Audiobook management: how to tag files as audiobook and keep them that way?

Question

Level 1

88 points

Audiobook management: how to tag files as audiobook and keep them that way?

I have many audio books. Those were read from the CD and thus end up in the music section. ⌘ + I > Options > Audiobooks allows me to move those files into the audiobook section.

The issues is, that flag is not retained once those files are removed from iTunes and then re-added. The files I tagged as "Audiobook" earlier are now back to the music section.

I find this immensely frustrating and confusing. Is there any way to keep the files tagged correctly so that they are automatically added to the audiobooks section when re-added?

iTunes-OTHER, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Mar 24, 2016 1:46 PM

Reply

Answer 1

AutoZuLaut Author

Level 1

88 points

Mar 31, 2016 1:35 PM in response to turingtest2

Most interesting, so indeed not a bug but a local issue on my machine. Maybe after all a misunderstanding of the settings in iTunes?

So my <Media Folder> is called "iTunes Music" (which is a bit stupid, now that I understand how iTunes should behave, but let's ignore that for a second). If now I take any music album and set that files of that album to "Audiobook" the files are not moved. They reside where they are and that is iTunes Music/Artist/Album/

From what you described this is unexpected behavior and a local problem on my mac. If so, it would be interesting to learn, what steps I could take to get this fixed.

Thanks for your help!

Reply

Answer 2

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,597 points

Mar 24, 2016 2:58 PM in response to AutoZuLaut

AFAIR iTunes stores the media kind value in its database but does not embed it in media files - so if you remove the items from your library that association is lost. Formats that are used specifically for audiobooks (e.g., Apple .m4b or Audible .aa) are automatically recognized when imported into iTunes. Question: why are you adding, removing, and re-adding media to your library?

Reply

Answer 3

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Mar 25, 2016 4:42 PM in response to AutoZuLaut

AutoZuLaut wrote:

So can a second OSX user confirm the described behavoir?

Yes.

If the file extension is m4a or mp3 and you delete then re-add, it will show up as music.

If the file extension is .m4b, it will be audiobook.

Reply

Answer 4

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Mar 26, 2016 10:22 AM in response to hhgttg27

hhgttg27 wrote:

Agreed, but AutoZuLaut has pointed out a couple of valid issues:

iTunes media kind tag appears to be held in the iTunes database only, and not included in those that are added/updated within media files. Given that some other iTunes-specific tags have the reverse behavior, this seems a somewhat arbitrary choice on Apple's point.

Which data fields that are iTunes specific get written into which tags in the file?

Pretty sure there is no "audiobook" tag in any audio file format.

Feel free to make suggestions here -> http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Reply

Answer 5

turingtest2

Level 10

278,119 points

Mar 31, 2016 1:50 PM in response to AutoZuLaut

If we were talking about Windows I would point you at Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows. I'm not at my Mac just now, so not the best position to look for and test similar procedures, but I can do so later. Or perhaps one of the other contributors to this thread can help with that?

iTunes Music is the old name for iTunes Media. See Make a split library portable for advice on restructuring an older library into the modern shape.

tt2

Reply

Answer 6

AutoZuLaut Author

Level 1

88 points

Apr 1, 2016 11:43 AM in response to turingtest2

Here goes another round of findings. The link to Make a split library portable was most interesting, since it showed, that the iTunes library structure has changed from iTunes 8 to 9. So since iTunes 9 there is a new structure in place.

Thanks to Apples lack of detail in changelogs I was not aware of this change. Apple has not mentioned the change in the log nor has iTunes informed the users about it.

This KB iTunes: Understanding iTunes Media Organization explains how to update an old library. After doing that, the behavior when tagging audiobooks changed: audiobooks are indeed now moved to a separate audiobooks folder (which is just what I want and imo sane file structuring, so apple did the right thing there).

Remaining issue

What's still not working is, that files which I tag as audiobook, remove them from iTunes and then re-add - they still end up in the music section which is really stupid. Since the user tagged those files as audiobooks, the best bet would be to add those files to the audiobooks folder and have them show in the audiobooks section of iTunes.

This is imo a bug and should be fixed. The tag I mention earlier does not seem to be used by iTunes itself. I also tried again, to manually add the ITUNESMEDIATYPE tag with value "2" to no avail. Those files also showed up in the music section after re-adding them to itunes.

The thought process of apple here is beyond me. This is a bug and should be addressed. Or again others are welcome to chime in and tell me more about this process.

I have learned a lot thanks to this thread already and am really thankful for all the input. Updating the library was overdue - I just wasn't aware.

