Weird "Music" folder has appeared under iTunes Media

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Weird "Music" folder has appeared under iTunes Media

So for a given album of say 10 songs I have a folder Itunes Media/artist/8 songs and Itunes media/music/artist/2 songs.

First why has this happened as have 157 of them? Secondly is there an easy way to reorganise without losing playcount etc. I tired cutting and pasting the songs back into the first folder, but then have to go to every song and relocate it via itunes. I tried readding the whole Itunes media folder as read this would force itunes to rebuild, but that did something very strange putting the files back in the Music folder.

Any help appreciated as my backup programme is quite confused about which files still exist and shouldn't be archived.

mike

Posted on Aug 14, 2021 7:56 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

274,970 points

Aug 15, 2021 6:34 AM in response to masplin

Turning Keep organized off and then back on again will rearrange the contents of the iTunes Media folder to the current layout, whichever that is, updating all references in the library, preserving play counts, etc.

Click the menu item File > Library > Organize Library... If the option to Rearrange files... is greyed out your library is using the new layout. If the box is clickable then it is using the old layout and you can tick this box to switch to the new one, which is what I would generally recommend unless you have a particular preference to keep things as they are, manually manage your folders. etc.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

274,970 points

Aug 14, 2021 4:09 PM in response to masplin

See Make a split library portable - Apple Community for general background on the layout of the library. It seems that iTunes can occasionally decide to start using the new one even though you've never selected the rearrange files option. Personally I would go with it, and turn Keep Organized off and then back on again to get everything in the new layout. If you really prefer the old one edit the file .iTunes Preferences.plist in your media folder and change the layout value from 1 to 0 while iTunes is closed, then turn Keep Organized off and again to enforce the selected layout.

tt2

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Answer 3

masplin Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 15, 2021 6:17 AM in response to turingtest2

So it seems the bit of my library that is itunes media/artist is Itunes 8 and the bit that is itunes media/music/artic is itunes 9 i.e. the newer version. With keep organised on it will put new stuff under the music folder. still don't see how an album gets split between the 2 new structures, but explains why they are in 2 places.

so if I turn Keep organised off and then back on will it move all those artisits from itunes media to itunes media/music without breaking the library or losing play count etc?

Thanks

Mike

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Weird "Music" folder has appeared under iTunes Media

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