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iTunes 11 - How do I add movies to my library without them going to the worthless Home Videos section?!

The short version: I want to add movies to my Movies category, not Home Videos, but iTunes 11 keeps forcing it on me. How do I change that?



The long version: Perhaps the most worthless addition in iTunes 11 (which I love) is Home Videos, and it's starting to cause me all sorts of headaches.


I frequently import my own movie files into iTunes, but these are my personal copies of films and are not Home Videos.


I have my iTunes folder placed on a separate AirDrive, everything is in perfect order. Before, I would just drag the file from my desktop into the iTunes window and it would copy the file over to the harddrive and place it in the Movies folder in the schema and in my visual library, all the while adding the convenent "Not Watched" blue button.


This was perfect. This is the expected result. This is what I want.


Now, I have tried everything to get the same result in iTunes 11 and to no avail. I have tried:


  • Dragging the file from my desktop to iTunes. Result: It gets copied into the Home Videos folder with no way to change it or move it.
  • Moving the file to the AirDrive-born iTunes folder schema myself and then dragging it into iTunes. Result: The file stays in the schema but shows up in the Home Videos portion of iTunes 11... you've got to be kidding me.
  • Then I tried moving the file to the AirDrive-born iTunes Movies folder schema myself, closing down iTunes, then reopening and trying to have it scan my library files to add it to Movies. Result: Absolutely nothing.


Someone has to know how to fix this travesty. Any suggestions?


One last comment: Home Videos? Seriously guys? The worst waste of development time and money I've ever heard of.

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), iTunes 11

Posted on Nov 30, 2012 11:57 AM

Reply
82 replies

May 4, 2017 12:49 PM in response to gg0123

You can't change the default category as this depends on the metadata inside the video file. I suggest using a metadata tagger. There are several, I prefer VideoDrive as it will also remux or convert (with HandBrake) in the background (only if necessary) and automatically add the video to the right category while also downloading online descriptions and covers. I especially like it as it can monitor folders for new video files you are downloading and put them automatically in iTunes after downloading finishes. I just set it once and now it does it thing without having to deal with any iTunes quirks.

Nov 30, 2012 1:45 PM in response to totencough

And by the way, I pretty happy to have Home Video to actually place somewhere my own family videos. This section does make sense to locate your own content seperatly from the commercial movies.


I guess Apple is beleiving that most of the movies will come from iTunes Store while the one you manually adds probably come more often from iMovie for exemple.

Dec 1, 2012 9:50 AM in response to totencough

Glad they finally added a "Home Videos" tag, but wish that it was a compeltely separate category like Music, Movies, TV Shows. Still have all my home videos tagged as a "TV Show" with track numbers to keep them in order, disc number x of 12 to indicate the month, and season used to indicate the year. Has worked nicely for years but every new version of iTunes I hope (and have suggested) that they will separate this out.


A real way to maintain home movie metadata and organization would be much appreciated. Giving Home Videos as a tab within Movies is a start, but doesn't recognize the fact that these kinds of videos are completely different from "Movies." People scroll through or look for movies by name, home videos by date or event (more like iPhoto organizes things). Nobody wants to hunt for baby's first steps in a big alphabetical list somewhere between "The Avengers" and "Willy Wonka."

Dec 1, 2012 5:28 PM in response to SeaBeast

Thanks SeaBeast, that did the trick. Still I would much prefer to be able to change the default or have a pop up menu that lets me tell iTunes what it is.


About the Home Movies, I see the market, but I think it fits much better with iPhoto. Why not keep everything there and branch out its AirPlay capabilities for streaming?


Anyway, thanks again! You're a life saver!

Dec 2, 2012 6:37 PM in response to totencough

You can also selct all the movies in the home movies folder and "get info". It will ask if you want to edit multiple and say yes. You can then change the category from "home videos" to "movies" and it should change the category for all the movies at once so you don't have to do this individually. It might take some time depending on how many movies you do this for.

Dec 3, 2012 3:01 PM in response to mjslinky

@mjslinky...I'm trying to follow your suggestion but I'm not sure I'm doing this correctly. Do you 'right click' at the home movies folder or do you go into the folder and select all the movies? I have tried both ways but do get the question if I want to edit multiple (movies). I have close to 500 movies that are not 'home movies' but ripped from my personal collection to view on my iPad. If I could get this to work, it would save me a lot of time. Otherwise, I would have to convert these one at a time. Thanks for this!

Dec 3, 2012 3:45 PM in response to totencough

You need to select all movies, then right click and click "get info". You can then change the category from "home videos" to "movies" and it will change all the files highlighted to be categorized as "movies". The only issue is you will probably want to do this overnight. When I did it I got the spinning beach ball, then it said "processing" and it listed each movie it was processing.


The other thing you can do is just delete off all the movies in your "movies" library and then add them back to itunes by clicking add to library and then you'll have all your movies in one place (in the "home movies" category).


Either way I realized that on apple tv it doesn't have this separate category so all your movies show up in one list on apple tv so if that's how you watch them it really doesn't make a difference.

Dec 3, 2012 6:52 PM in response to psendeavor

I have the same issue as psendeavor...


I drag movies into iTunes and it shows them being added (I can see them being "processed"), but they don't show up at all... not in Movies, not in Home Movies, nowhere.

If I search my computer using spotlight, they've been copied over into the itunes/home movies/ folder... but do not show in the iTunes app itself.


VERY frustrating.


Any ideas?

iTunes 11 - How do I add movies to my library without them going to the worthless Home Videos section?!

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