Reply

Answer 7

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,597 points

Mar 24, 2016 4:01 PM in response to AutoZuLaut

I'm on Windows, so the respective locations are:

iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\artist_name\album_title for music and
iTunes\iTunes Media\Audiobooks\author_name for audiobooks.

iTunes' media organization scheme does have a slight oddity in that audiobooks don't have a separate "book" folder analogous to "album" for music, so all the files associated with an author end up in one folder.

Reply

Answer 8

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,597 points

Mar 26, 2016 8:33 AM in response to Chris CA

Agreed, but AutoZuLaut has pointed out a couple of valid issues:

iTunes media kind tag appears to be held in the iTunes database only, and not included in those that are added/updated within media files. Given that some other iTunes-specific tags have the reverse behavior, this seems a somewhat arbitrary choice on Apple's point.
Specifically, the OP has an issue where updating the media kind value within iTunes does not move media files from the Music folders to the Audiobook folders within the iTunes library structure. I've yet to see any comments from other OSX users answering the question whether this is a general problem with iTunes for Mac or may be an issue specific to the OP's library.

Reply

Answer 9

AutoZuLaut Author

Level 1

88 points

Mar 24, 2016 3:11 PM in response to hhgttg27

Because I am now moving the files away from the iTunes music folder (it's *really* annoying to have audiobooks in the music folder, since those will then end up in the shuffle mode when other mediacenter software is told that the music folder should be used to look for music). Thus moving the files to a separate audiobook folder is a good idea.

Then again, itunes as you correctly state, does not flag the files as audiobooks.

I am not sure but if a tag for this exists, I would consider the current behavior a bug. If not, then it's an expected limitation to the ID tagging for mp3 files and should be made into a feature request for that.

Reply

Answer 10

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,597 points

Mar 24, 2016 3:48 PM in response to AutoZuLaut

If you've configured iTunes to organize your library then changing the media kind of any media files to Audiobook will move the files to the Audiobooks folder under iTunes Media, and will present them as audiobooks and not music in the UI. This is all under iTunes' control - there's no need to add / remove / re-add anything. Althougth I source most audiobooks from Audible I do have some that I've imported from CD - obviously these are initially categorized in iTunes as Music (and are stored as such) but simply changing the media kind moves the file/folder location to Audiobooks.

Reply

Answer 11

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,597 points

Mar 24, 2016 4:23 PM in response to AutoZuLaut

It's been a while since I had opportunity to check on a Mac but AFAIR the behavior should be the same. Do you have the "Keep files organized ..." option selected in Preferences > Advanced? Since IfW is effectively the Mac application overlaid on the Windows OS it would be unusual, to say the least, for a feature to be present in the Windows version and not in OSX.

Reply

Answer 12

TMHahn

Level 2

460 points

Mar 24, 2016 4:38 PM in response to AutoZuLaut

I read the thread, and I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet, but...

Open iTunes. Find the audiobook in your Music. Right click on it. Go down to "Get Info." Under "Options" change Media Kind to "Audiobook."

Reply

Answer 13

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Mar 24, 2016 6:43 PM in response to TMHahn

TMHahn wrote:

I read the thread, and I'm not sure if this has been suggested yet, but...

Open iTunes. Find the audiobook in your Music. Right click on it. Go down to "Get Info." Under "Options" change Media Kind to "Audiobook."

First post.
As noted, this info is not retained when files are moved out of iTunes then reimproted.

Reply

Answer 14

AutoZuLaut Author

Level 1

88 points

Mar 26, 2016 3:17 AM in response to Chris CA

Makes sense. Which brings us back to the point if this is a known issue for a missing metadata tag in the audio files? And if that, where would be a good location to send in a feature request? Or if such a tag exists, it is indeed an iTunes bug

Would be great if we managed to clear that and could proceed to taking action on this issue.

Reply

Answer 15

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,597 points

Mar 26, 2016 10:59 AM in response to Chris CA

Example: iTunes' "Part of a compilation" flag (which is generally not used by other media players) is externalized as a tag in MP3 files (ID3v2.3 tag TCMP tag). Although you're right that there is no specific tag for "audiobook", ID3v2.3 does include a MEDIATYPE tag which isn't used by iTunes but could be used to represent the media kind property.

[Edit: the last comment about the MEDIATYPE tag is invalid, since based on the ID3 specs this is intended to capture the media from which an MP3 is captured - everything from wax cylinders to various DAT formats - and not a classified of the content of the file.]

Reply