Consolidation - What will happen?

Question

Level 1

8 points

Consolidation - What will happen?

I seem to have a Music Library and Media folder set on external drive A, and a lot of the song files in this library are located on external drive B; however copies of these song files are also on external drive A in the Media folder.

i.e. I have a lot of tracks in the Media Library that are on a different external drive and these same files are also in the Media folder but those copies are not in the library.

e.g. file1.mp3 is in the Library and on drive B and another copy of the exact same file is in the Media folder on drive A. When I play the song it plays the file on drive B.

So... when I consolidate will it i) copy the files from drive B to drive A, keep the existing drive A file and update the Library entry, or will it ii) over-write the file already on drive A and update the Library entry, or will it iii) not copy the file and just update the Library entry to point at the pre-existing file on drive A, or lastly will it iv) not copy the file and not update the Library entry ?

iii) would be the ideal behaviour, but I suspect it will use option i) and make a file1 1.mp3 OR iv) = do nothing.

This is a big library so don't want to take a miss-step.

Using Monterey 12.6.1 on MBP16

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Jan 4, 2023 8:50 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

turingtest2

Level 10

278,319 points

Jan 4, 2023 9:42 AM in response to ader42

Consolidate looks at every file connected to the library in turn. If that file is located inside the designated media folder nothing happens. If the file is outside the media folder a new file is created inside, and the library updated to point to the new file. The old file stays where it is. Potentially, if files have been copied manually such that they already exist inside the media folder, but the library is connected to another copy outside, then consolidating can lead to duplication of files within the media folder, but not in the library. It sounds like you might be in this position.

See Duplicate songs in iTunes - Apple Community. You should probably import your media folder to the library to add in any tracks that are inside the media folder, but not currently connected to the library. Then delete all exact song duplicates added today, sending to the trash, after which you should be able to consolidate safely, leaving a media folder that has all songs connected to the library, and no orphan content.

See also Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for some further thoughts.

tt2

Reply

Answer 2

ed2345

Level 9

63,632 points

Jan 4, 2023 9:38 AM in response to ader42

Ader,

Consolidate goes thru your library, and if it finds a track that is in the library but not in the designated media folder, it puts a copy into the designated media folder, and re-points the library to that new one.

It will not notice if you have a duplicate file in another location.

It does not take any action about files that are in a folder but not in the library.

Consolidate is not terribly well documented, but pls study about it in here: Change where your music files are stored on Mac - Apple Support

And... before you run Consolidate, make a backup of all your files.

Reply

Answer 3

ader42 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 8, 2023 5:06 AM in response to turingtest2

Hi, just an update for anyone in the future that is interested.

I decided to disconnect drive B (the one that had many, many music files linked to in the Music Library that is on drive A) and run Dougs Media Folder Files Not added script. My library has over 6,000 albums. I ran the unregistered version as a first test to see how many there would be - after the script had been running an hour it was clear it was going to take some time and there were going to be 10s of thousands of files to be added. I went to bed and left it running.

In the morning the Mac had run out of memory but had completed what I estimate as 90% of the script run.

Then, interestingly, I noticed that all of the dead links (links to files on drive B) had disappeared - so I didn't have to remove duplicates like I had expected to need.

I emailed Doug and he said that his script would not have updated the library entries as it was unregistered and because I hadn't instructed the script to proceed with adding them. I was so pleased with what had transpired I registered the script anyway.

So I suspect that the Music app had run a consolidate all by itself (perhaps due to my having "Keep Music Media folder organised" checked?)

i.e. in the background it had re-indexed the library, seen the files n the Media folder and re-pointed the library entries to this correct location. This is both mysterious and miraculous :) For information, I had quit the Music app before disconnecting drive B and relaunching the Music app.

I then went ahead and used Dougs "Save Album Art as folder.jpg" script to export artwork files for the entire library (I felt it was worth doing for the whole library) - I had to do this in chunks due to the size of the library.

Then I used a smart playlist to identify tracks without artwork (artwork lost in the move from iTunes to Music) and used Dougs "Restore Artwork from Album folder" script to fix them. For completely missing album artwork I mostly used Ben Dobson's excellent iTunes Artwork Finder project.

Lastly I was able to use Doug's Dupin app to get rid of the handful of duplicates I had.

So I now have a fixed Music library and have made a backup of it on a separate drive. Job done. Very pleased.

Reply

Answer 4

ader42 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 4, 2023 12:22 PM in response to ader42

The danger though is that there just maybe files on drive B that are not in drive A Media folder....

So on reflection, perhaps I should first use Dougs Media Folder Files Not Added script to add the files not in the Library. And then check for and delete duplicates that live on drive B (Dupin should help) and then lastly review any remaining dead / MIA tracks on drive B.

Reply

Answer 5

ader42 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 4, 2023 11:58 AM in response to ader42

Thx,

I wanted to use the Music App consolidate feature but not knowing how it will behave I think I will have to delete the dead file links (make drive B offline and delete dead links using Dougs List MIAs script ) and then use Dougs Media Folder Files Not Added script to add the files not in the Library.

I have backups of both drives.

Reply