itunes (win7): filename headache

In iTunes in Music, if you right click the album you can click "Get info"

If you accept the message about updating multiple items, you can update the information here (it updates the tag info )

That will update the info on each track.

If you just want to change a track , then left click the abum first and the right click the track to be modified.

If you let iTunes manage the file and folder names there is only one scheme. Music ends up at iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\<Artist>\<Album>\## <Name>.<Ext> and file & folder names have a maximum of 40 characters. (Eons ago there were command line switches to suppress the track numbers but I don't think they exist any more.)

You can of course turn off the option to Keep the iTunes Media folder organized or store your content outside of the media folder and turn off the option to Copy files to the iTunes Media folder when adding to library, or indeed turn off both. You can then set your files out exactly the way you want before you add them to iTunes. This is all good until you decide that something needs renaming, and then iTunes loses track of it.

Most people use one application or another to access their music so to a large degree the actual arrangement of the stored files really shouldn't matter. With that in mind however I am myself somewhat picky and used to routinely reorganize the files, then delete and reimport the moved tracks. This meant the loss of ratings, playcounts, date added information etc. In the end I wrote a script to impose my personal layout on the files and update iTunes at the same time so that it still knows where to find everything. This level of attention to detail really isn't neccessary and detracts from the more important task of enjoying your music.

Once connected to iTunes what it cares about is the data in the tags, not the path & filename. See Grouping tracks into ablums for details. If the tags aren't consistent you will have issues with albums being split into multiple instances, tracks of an album playing in the wrong order, etc. This "logical" layer of data is much more important that the "physical" layout of the files on the drive.

tt2

No. If you have Copy... on then anything you add to iTunes that is located outside of the media folder get copied inside it, with the standard naming rules (even if you have the Keep... option turned off). Note also that all iTunes downloads, CD rips, etc. will always be in the default layout. If you want to do something else you need to go in and tweak things manually.

Again, iTunes doesn't care about the file and folder names, but unless you fill in tag fields like artist, album, disc number, track number, and name sensibly and consistently you will have a mess.

tt2

Well how are they named and tagged now?

I've not used either of the tools you mention. As I said earlier I use my own custom script for renaming the files. I generally tweak tags after import using iTunes Get Info, or other scripts for batch actions like putting song names into Title Case, or renumbering tracks on multidisc CDs, and then run my script to fix the file paths. I've also occasionally made use of MediaMonkey's AutoTag from Filename and AutoName from Tag features to build up tags from data stored in the path and then rearrange things the way that I want them. The advantage of the <AlbumArtist>\<Album>\## <Name>.<Ext> layout is that the principle details are all in the path so can be used to rebuild a missing tag. My personal layout adds " - <Artist>" after <Name> when <Artist> is different from <Album Artist>.

tt2

If Artist & Title are completed in the tags (and nothing else) iTunes will lump everything into "Unknown Album" for each artist. Are these files all in one monolithic folder?

Recommend? Well personally I want the correct information for the album each song comes from. Disc & track numbers, artist, album artist, album and album artwork are a minimum set of details for me. Singles are just small albums with one or more tracks. I'd stop worrying about the exact file and folder names (even though I do) and focus on the tag data that should make your media easy to organize in any media player, play an album in the correct order, find all tracks by a given artist etc. Do your songs have tags, and if so are they used as intended, or are you just describing the form of the filename?

MediaMonkey is free.

You'll find my scripts page here. The script I use for organizing my library is ConsolidateByMoving but with different options selected to create longer file and folder names and impose my own folder structure.

tt2

I can't see the point in erasing ID3 tags just to repopulate them. It is up to you what you do however, do what you wish. I've tried to explain how iTunes will treat your tracks. If it isn't already clear iTunes is based on an album-centric view of music. You can throw it a big heap of disorganized songs, you just won't be getting the best out of it.

My scripts are designed to use iTunes to make changes to the files. The scripts require iTunes to be running and generally work with content already connected to iTunes. Although it is possible to use third party software to make changes to tags after things are attached to iTunes it is hard to get iTunes to notice that you made a change. I've not used either of the tools you mentioned, but I'm familiar with others that can do the same sorts of things. Ultimately I use iTunes not least because I have Apple devices that sync with it. Having settled on using iTunes I find ways to make it work better for me when I'm able to, but I don't necessarily recommend that others go to the same extremes.

tt2