When copying songs from an external hard drive to itunes, songs don't organise into artist or album name, why?

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When copying songs from an external hard drive to itunes, songs don't organise into artist or album name, why?

I have all my music backed up and stored on an external hard drive. These songs have artist names, album names and song names attached to them. However, when I copy them from the hard drive to itunes, they do not organise, it only copies the song name. This means I have over 2000 songs copied, with only their song name showing. I don't know who the artist is or what album the individual songs are from. I DO NOT want to go through one by one entering the artist and album name for 2000 songs! How can I get around this?

Also, I would have one album for example, 1 or 2 of the songs will copy fine, provide all the information and organise itself under the artist name but all the other 10 songs from the same album only show the song name. How come 1 or 2 songs copy fine when the rest from the same album do not?

OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jan 25, 2014 3:49 PM

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Answer 1

Limnos

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Jan 25, 2014 3:57 PM in response to EHZ17

Need more details. How do you know they have information attached to them? Where are you seeing this?

What format files? WAV files do not contain tags. While information may appear in one iTunes library if you move the file to another one it will not travel with the file. A classic example of a tagless file being added to iTunes is where the filename is used as the track name.

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Answer 2

EHZ17 Author

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Jan 25, 2014 4:43 PM in response to Limnos

I know they have info attached when I copy the song to iTunes and the song name, artist name, album name, album position and even genre are filled. For example look at your library, your songs will be organised by artist name and album name, this is the organisation that the individual songs with info have when they are copied without my manipulation or editing.

HOWEVER, 99% of the songs transferred will not have any of this info, thus requiring me to go through and type in the artist name ect ect.

As said, I could have an album, 1 or 2 songs will be copied and organised without my intervention but other songs from the same album will require me to enter the info manually. This is the case with the majority of my songs.

The files can be .mp3 .m4a... I have over 2000 songs, I can imagine there's a few variations with formatting but what is weird is the issue mentioned with some songs from the same alb copying fine whereas others do not - even though they have the same format type (One particular example is with the format .m4a)

Is there anyway I can store the information given to the file on the organised iTunes library so I can transfer them cleanly to a new one on a new computer?

Thanks in advance :)

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Answer 3

Limnos

Level 10

411,169 points

Jan 25, 2014 5:45 PM in response to EHZ17

Let's back up. What's your ultimate goal? You briefly mentioned a new computer. Are you trying to transfer a library from an old computer to a new one? If so, don't do it by dragging bunches of files unless you have to:

iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music [library] to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 - a somewhat bewildering and not always easily understandable set of options.

Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the iTunes Library.itl file in the moved iTunes folder.

For the record there's this reference for iTunes 11 but it really doesn't strike me as having the specifics you need. iTunes 11 for Mac: Move your library to another computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12168

Windows users see tip at: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4095896?answerId=18879381022#18879381022

If you put it in the default location of Macintosh HD > Users > *User Name* > Music then you don't even need to start with the option key held down, iTunes will automatically look for it there. (Make sure there isn't anything already in the iTunes folder there that you want to keep since you will be replacing it with the one you are moving.)

Back to your post. If a file is mp3 or m4a or pretty much anything except WAV it should be tagged when in iTunes originally. This is metadata almost automatically embedded in the media files when you edit it in iTunes. That should travel. Why it isn't in your case I don't know. It is possible to remove tags from files but I haven't seen that in ages.

It really would help to have some background here on the external drive and the files on it. You say this drive is a backup. Is it a backup of the library you are working with right now? Is hte whole iTunes library there or just media files?

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