Level 1

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iTunes re-arranged my entire mp3 collection. Can it be restored?

Let me start by saying that I don't own an ipod yet. I wanted to use iTunes for downloading and for playing my mp3's. I loaded my entire mp3 collection into iTunes. Over 19,000 mp3's. It listed them into one massive folder making it almost impossible to sort through. While trying to find a way of listing them in folders as they are on my hard drive, I found the option to organize them. I chose to do this and it ripped all of my mp3's from their folders and reorganized them into new folders on my hard drive. It did nothing to what I was seeing on the screen. It only re-arranged my hard drive. All of my Beatles, RHCP, Doors, etc. album folders are empty and all mp3's are now placed into new folders named 01, 02, etc. or new folder and I'm physically ill thinking of trying to manually fix this problem. Can anyone suggest anything that might restore them to their proper folders automatically? And why wasn't there a great big warning, telling me that I was about to re-arrange my hard drive? Any help would be greatly appreciatted. - Al

Pentium 4 Windows XP Pro

Pentium 4 Windows XP Pro

Posted on Dec 29, 2006 6:50 PM

53 replies

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Dec 30, 2006 3:36 PM in response to rudawg

rudawg,

A checked “Keep iTunes music folder organized"” means it will do just that. Any music in that folder will be in Artist -> Album -> Song. The folder is designated in iTunes prefs -> Advanced – General.

You can display the music in the iTunes program any way you want.
iTunes is a music manager. Use it to do all your organizing.
Where it is actually located on the disk should be pretty transparent/irrelevant to the user.

In my Music, is there an ITunes music folder?

In windows: E:\My Music\Eric Clapton\24 Nights Disc 2\07 Edge Of Darkness.
In itunes: All information matches the info above.
However, prior to itunes deciding where the file should be stored, in windows it was E:\My Music\Full Albums\Eric Clapton\24 Nights Disc 2\07 Edge Of Darkness. This is the problem. Multiply this by 14,000 and you can see my issue
You can organize any way you like. However, I’m kinda curious why you would have “Full Albums” as the top level folder?
Why not have all songs by an artist in one artist folder?

But why would itunes rearrange the actual directory. My hard drive E:\My Music has been irreparably modified by itunes.
Because you told it to do this when you checked “Keep iTunes Music folder organized”. If you look underneath that box, it plainly says, “Places files into album and artist folders, and names the files based on the disc number, track number and the song title”.

So you're saying to make a back up of my music directory, check the box to "keep itunes directory organized", and it will again rearrange my directory?
Exactly.

But an album might have 15 songs. The artist information might be Clapton for most and Clapton and BB King for a few others. These are now in different folders.
Why not put all this songs from one album in on folder?
How do you sort the CDs on the shelf? Either by Artist or Album.
If it is an Eric Clapton CD with BB King on some of the songs, you wouldn’t put it in with other BB King CDs, would you?
iTunes sorts the folders by the artist who put out the album, not necessarily who is playing on the album.

So I assigned my E:\My Music as my itunes directory thereby giving itunes access and authority to mess with it.
Not when you assigned it. It happened when you told it to Keep it organized.

my understanding that itunes was more or less a database, like WMP, that simply used the "tag info" to prganize the files.
This is exactly what it does. It reads the tags and puts them into folders based on those tags.
Viewing the songs in the iTunes app vs. viewing them in Windows exploder are two different things.

You are gonna have to shift your views a bit and use iTunes to organize. This eliminates a LOT of work on your part keeping the folders organized.
Right now you have to decide is it a full album? Is BB King on it? Which folder should it go in?
You still full access to them, you can easily find them to copy or whatever.
Want to find something specific? In the search box in iTunes, start typing and the list will display what you have. It can be a song, artist, album, composer, etc.
Right click – Show in explorer, to see the original.
Or go to the folders under Artist -> Album.

