Axecutioner-B

Q: Music files FROM iPhone6 to iTunes on Windows PC:

Transferring music files with 3rd party software... iPhone6 to iTunes on Windows PC:

 

The 3rd party software that I am using CLEARLY has each song properly ID'ed (it is very visible in the data fields of the software), but when transferred to iTunes-- 'album name' and 'artist name'  morph in to 'unknown album' 'unknown artist'

   Can anyone help me? This problem is horrific when you factor in that I have 18,815 songs on my iPhone & 50% of them are turning in to "unknown files' during transfer.

Sony, Windows Vista, blah

Posted on Aug 27, 2016 1:00 PM

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Q: Music files FROM iPhone6 to iTunes on Windows PC:

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  • by turingtest2,Helpful

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Aug 27, 2016 1:48 PM in response to Axecutioner-B
    Level 10 (85,071 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 1:48 PM in response to Axecutioner-B

    Are the tracks in .wav format? These are untagged, so the standard method of dumping the extracted files into the Automatically Add to iTunes folder and letting iTunes make sense of them won't work. I've written a few scripts that match up data in iTunes with that on a device via which it might be possible to adapt. File size and length might be readable from the device and unique. First let me know if I've guessed correctly and if so I'll see what I can do.

     

    tt2

  • by Axecutioner-B,

    Axecutioner-B Axecutioner-B Aug 27, 2016 1:48 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 1:48 PM in response to turingtest2

    Ok so... right click on "unknown song" and then go to "get info" and then go to file?

     

    If that is correct, I'm looking at a .m4a file

     

    (I can try to upload a picture if it is helpful)

  • by Axecutioner-B,

    Axecutioner-B Axecutioner-B Aug 27, 2016 2:16 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 2:16 PM in response to turingtest2

    Odd, I'm unable to take A picture of my PC and upload it here from my phone

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Aug 27, 2016 2:18 PM in response to Axecutioner-B
    Level 10 (85,071 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 2:18 PM in response to Axecutioner-B

    Hmm, .m4a files ought to contain all the relevant tag information. Which product did you use to extract the media? See my user tip Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device. Perhaps the last item in the table of recovery tools would serve you better.

     

    tt2

  • by Axecutioner-B,

    Axecutioner-B Axecutioner-B Aug 27, 2016 3:08 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 3:08 PM in response to turingtest2

    So if I look at an 'unknown name' file, and right click & go to file, here is what i copy and pasted from "location"

    C:\Users\Bradyn\Music\iTunes\Music\Heart\Dog And Butterfly\02 High Time (2).m4a

     

    Clearly the folder data is correctly in place. I am currently using iExplorer, like, at this very moment. Transferring 18000 songs is a very time consuming task. It's been transferring since last night and only 5000 songs transferred so far.

     

    I have also tried Touchcopy and syncios

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Aug 27, 2016 3:13 PM in response to Axecutioner-B
    Level 10 (85,071 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 3:13 PM in response to Axecutioner-B

    Hmm, still not sure I understand what is happening, but if the metadata is there in the file path you can use TagFromFilename to read it into iTunes.

     

    tt2

  • by Axecutioner-B,

    Axecutioner-B Axecutioner-B Aug 27, 2016 3:36 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 3:36 PM in response to turingtest2

    I'm deleting my current progress & abandoning iExplorer for now. It just doesn't make sense. According to my PC I've transferred 60 gigs of music from my 128gig iDevice, but yet, only 5000 of 18000 songs.  Also thousands of unknown songs on iTunes, I will delete iTunes, redownload and start transferring (again).

    Do you think iFunbox is better for my situation?

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Aug 27, 2016 4:07 PM in response to Axecutioner-B
    Level 10 (85,071 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 4:07 PM in response to Axecutioner-B

    I'd certainly give it a try. I've used it successfully in the past.

     

    tt2

  • by Axecutioner-B,

    Axecutioner-B Axecutioner-B Aug 27, 2016 8:37 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 27, 2016 8:37 PM in response to turingtest2

    I tried iFunbox & it, what can only be described as, bogged as I tried to interact with it. So I redownloaded Syncios & I'm currently copying everything from the iPod to a separate folder. I tinkered a little bit to see how iTunes would interact with the files once I start to import them. iTunes imported them very fast from the separate folder & what I saw before I stopped importing was a very good sign.

