Bierger wrote:
I inadvertently changed the 'Artist' field of numerous tracks in my library (about 100GB changed). Because I have the 'Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized' preference checked, the folder structure in the media folder seems to be in tact.
However, the content of those folders was moved to another folder based on the incorrect artist name I entered. At the same time, the iTunes library has shifted all of the tracks under the new/incorrect Artist name. I have since unchecked the preference box to auto organize thinking that when I shut down iTunes, it will update the entire media folder based on the incorrect info that I accidentally changed.
If you have *Keep the iTunes media folder organised*
enabled it will accept the changes you make to the tags and reflect those changes in the file & folder structure. Once this has happened it is too late to use the file and folder information to repair the tags you have damaged. This is one of the reasons that I prefer to disable the option for myself.
Is there any way to somehow automatically revert back to the correct Artist name and make sure that both the library and media folders are organized by the correct Artist?
For CDs that were ripped with iTunes the option, selecting the tracks, right clicking and clinking on *Get track names*
should get the original CD data including the artist, although I've not had an opportunity to test this out. There is no mechanism for diving the artist alone.
Alternative methods of restoring the missing data would be to use <a href="www.mediamonkey.com>Media Monkey</a> which has a feature called *Auto-Tag from Web* which might be able to make a good guess based on album title alone, or
<a href="http://musicbrainz.org/doc/PicardTagger">PicardTagger which creates audio "fingerprints" of tracks and attempts to match them in an online database. If you use a 3rd party tool to update the tags then you will also need to get iTunes to update its copy of the information. I have a script for that called
UpdateTagInfo.
<hr>
For future reference a proper backup of your library will make it much easier to recover from such a disaster... Here's how I do it.
*Fast backup for iTunes library (Windows Only)*
Grab
SyncToy 2.1, a free tool from MS. This can be used to copy your entire iTunes library (& other important data folders) onto another hard drive or network share. You can then use SyncToy periodically to synchronise or echo your library to the backup. A preview will show which files need to be updated giving you a chance to spot unexpected changes and during the run only the new or updated files will be copied saving lots of time. And if your media is all organised below the main iTunes folder then you should also be able to open the backup library on any system running the same version of iTunes.
tt2
