How Do I Clean Up My iTunes Library? I Seem To Have Music In and Out

Here are typical layouts for the iTunes folders:

If you have upgraded from version 8 (or earlier) to iTunes 9 (or later) at some point, then your media folder (everything inside the red outline) may still be called iTunes Musicinstead of iTunes Media. The extra Music folder inside the media folder is used if you have allowed iTunes to Upgrade to iTunes Media Organization (iTunes 9) or used File > Library > Organize Library > Reorganize files in the folder "<Media Folder>" (iTunes 10). Depending on your choices for Keep iTunes Media folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library plus a little bug in which one build changed the name of the file storing the choice of layout it is quite easy for some of your files to be organized according to one layout and some the other.

Assuming you're happy letting iTunes organize your files the following steps should tidy things up (should it be necessary):

1. Select File > Library > Organize Library... > Tick Reorganize files in the folder "<Media Folder>" and click OK. Skip if this option is greyed out (already upgraded) or you prefer the older layout.

2. Select File > Library > Organize Library... > Tick Consolidate files and click OK. This will bring any files currently organised outside the designated media folder into it. NB This will create duplicate copies of any file that needs to be consolidated, and you will need to manually clean up afterwards.

3. Select Edit > Preferences > Advanced tab, uncheck Keep iTunes Media folder organized and click OK.

4. Select Edit > Preferences > Advanced tab, check Keep iTunes Media folder organized and click OK. This triggers iTunes into reorganizing everything according to your preferences.

5. (Optional) Close iTunes, rename the folder iTunes Music as iTunes Media then restart iTunes. Check under Edit > Preferences > Advanced tab that the location has automatically updated. If you can't access the media for any reason just undo the folder rename.

PS If you really prefer the older layout, but it is already in the new one then edit the file called .iTunes Preferences.plist in your media folder and change the integer from 1 to 0 before doing step 3.

tt2

"PS If you really prefer the older layout, but it is already in the new one then edit the file called.iTunes Preferences.plist in your media folder and change the integer from 1 to 0 before doing step 3."

And they say Apple produces the best graphical user interface on this planet. Absolutely pathetic that one has to edit a plist manualy when making it a simple button in Preferences would take at most 15 minutes to program.

Sad 😟 Happy new Year! 🙂

This thread is a tad old for resurrection. 😉

There is an upgrade route from the old layout to the new one. I'm sure there is intentionally no built-in route back to the older less functional one. I only mentioned it because there had been a couple of requests in similar threads to put things back the way the used to be when they'd been accidentally changed. I wouldn't advise anyone to perform the retrograde motion, but I'll try to help out if it is truly what they want.

Anyway, Happy New Year. 🙂

tt2