Tidying iTunes folders on W10 PC – where all the files are located?
I am tidying up my PC (Windows 10 Home edition) and want to map out where the files in my iTunes
(12.13.2.3) library are stored. Is there a way to do this, e.g. a files and folders view of the library?
There are iTunes files in at least one place outside the iTunes media folder and want to know
if there are more locations. Checking the 16,000 items in the library individually would take too long.
For background, the iTunes media folder is set to “C:\Users\billy\Music\iTunes\iTunes
Media” but most of the files are in a different folder, “C:\Users\BillyandJean\iTunes
folder”.
The trouble started when I migrated from Windows 8 to 10:
· C:\users\billy is the user folder for the new user I set up on Windows 10.
· C:\users\billyandjean is a shortcut to E:\users\billyandjean, a user folder on the old W8 disk – this
shortcut allowed a few applications to run after the migration without having to change app configs individually.
If I had changed the iTunes media location to point to E:\ at the time it might have avoided the situation I am in, but I didn’t. Now, I want to have all my data, including music, on the old E:\drive and get rid of duplicates.
From what I have read, the standard way to tidy up would be to change the media location to E:\users\billyandjean\iTunes folder then consolidate the library to put all the contents in one place. The drawback is that consolidation leaves duplicates of the files behind which I don’t want.
I can’t see how to:
a) Confirm that all the files in the C:\users\billy folder are actually in the iTunes library. I am worried that there may be some strays in that folder that somehow haven’t been imported into the library.
b) Find any other folders that hold iTunes files, which would be duplicated by the consolidation.
So, before doing the consolidation, I want to map out where all the files in iTunes live, but if there are better ways to tidy up, I am open to suggestions.
Thanks in advance,
Billy.