-djbolt-

Q: Why Does iTunes Revert to Music Folder?

I have a SSD as my primary startup disk and an Apple HD in the Superdrive slot as file drive.  I have moved my music to the 2nd drive inorder to preserve space on the SSD and set iTunes under Preferences > Advanced to the path where the Music folder on my 2nd drive is. I turned the computer off and went to bed.  Woke up this AM and started iTunes and it has reset itself to the Music folder on my SSD and is showing now music in iTunes.  Even when I set it to my 2nd drive and deleted the iTunes folder from the Music folder in my Users, it recreates it.  Is there a way to fix this?  I've tried creatiing and alias of the iTunes Media folder where my music lives and replacing the one iTunes creates in my default Music folder, but that doesn't seem to work.  Thanks

 

Jonathan,

http://www.photojennette.com/austin

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), Intel 2.5 Ghz, 16 GB Ram, 256GB SSD

Posted on Jan 27, 2014 2:21 PM

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Q: Why Does iTunes Revert to Music Folder?

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  • by Limnos,Helpful

    Limnos Limnos Jan 27, 2014 3:10 PM in response to -djbolt-
    Level 9 (54,543 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 27, 2014 3:10 PM in response to -djbolt-

    Do not confuse a media folder which is where iTunes stores media as designated in preferences settings, and the iTunes folder which is where iTunes puts files used to store information about your collection such as the all-important library.itl, the artwork folders, etc.

     

    Telling iTunes in preferences to store media on the second drive is not telling iTunes to put your whole library there, just media.

     

    If you delete an iTunes folder you will also delete any files inside of it storing information about your music collection.

     

    If you do have all your library on the second drive (as would normally be done initially by copying the whole iTunes folder to it and starting iTunes with the option key held down to tell it the library is on the other drive) and iTunes is still reverting to the first drive it could be the second drive is asleep when starting iTunes.  iTunes cannot find its library and reverts to using hte default location on the internal.

     

    Armed with that information perhaps you can be very, very specific about your setup an exactly what is going wrong where and when, otherwise you'll get the wrong advice.

     

    What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660

     

    More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management

     

    What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html

     

    Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

  • by -djbolt-,

    -djbolt- -djbolt- Jan 27, 2014 3:25 PM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 27, 2014 3:25 PM in response to Limnos

    OK I have two hard drives in my MBP.  One is called OSX-SSD which is where the OS is located and the startup disk.  The other is titled "Internal 1" and is the Apple 750 GB HD.  I moved all of my files from my /users folder to a folder on Internal 1.  The folders I copied over are Documents, Downloads, Music, Movies, and Pictures.  Then, I started iTunes and selected the iTunes folder on Internal 1, and it updated the library.  Everything worked fine for the rest of the evening.  Before going to bed I deleted the files and folders insde the music folder on OSX-SSD.  This morning when I started my computer, I noticed right away there was an iTunes folder back in the Music folder on OSX-SSD.  Then I started iTunes and it was empty.  So thats the explanation.  I did some Googling and found that I could start iTunes holding the Option key which will give me the option of selecting a Library, so I did that chose the library on Internal 1 > Music > iTunes.  It seems to have worked so far but its a little strange.  For some reason it put all the music artist folders in the root iTunes folder instead of the iTunes > iTunes Media > Music.  Also there were some duplicates in iTunes which I deleted. 

     

    So far it seems ok, but I will update when I can.

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Jan 27, 2014 4:05 PM in response to -djbolt-
    Level 9 (54,543 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 27, 2014 4:05 PM in response to -djbolt-

    How did you select the iTunes on the external (I hope not through any preferences settings)?  I don't think it should have done any library updating...

     

    You should have done it through the option key thing to start with.

  • by -djbolt-,

    -djbolt- -djbolt- Jan 27, 2014 4:47 PM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 27, 2014 4:47 PM in response to Limnos

    When I changed the file path from /users to /internal/music/itunes and hit save it just brought up a progress window and zipped across and said updating library.