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User profile for user: CMMusic
CMMusic Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

I have just downloaded iTunes after being away for 10 years. I have 4 questions, continued below:

I have recently spent a LOT of time organizing all the music on my computer to ensure I have a clean file without duplicates. If I have an album in two formats, what is the preferred one to use? I have all the following in my folder: wma, mp3, m4a, m4p, mid, wav ... not sure how I got so many, but that's what it is. Mp4, m4v, and mov are video files, correct? If I have duplicate songs, it's generally some combination of wma, mp3, and m4a. Which is the best to keep, or should I even worry about that? Will the songs import twice if they're together in 2 different formats?


I prefer to keep my music on my secondary drive. Will iTunes work with that and maintain it there, or must it be on the C: drive?


Then, will iTunes create a new copy of every song when creating/modifying its library? I have a pretty significantly large music folder, and I can't afford the disk space for 2 entire copies.


Last but not least, my old library got linked when I installed and logged in. I'm not sure I necessarily want to use that. I'm fairly certain these songs are in my music folder already. Would an import recognize that and not bring them in again, or should I dump the entire library and start over?


Maybe I'm overthinking all this, but I don't want to mess it up. THANKS!

Posted on Dec 3, 2022 8:08 AM

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User profile for user: the fiend
the fiend
User level: Level 7
22,662 points

Posted on Dec 3, 2022 8:46 AM

Looking at the file formats:

    • wav files - large file sizes and artwork cannot be saved into the file itself. This means that when you copy a wav file to somewhere, the artwork will not go with it.
    • m4a - Apple's preferred type (also known as AAC). Most modern mp3 players can play these files and their audio quality is similar to mp3 (but consider the Bit Rate). Smaller file sizes than wav and artwork is contained in the file itself
    • mp3 - a universal file that can be played by almost (if not) every player. Old purchased mp3 files were in a Bit Rate of 128Kbps. Now they are in a Bit Rate of 256Kbps and should be slightly better audio quality. A higher the Bit Rate means that less audio quality was lost when the file was created. Artwork is contained in the file itself
    • m4p is I think a protected audio file, which means it cannot be copied or converted to any other format
    • wma - I don't know much about as I (personally) avoid that format


Points to note:

    • converting from a lower Bit Rate to a higher one will not improve audio quality. Once the quality has been lost, it cannot be magically brought back
    • file types of the same Bit Rate may not be exactly the same audio quality
    • if you have the same song in two file types, then they will appear as two songs in your iTunes Library (if you add both). Don't forget, there you can use File / Add File to Library to add specific songs or File / Add Folder to Library which will add every compatible song in that folder, so the same song in two formats gets added as two songs
    • you should maintain a backup of all your music, in case your computer or its hard drive fail. iTunes does not a have a feature to backup your media (songs or videos). A backup should be on a separate drive, preferably external to the computer


I have addressed some of your questions, but it has produced a long answer, so I'll leave it at that for now. Perhaps someone else can chip in to cover points that I have not.

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User profile for user: the fiend
the fiend
User level: Level 7
22,662 points

Dec 3, 2022 8:46 AM in response to CMMusic

Looking at the file formats:

    • wav files - large file sizes and artwork cannot be saved into the file itself. This means that when you copy a wav file to somewhere, the artwork will not go with it.
    • m4a - Apple's preferred type (also known as AAC). Most modern mp3 players can play these files and their audio quality is similar to mp3 (but consider the Bit Rate). Smaller file sizes than wav and artwork is contained in the file itself
    • mp3 - a universal file that can be played by almost (if not) every player. Old purchased mp3 files were in a Bit Rate of 128Kbps. Now they are in a Bit Rate of 256Kbps and should be slightly better audio quality. A higher the Bit Rate means that less audio quality was lost when the file was created. Artwork is contained in the file itself
    • m4p is I think a protected audio file, which means it cannot be copied or converted to any other format
    • wma - I don't know much about as I (personally) avoid that format


Points to note:

    • converting from a lower Bit Rate to a higher one will not improve audio quality. Once the quality has been lost, it cannot be magically brought back
    • file types of the same Bit Rate may not be exactly the same audio quality
    • if you have the same song in two file types, then they will appear as two songs in your iTunes Library (if you add both). Don't forget, there you can use File / Add File to Library to add specific songs or File / Add Folder to Library which will add every compatible song in that folder, so the same song in two formats gets added as two songs
    • you should maintain a backup of all your music, in case your computer or its hard drive fail. iTunes does not a have a feature to backup your media (songs or videos). A backup should be on a separate drive, preferably external to the computer


I have addressed some of your questions, but it has produced a long answer, so I'll leave it at that for now. Perhaps someone else can chip in to cover points that I have not.

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I have just downloaded iTunes after being away for 10 years. I have 4 questions, continued below:

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