       So with Syncios, currently 11000 out 18000 songs have been transferred to my computer since I posted that that was what I was going to do. That's about 5X faster than iExplorer, or even faster. 

       I will update how this all goes in the morning.   THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP

    (and also for helping me feel like I'm not alone as I embark on this adventure)

  • by Axecutioner-B,

    Axecutioner-B Axecutioner-B Aug 28, 2016 6:45 AM in response to Axecutioner-B
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 28, 2016 6:45 AM in response to Axecutioner-B

    Ok so, Syncios has copied everything from 128gig iPod to a new folder on my PC. I used iTunes to start importing from the folder & quite a few songs made it over to iTunes in albums with covers & proper labeling HOWEVER... A LOT more songs did not transfer with anything other than the track name, so again I'm left with a tremendous amount of (seemingly) useless files.

       Also, during this process, the iPod that just last night contained 18,815 songs now contains 18,509 songs. So I've managed to lose 306 songs.... WHAT THE HECK !! 

  • by turingtest2,Solvedanswer

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Aug 28, 2016 7:07 AM in response to Axecutioner-B
    Level 10 (85,071 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 28, 2016 7:07 AM in response to Axecutioner-B

    Seems like iExplorer and TagFromFilename might have been a viable approach after all.

     

    tt2

  • by Axecutioner-B,

    Axecutioner-B Axecutioner-B Aug 28, 2016 7:17 AM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 28, 2016 7:17 AM in response to turingtest2

    turingtest2 wrote:

     

    Seems like iExplorer and TagFromFilename might have been a viable approach after all.

     

    tt2

    iExplorer was doing the same thing, transferring with an ungodly amount of 'Unknown Artist' files.

     

    Can TagfromFileName run as a batch file? 

     

    My iPhone6 still has 18,815 songs on it. I'm going to do the whole process again:

    Delete iTunes, Delete all music that is currently transferred.

    Redownload iTunes, Retransfer.

    Crossfingers.

    (reseasoning: at the moment the iTunes library is a sloppy mess)

     

    Do you have a better idea?

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Aug 31, 2016 10:33 PM in response to Axecutioner-B
    Level 10 (85,071 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 31, 2016 10:33 PM in response to Axecutioner-B

    No need to delete and reinstall iTunes, that has no impact on the current library. You can always erase the current library database and start over, but there is generally no need for that.

     

    See Make a split library portable for a background to proper library organization and Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy for backup advice once you've recovered the media that you can get and fixed it up. Use my DeDuper script to remove any duplicates. See this thread for background, and this post for detailed instructions.

     

     

    Earlier on you mentioned that the recovered files were shown like this:

    C:\Users\Bradyn\Music\iTunes\Music\Heart\Dog And Butterfly\02 High Time (2).m4a

     

    The TagFromFilename script can be run against a selection of files. In each case it will attempt to read artist, album, track number, and song name from the path. In this particular case you'd end up with an unwanted " (2)" as part of the song name, but you could gather similar tracks together and fix those with TrimName.

     

    tt2

  • by Axecutioner-B,

    Axecutioner-B Axecutioner-B Aug 31, 2016 10:35 PM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (12 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 31, 2016 10:35 PM in response to turingtest2

    Update... My friend in Phoenix sent me his iPod & I started transferring with iExplorer. At first iExplorer was transferring at break neck speeds... but after about 12 hours only 5000 songs had transferred to iTunes & only 50% of those were properly tagged.

    I then tried iExplorer copy to folder on PC, which was much faster BUT, when I tried to copy over to iTunes or import to iTunes from the new folder, once again, the files were severely unlabeled. So then I tried iFunbox & the screen froze as it tried to read the library on the iPod. I gave up on that pretty quick, as I was frustrated.

    Next I tried TouchCopy, which is actually what I am using right now. I was VERY doubtful to try Touchcopy again because when I tried to transfer from my iPhone Touchcopy froze,often, the last time I tried to use it. Nevertheless I tried it again. When I started "Copy To iTunes" I could literally see my music files coming in to iTunes & going in to their appropriate albums, one track at a time PERFECTLY.

    Currently I've had my friends iPod hooked up to my computer for about 20 hours and about 14000 of 18000 songs have transferred PERFECTLY (so far). Songs are in their proper albums with covers. There are ZERO "unknown" files (so far), and, knock on wood, my hopes are high.

    For whatever reason, Touchcopy transferred from iPod to iTunes better than the other programs in this particular situation.

     

    - Bradyn