How can I edit existing files on itunes?

Down the Rabbit Hole wrote:

When I use to use windows, if I edited a file (mp3., mp4., etc) on itunes by changing its album artwork, title, artist, those changes would stay with its original file.

Because the original file is what you were ediing.

Now that I have a Mac, I edit a file but the original file stays unaltered.

Edit the original file.

Most likely you added files to iTunes, which made copies in the iTunes media folder and iTunes uses these.

On your Windows computer, you had this turned off (it's on by default). The original file was added to iTunes.

Rather than turning off copying songs to iTunes, you should add them to iTunes and delete the original.

Then you have only one copy to deal with on your computer.

Or do this...

When adding files to iTunes, simply dump them into /Music/iTunes/iTunes media/Automatically add to iTunes/ folder.

This will move them into the correct location in iTunes and use this copy. No duplicates on yrou HD.

You can make a shortcut to the Automatically add to iTunes folder on your desktop then simply drop files there.

Down the Rabbit Hole wrote:

all my files are on a external hard drive

You can keep iTunes on the external drive. (which I recommend keeping everything together).

so I rather just turn it off. Is it possible?

iTunes prefs > Advanced.

Uncheck Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library

It is possible. It is not advisible unless you know exactly how iTunes works and you are a very organized person. If you disable iTunes copy to media folder feature in iTunes preferences it will leave the file where is located when added. However, if at some later stage you get broken links, iTunes will not help you re-link them automatically. It will also be a lot more difficult to move your library to a new drive, probably ending up in you having to create it from scratch again. The media files will be okay but the links will likely break and you will have to re-add files to a blank library, losing playcounts and ratings in the process.

Apart from the problems and questions described so far, I have a very weird problem with ITunes. I have lots of Music stored on an external drive. To have a better overview, I have stored Music in different folders, i.e. A-B, C-D etc. To import my musik to ITunes, I had to create a new media center. The outcome of this action is not only duplicates, I have many ⚠ songs were the title and the singer or group is totally wrong. No clue why for example Big&Rich appear in many albums. One example, Alison Krauss & Robert Plant, their album Raising Sand, appear 2 times. The first item is showing the correct cover and has the right content. The second record shows same cover, but the album title is Horst of a Different Color, Alison Krauss & Robert Plant (2004), one song title is Kick my ***. Klick on it and you hear the song Nothin'. I have spent days to organise all that and import all my CD's ? Was that waist of time ? Do I have to go through all albums and check each single song ? What have I done wrong, or is there a gap within ITunes ? Did I overcharge with too much Music ?