Album in iTunes, but not on computer?

Right-click on the track, select Show in Windows Explorer to open the folder where the media is stored, or select Get Info > File to show the full path to its location. It may also be possible, if the songs concerned are iTunes Store purchases, that they are in the Cloud but not on your PC. You should aim to maintain your library (and take a frequent backup of it) so that you're never in the situation where you have media on your iDevice that isn't on your PC. iPods / iPhones are not storage devices - too many things can go wrong with them to use them as such. Once your library is in shape auto syncing (using playlists if your library exceeds the capacity of your iDevice) is the most effective method to use to maintain content. The "manage music manually" option should really never be necessary - in 10 years of iPod/iTunes usage I don't think I've ever used it.

My recollection is that when you switch from automatic sync to manual management and back to auto sync with the same library it recalls the playlists you previously had selected, but if not it should be easy enough to reselect them. In principle only the changes need to make the device agree with the selection are made so it doesn't actually wipe and reload. However, I'm not in a position to test and confirm just now and anyway you should resolve your other issues with your library before you make changes to your sync strategy.

You may find some use out of these two user tips:

Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device

Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy

tt2

Indeed - the previous settings are "remembered" but - for some media types at least - you need to go through the various entries in the device sidebar (Music, Movies, etc.) and recheck the "Sync <media type>" box. The previous configuration with respect to selected playlists, etc. will then be reapplied.

See Missing Artist or Album not with others by same artist.

tt2

Any albums whose tracks are marked as "part of a compilation" will end up in the Compilations folder. Using the "part of a compilation" flag is really only necessary for older iPods that don't recognize the Album Artist metadata element - I avoid its use completely, for "real" compilations I set the Album Artist value to "Various Artists" and leave the flag unset - this means that all such albums are stored in iTunes Media\Music\Various Artists\album_name. I do it this way mainly so that I can set a useful Sort Album Artist value for some compilations - for example:

• I have multiple classical albums that collect together several works by the same composer but performed by different orchestras/conductors/soloist - in general I set classical albums to sort by composer, rather than performer, so in these cases I can set the correct "artist" for each track, the Album Artist to be "Various Artists" and the Sort Album Artist to be the name of the composer
• There are few examples of compilations that I prefer to group along with albums by a single performer - a good example would be the soundtrack of the movie version of The Who's "Tommy", where no individual tracks are credited to The Who, but I want to sort with the band's albums - in this case I set the Album Artist to "Various Artists / The Who" and the Sort Album Artist to "Who"

I don't pay much attention to the Artist listings since I tend to view and listen to my library solely in terms of albums rather than individual songs - the scheme I described above works for this but might not fit perfectly to your preferences.

As far as I remember the behavior of iPods with respect to compilations varies a little by model - I suspect that in most cases (for "real" various artists compilations) there's a setting on the iPod that determines how tracks that have the "part of a compilation" flag set are displayed. My nano 7g has a "Group Compilations" setting, though I can't test this without modifying something in my library and resyncing 😉. Best thing to do is:

• Change any single-artist albums that have "part of a compilation" set at the moment so that the flag is not set - this will move the files to the expected artist folder within your library
• Pick one real / various artists compilation and experiment with different settings in iTunes and on your iPod - when you find a combination that works for you, apply that to all such albums and stick to it!

Just did a quick test on one iPiod (3rd gen nano) ... I changed the metadata for one compilation album in my library, clearing the Album Artist field and setting the Album is a compilation ... flag on all tracks. The nano has a "Compilations" option in its Settings menu (on or off):

• when the setting is ON none of the artists associated with tracks in the compilation appear in the Artists menu
• when the setting is OFF all of the artists associated with tracks in the compilation appear in the Artists menu

I've not checked on a later model iPod it looks like this is the same functionality that I would expect from "Group Compilations" on the 7th gen nano.