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ITunes keeps overriding and resetting my media folder change.

Hi. My dad has a dinosaur of a Dell desktop running Windows 7 and his iTunes software (v 12.10.11.2) has the media location set to an external hard drive that is always plugged in to the desktop.


I have been trying to change the media location to the C drive, built into the desktop, and then use the external hard drive as a backup rather than the primary media location.


Every time I make this change in the advanced settings, it says it is updating the media library and then asks if I would like to copy the files to the new location. I say yes and after a few minutes of loading nothing has changed. If I go to advanced settings the media location is still on the external ("J") hard drive.


I believe the iTunes library file is in the correct place, because if I hover my mouse over the file in the iTunes folder on the C drive, it says it was modified today. But I can’t get the files to move.

Windows, Windows 10

Posted on Apr 14, 2023 9:49 PM

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5 replies

May 2, 2023 12:53 AM in response to MattL2

Hi,


You need to copy the contents of C:\Users\Main\My Music\iTunes into J:\Dad\iTunes then press and hold down shift when launching iTunes to the create/choose library option. Click Choose, then browse to and open J:\Dad\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl. Correct the media folder location if needed, it may have reset to J:\Dad\iTunes\iTunes Media. Close iTunes and rename your media folder from J:\Dad\iTunes\iTunes Music to J:\Dad\iTunes\iTunes Media, then launch iTunes once more. The media folder should have been updated again, but everything in your library should adjust to the change. Check things still play.


Under File > Library > Organize Library... make sure that Rearrange Files is greyed out, if not tick it and click OK. Now under Edit > Preferences > Advanced turn off Keep organized..., click OK, then turn that option back on again. This should move the stray artist folders from iTunes Media down into iTunes Media\Music. Anything left behind will be disconnected from the library and can be added to it by moving into the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, or discarded if no longer wanted.


tt2

Apr 30, 2023 10:29 PM in response to turingtest2

Hi. Thank you very much for taking a crack at this.


The active itunes library (itl) file is on the main internal C drive, C>Users>Main>My Music>itunes>"itunes library.itl"


The media folder is stuck on an external hard drive that is always plugged into the desktop. That is what I'm trying and failing to move. J:\Dad\iTunes\iTunes Music


Something odd of note is that in the "itunes music" folder on the J drive, the majority of the music is in a subsequent folder "music" but a dozen or so artists' folders are in that "itunes music" folder and not the following "music" folder. If that is confusing, see the second photo


There is about 84 gb of itunes media


The C drive has about 500 gb free and the external J drive has about 350 gb free.






Apr 23, 2023 8:28 PM in response to turingtest2

I'm sorry but that article is really overwhelming and gives me a headache trying to follow.


Is there any way to fix the "bug" you mentioned that is causing my problem?


If I uninstall itunes and reinstall it do yo think that would unlock my ability to consolidate files and have itunes move my media to the correct place?

Apr 24, 2023 6:24 AM in response to MattL2

As end users we cannot fix bugs in Apple's software. We're limited to working around them.


Where is your active iTunes Library.itl file now?

Where is your media folder?

How large is the media folder?

How much free space is there on the drive?


With the answers I can give you a simple step by step guide for reorganizing your library so that the media folder path stops changing each time you run iTunes.


tt2

ITunes keeps overriding and resetting my media folder change.

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