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Dec 30, 2006 4:02 PM in response to alfalfa63

alfalfa63.,

I'm trying to help you guys. It a bit difficult to understand exactly what you did and exactly what happened. Please let's not turn this into an arguement.
You have to understand how iTunes works. It's not gonna be the same as you have done by yourself in Windows explorer. It's much easier. It's not the same way you have done it so it may seem stupid, but it's not.

I do, I'm finding that CD's that I ripped in their entirety seem to have stayed intact in there original folders.
As it should.

Everything that I have downloaded from other sources have been comepletely re-arranged.
Because whoever put the info in the ID3 tags, did not do it properly.
And you did not take the time to use the tools available to check and straighten everything out.

I suggest you email support at wherever you purchased these downloads and get a refund and tell them to make sure the songs you buy have all the correct info in the tags.

Wouldn't it be a whole lot better if it didn't re-arrange anything for any reason?
Even if you tell it to do something? (Keep iTunes music folder organized)

Leave my stuff the way it is. I already have it arranged the way I want it. Are you telling me that an ipod can't play music if they are stored in different folders?
This has nothing to do with the iPod.
It’s all about making it easier for you to organize and play you music.

iTunes can and does mess with other folders.
Go to iTunes prefs -> Advanced – General. If you checked “Keep iTunes music folder organized”, you need to stop.
It plainly says, “Places files into album and artist folders, and names the files based on the disc number, track number and the song title”.

If you check the discussion board there is now another person with the same problem as rudawg and me.
rudawg had this box checked so iTunes did exactly what it is supposed to do, just like he told it to.

Just because you didn’t understand what would happen or how to do it, does not mean iTunes is bad or is working incorrectly or is messing up stuff.

rudawg

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2006 5:00 PM in response to Chris CA

The problem appears to be that itunes groups and sorts all songs by artist/album/title. To itunes, this is organized. In my opinion, it is not. This was the third time I reloaded my ipod with the songs from my hard drive. It is the first time itunes "organized" my folders. It appears to me that the default for the 'keep my files organized' check box is checked. The first two times I loaded my ipod I did not have this problem and I do recall unchecking that box. How it got checked this time I can't answer. So in my opinion, I did not tell itunes to do what it did.

On to a solution....

1)Is there a way to tell itunes how to organize the songs?
2)What does itunes mean by compilations and how is this information stored in the id3 tag?
3)How does itunes handle albums with works contributed by other artists?

thanks

rudawg

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2006 5:23 PM in response to Chris CA

Chris,

But an album might have 15 songs. The artist
information might be Clapton for most and Clapton and
BB King for a few others. These are now in different
folders.
Why not put all this songs from one album in on
folder?
How do you sort the CDs on the shelf? Either by
Artist or Album.
If it is an Eric Clapton CD with BB King on some of
the songs, you wouldn’t put it in with other BB King
CDs, would you?
iTunes sorts the folders by the artist who put out
the album, not necessarily who is playing on the
album.

If, on an eric clapton cd, a song is recorded by eric clapton with bb king, when I ripped the song the artist was listed 'Eric Clapton and BB King' or 'eric clapton & bb king' or 'eric clapton; bbking'. The artist name field and its inclusion in an id3 tag was entirely managed by windows media player. I used WMP to rip these albums. They were saved in an eric clapton directory. If I ripped the full album this eric clapton folder was saved under the top level directory of 'full album'. I have about 2,000 songs that I either do not know the album name or am missing some other crucial piece of data. When I acquire the full album/cd I would delete the duplicates from my 'incomplete albums' folder.

In short I had all songs saved by artist/album/track. So it seems the way you believe I should do this is the way I did do this. But....there's always a but....but itunes seems unable to parse out the primary artist from the secondary artist on a track. This is a flaw in itunes in my opinion. There should simply be a feature that asks the user a simple question. When itunes is faced with a series of tracks with the same album name but seeminglhy different artists, itunes should query the user to verify that they are in fact two seperate albums with the same name or if in fact there is a contributing artist on a track. I tunes should not force us to eliminate the additional data of contributing artist.

