I "learned" that it's very easy to damage my iTunes library.
For example a song was selected, accidently the spacebar has been pressed and voila - this "modification" was saved.
How can I protect my iTunes library against such unintended modifications?
Set it "read-only"?... How?
(Should be easy to un-do in case new CDs have to be added.)
Thanks.
My idea:
Select folder: "iTunes Music" => cmd-i => (Me) Privilege "Read Only"
Would this work or could I get problems?
Can anybody confirm this? Thanks.
In recent releases, there has been an improvement in the Undo command. So if you realize right away that you did something wrong, you can (immediately, before you do anything else) go to Edit > Undo. This would work in the case you describe.
Setting the whole folder to Read Only will require that you have to unset it before you do anything, and the reset it when you are done, which will be a bother and is easy to forget to do.
Also, make sure that you back up your library on a regular basis.
Thanks for your answer!
ed2345 wrote:
In recent releases, there has been an improvement in the Undo command. So if you realize right away that you did something wrong, you can (immediately, before you do anything else) go to Edit > Undo. This would work in the case you describe.
Yes I know that. But if you don't notice you've changed something unintentionally, you won't use Undo. And when iTunes is closed, and you notice such a modification later, it's too late.
Setting the whole folder to Read Only will require that you have to unset it before you do anything, and the reset it when you are done, which will be a bother and is easy to forget to do.
But can you confirm that it's possible to just playback music in a Read-Only iTunes library folder without problems? (I add new music only once a week.)
Also, make sure that you back up your library on a regular basis.
I do this every night, but the last unintended modification I noticed had been done about 6 months ago, and I didn't keep such old backups. :-(
Coxorange, iTunes can play content that has read-only permissions. However, iTunes does write to its library file frequently (at least once per play) so make sure the library files (as opposed to the content files) are writable.
Other then that, you'll just have to be careful. It is very easy to do unintentional things, especially to playlists.
For example a song was selected, accidently the spacebar has been pressed and voila - this "modification" was saved.
Pressing the spacebar with a song selected will simply play song unless you have the Get info box called up or you are editing a field in the browser.
Chris CA wrote:
For example a song was selected, accidently the spacebar has been pressed and voila - this "modification" was saved.
Pressing the spacebar with a song selected will simply play song unless you have the Get info box called up or you are editing a field in the browser.
You are right. To be precise: A song was selected and then had been clicked on once again => Name edit mode! Then pressing the spacebar overwrote the name with " ".
ed2345 wrote:
Coxorange, iTunes can play content that has read-only permissions.
Thanks, now I will try it.
Coxorange, A suggestion I'd offer is to not use the space bar to stop play. If something else is active in iTunes (as in your case), or if another program is actually the active one (because you were multi-tasking and forgot where things were), you can easily do something unintentional.
I learned this the hard way.
If you quickly need momentary quiet, e.g. to answer the phone, use the physical mute button, whose effects are unambiguous.
Thanks. I never used the spacebar intentionally - normally I use the Pause button (F8).
My disaster happened because sometimes... you know... my desk gets a bit... overcrowded, with piles of papers and other things around the keyboard. Something must have hit the spacebar (that's so easy!) by accident.
The best would be an option in Preferences to disable modifications.
Ok, I understand. Better clear yourself a decent workspace. Scan in all those papers, upload them to the cloud, and drop off the paper originals at your neighborhood recycling.center. 😉
How to protect my iTunes library against accidental modifications?
