have synchronized it. I have left no stone unturned. Whatever it is that is preventing these entries from being grouped together has to be something outside of the parameters that can be set from within Get Info.

Any help on this weirdness will be appreciated.

iTunes 12.6.2.20

macOS 10.13.6

Posted on Feb 3, 2021 2:38 PM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

273,195 points

Feb 3, 2021 2:49 PM in response to BMW-KTM

If iTunes or Music show multiple instances of an artist or an album then what generally works is to select all related tracks and use Song Info to add say a trailing X to each of the fields that the tracks should have in common:

For an album; Album, Album Artist, and Artist (if artist is the same for all tracks) *
For an artist; Album Artist (and Artist unless there are guest/featured artists listed which should not be changed)

Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen iTunes between the two renaming operations. Part of a compilation should also be set consistently.

* If tracks are to be synced to a non-iOS device there should be a common Artist and/or the album should be set as a Compilation.

Use the songs view and display the fields Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, Artist and Sort Artist side by side so you see whether or not it is appropriate to edit Artist and if sort values could be causing any further problems. See Grouping tracks into albums for more help if required.

One further tip for really stubborn duplicates. At one point I had three lots of Various Artists in the artists view of my iTunes Match library that wouldn't respond to the usual trailing X treatment. What I found worked was to add the trailing X to start with, but then with each group that iTunes wanted to keep separate start typing a value and use the autocomplete from say Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.

IF there are edits that won't take see Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.

tt2

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Answer 2

BMW-KTM Author

Level 1

12 points

Feb 4, 2021 6:47 PM in response to turingtest2

Hey, just wanted to let you know some good info. The X thing worked on a couple of artists but there were still some entries that were being a pain and your other suggestions didn't work either so I went on the hunt.

I have found a solution that works (for me at least) for just a few dollars. It's an app available in the App Store called Metadatics. It allows you to edit the metadata within an audio file. There are data fields in an audio file's metadata that are not accessible through iTunes but which you can manipulate (or more expediently, delete) with the app. This app has already paid for itself by relieving me of a lot of headaches. My reorganization of the library is making great progress.

Thanks for your time and input. I hope I have now been of some help to you as well.

Cheers!

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