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cg-uk Author

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Importing music from external hard drive- getting Itunes to recognize

For var reasons I deleted all my itunes music.

I have been copying my own cd's onto an external hardrive.

When I insert the cd into mac, itunes recognizes the Lp's etc and then names the files for me.

I then switch off itunes and have then stored the (named) files onto external devices.

I now want to consolidate all my music back onto itunes, but when I go to add files,

it wont recognize the artist/album name/other fields.. only the song name...

I cant find anywhere on the latest itunes to "access gracenote" -like it did before when I used it?

I understand this may be to do with not having the itunes file any more ?

Anyone any ideas how I could import all my music into itunes (which has nothing in it-completely re-installed) again without

having to type in all the fields again?

Thanks!

G5 Dual 2.3, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 2GB SDRAM

Posted on Aug 5, 2013 5:23 AM

27 replies

ehanks

Level 1

35 points

Aug 5, 2013 8:40 PM in response to cg-uk

Chris CA, awesome. Didn't realize you could not tag a WAV or AIFF. It is interesting that iTunes prompted him with "iTunes cannot get CD track names for songs that were not imported using iTunes."

So cg-uk, it looks like you need to convert the WAV and AIFF files in order to tag them. When you go to your import settings in iTunes preferences, you can change what file type iTunes will import as. When you change that to say, MP3, iTunes will then give you the ability to secondary click on music in your iTunes library, and convert it to MP3, allowing it to be tagged appropriately. You'd then want to delete the original WAV or AIFF files.

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Aug 5, 2013 8:44 PM in response to ehanks

AIFF tags just fine.

ehanks

Level 1

35 points

Aug 5, 2013 9:00 PM in response to Chris CA

Ah, okay. Cg-uk must be selecting only the WAV files when attempting to get the track names. In either case, hopefully this will resolve the issue!

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Aug 5, 2013 9:05 PM in response to ehanks

Yes, I have seen this same problem numerous times.

cg-uk Author

Level 1

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Aug 6, 2013 2:35 AM in response to Chris CA

Your first post was confusing on exactly what you did...

You imported the CD using iTunes, then saved the files eslewhere and deleted them from iTunes?

Yes- sorry if my post wasnt clear enough.

I put the cd in which brings up itunes and automatically names all tracks/artist/album title .

Then I drag the tracks onto the desktop into a file.

I then store that file on external HD.

when I go to add the files (already named by itunes/gracenote) back into the new itunes it wont recognise the fact

that they have already been named by gracenote....

In the old itunes if I done this there would be an option to get gracenote to name the files (again) if they weren't automatically recognised...

This option has either been stopped or I cant find it.

I have hundreds of cd's I done this way, so it would take too long to rename them all manually..

Any ideas if this can be done??

thanks for all replys btw!

cg-uk Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 6, 2013 2:36 AM in response to ehanks

90% of the files are AIFF btw.

rest are WAV and a few mp3.

Aug 6, 2013 3:35 AM in response to cg-uk

Hi,

If I understand you correctly, you are not adding the AIFF files to your itunes library but copying the files directly from the CD. As such there is no metadata other than the song title on the file is retained.

The metadata is only added when you add them to itunes library. This will be retained when you move them to an external drive.

Jim

turingtest2

Level 10

272,831 points

Aug 6, 2013 4:39 AM in response to cg-uk

If you still have the .wav files in the correct Artist & Album folders then the script Tags Mirror Artist-Album-Filename might do what you want. I haven't had a chance to test it so I don't know if it also picks out the disc & track numbers from the filenames. If not that might be relatively easy to fix.

tt2

cg-uk Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 7, 2013 1:55 AM in response to Jimzgoldfinch

HI Jim,

yes you are understanding correctly and your post makes sense. As I didnt add them to itunes library it makes sense that itunes would name the files but then not store that data in the files themselves, but only after you have actually imported and saved through itunes.

Thanks for the first common sense answer I got here!

What I cant understand is that I used to do this and when putting a wav file back into itunes it would give me an option of accessing gracenote to tag them.....

Now it is effectively saying unless you own the original cd it will not look for the gracenote info for you and you cannot do it yourself (as you previuosly could)..

Itunes would be better as a music storage/organisation type programme that wasn't so pushy intomaking you only be able to use it with purchases through their own store.

Spotify does not have this problem and I will probably have to use that if I cant find a way to import already named tracks into itunes.

turingtest2

Level 10

272,831 points

Aug 7, 2013 4:06 AM in response to cg-uk

It doesn't matter which software you rip with, AIFF files can carry a tag, WAV can't. For tracks that iTunes has ripped it is possible to "Get CD Track Names" at a later stage because iTunes remembers the association between the tracks and the "signature" of the disc they were ripped from. If you delete the tracks from the library, then import again later, this information has gone.

As above, if the files are stored in artist & album folders a script can extract most of the information encoded in the file path and apply it to the library. In the long run converting the WAV files to AIFF or Apple Lossless would mean that the files could be taken from one application to another complete with metadata.

tt2

Feb 12, 2014 10:53 AM in response to cg-uk

I have the same problem: I have an MacBook Air and thus no CD drive. I used my old PC to rip the songs, and then import into iTunes. But alas, iTunes is not able to get the names of the tracks, only this strange pop up telling me to use iTunes to import the songs. When I already imported them into iTunes. Just another annoyance. But still less annoying than using Windows ! But still, super annoying.

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Feb 12, 2014 11:08 AM in response to amazingcomputer

amazingcomputer wrote:

I have the same problem: I have an MacBook Air and thus no CD drive. I used my old PC to rip the songs, and then import into iTunes. But alas, iTunes is not able to get the names of the tracks, only this strange pop up telling me to use iTunes to import the songs. When I already imported them into iTunes

from the audioCD.

Importing music from external hard drive- getting Itunes to recognize