remove folder from library

Select the items in iTunes that you want to remove, press delete. iTunes will ask you to confirm. If the original files are located somewhere inside the iTunes Media folder iTunes will also ask if you want to keep the files or send them to the recycle bin. From the sound of things you want them sent to the bin. If the files are located outside of the media folder then you will need to manually delete them via Windows Explorer.

Note iTunes does not "look to folders" for content. ITunes won't notice if you add new files into your media folders unless you specifically tell it to look for them. Neither will it notice if you delete the files unless it has a reason to try to access them, e.g. during a sync operation.

tt2

iTunes doesn't natively scan your folders for new content. There are is at least one third party tool in the form of ITunes Folder Watch that can add this capacity. Perhaps you have installed this and forgotten about it.

tt2

I'd be surprised if that were the case but I suppose anything is possible. Have you tried using symbolic links or junctions to redirect folders at any point? What happens if you open a browser window on the Automatically add to iTunes folder and another on the folder in question, then drop a file into the second folder? Does it show up in the first? Is it added to iTunes?

tt2

These discussions seem to get off track pretty fast.

The original question was: Can yu remove a folder from iTunes?

Short answer appears to be "No".

There could be 10 work-arounds. But the answer is No (right?)

I have a problem where i added a top level directory & one of the sub-directories - now I have about 300 songs that are duplicated in iTunes.

It didn't copy the files, it just lists the same sond 2x.

All I really want is the sub-directory.

I would like to remove the top level directory and solve the problem with one click - not 300.

See this post.

tt2

Work around #11.

The answer is still "No".

Did you try the dedupe script from my post? Might be best to start a new thread with your specific symptoms if they are not really the same as the OP's. Do have tracks automatically adding themselves to iTunes when you put files in a specific folder? Screenshots sometimes help also.

tt2

I just tried your dedupe script from the post you refereneced, and now EVERY CD I had ripped is missing all of the mp3 files, over 4000! I had spent weeks ripping my entire collection and storing them on a NAS unit and now they are all gone?

The folder structures are still in tact, and the album artwork is still in the folders, but every song is gone.

After running the script, and it performed it's scan, I chose the second artist which was marked as the safest.

Where would your script have moved the files? Please respond ASAP.

I'm very sorry to hear about this. 😟

Did you not read the warnings on my site about backing up your library first and testing the script on a small batch of files to confirm that it works as you expect it to?

Have you checked your recyle bin for the missing files? However, I've a nasty feeling that NAS drives don't behave properly when recycling files. See Recover files from a NAS. Even so the script should have kept a single copy of each group of duplicated tracks.

Does your NAS appear on multiple paths? It occurs to me that it might have been possible for you to have created a situation where one physical file appeared at two different paths so seemed to be two files. If this is what happened then when my script deleted the one "duplicate" it would have removed the file that the remaining entry was pointed at. Restoring the files from the recycle bin or NAS should fix things.

What brand is your NAS? Perhaps it comes with tools to recover accidentally deleted files. At this stage you probably don't feel much like taking advice from me but try not to do anything else with the NAS drive until you have attempted to recover your files as this will increase the chances of success.

Thread on file recovey from NAS:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/251131-14-recovering-data-link

tt2

Another link that might help: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?t=29038

tt2

The NAS is the backup unit. We don't have anything near that capacity to back it up to.

The unit can be reached via multiple paths, i.e. the drive mapping X:\ and through the UNC path \\NAS\music

Where would your script have moved the files?

You are correct, the recycling bend does not function on this NAS unit.

Please tell me your vbs script doesn't actually delete files, and only removes reference to the files within itunes?

Your NAS is not a backup unit if it holds the only copy of a file.

Multiple paths to the same data would seem to be the issue behind this. If you imported the music folder via X:\...\Music and again via \\NAS\Music with Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library option turned off then iTunes would have created two independent references to the same file, but with different paths. To the script these entires would appear as physical dupes when they should be treated as logical dupes. For logical dupes the script only removes references, but for physical dupes it also recycles the removed file.

The script uses the Windows recycle function in order to clean up the iTunes Media folder. A typical scenario is that an album folder holds 01 Track 1.mp3 and 01 Track 1 2.mp3 after an album has been reimported. Deleting only the iTunes reference would leave the redundant copy cluttering up the hard drive. I will consider rewriting the script so that it moves the files to an alternate folder for manual deletion by the user.

I have added an additional warning to my web page though it is obviously too late to help you at this stage.

tt2

Another recovery link: http://www.diskinternals.com/nas-recovery/

tt2