And an obscure check box with fine print should not control such a task as rearranging a directory under the guise of organizing. It is simply wrong and I am sure the folks at itunes know this. Nothing in programming happens accidentally. If itunes does not care where the original file is located, why move it to begin with? It doesn't help itunes and it doesn't help me. So again, why?

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Dec 30, 2006 5:48 PM in response to rudawg

1)Is there a way to tell itunes how to organize the songs?
No. You can tell it to do it or not and if so, it does it only by Artist -> Album -> song.

2)What does itunes mean by compilations and how is this information stored in the id3 tag?
A compilation is different artists on the same CD. A good example is the Now! series of CDs.
If it is not marked as a compilation, all the artists will be listed individually under Artists. If you have a bunch of CDs like this, you would have a lot of artists.
Select all the songs on the album, get info and mark it as Compilation. It shows up under Artist - Copulations - Album name.

3)How does itunes handle albums with works contributed by other artists?
Depends. You can set the Album Artist field to the actual artist. I usually move the Featured artist to the song title and leave the Artist field as only the original artist.

alfalfa63 Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2006 6:21 PM in response to Chris CA

> alfalfa63., I'm trying to help you guys. It a bit difficult to understand exactly what you did and exactly what happened. Please let's not turn this into an arguement.

Chris, I said before that I appreciate your help. Even if it doesn't help. I still appreciate your efforts. And yet I can't help but wonder at your reaction if this had happened to you. It's sick making. Honestly

> You have to understand how iTunes works. It's not gonna be the same as you have done by yourself in Windows explorer. It's much easier. It's not the same way you have done it so it may seem stupid, but it's not.>

Fine. It does, what it does. SO THEN WARN ME! Tell me that I am about to change everything that I have worked YEARS to make! Not even an "Are you sure you would like iTunes to re-organize the folders on your hard drive?" That would have been nice. NO, yesterday you were telling me that you have NEVER heard of iTunes messing with the original folders. Now today your saying that it will as if it were an every day ocurrence.

>

Everything that I have downloaded from other
sources have been comepletely re-arranged.
Because whoever put the info in the ID3 tags, did not
do it properly.
And you did not take the time to use the tools
available to check and straighten everything out.

No I did not. Were was the notice telling me that I should do this before I choose to organize my files? Besides, it's not supposed to change my original folders, remember? Why would I worry about doing that first, knowing that it's not going to make any real difference in the long run. Just might look a little messed up on my screen but not in my hard drive. Yeah right.

> I suggest you email support at wherever you purchased

these downloads and get a refund and tell them to
make sure the songs you buy have all the correct info
in the tags.

Good idea but a bit late now. My mp3's are still screwed up and they shouldn't be.

> Wouldn't it be a whole lot better if it didn't

re-arrange anything for any reason?
Even if you tell it to do something? (Keep iTunes
music folder organized)

Yes, even if I tell it to. Organize the way I view things all you want but don't change my hard drive. Ever!

> This has nothing to do with the iPod.

It’s all about making it easier for you to organize
and play you music.

I understand this and had they just reorganized they way things are viewed through iTunes, I would be very happy right now but they changed my hard drive and it has ripped my soul out! Well, it feels like it anyway.

> iTunes can and does mess with other folders.

Go to iTunes prefs -> Advanced – General. If you
checked “Keep iTunes music folder organized”, you
need to stop.
It plainly says, “Places files into album and artist
folders, and names the files based on the disc
number, track number and the song title”.

See above. You, and everyone else I asked said that it would not mess with the original files so why would I think that suddenly the rules had changed. One simple warning was all I would have needed and I would have stopped and said no thank you. That simple.

If you check the discussion board there is now
another person with the same problem as rudawg and
me.
rudawg had this box checked so iTunes did exactly
what it is supposed to do, just like he told it to.

> Just because you didn’t understand what would happen

or how to do it, does not mean iTunes is bad or is
working incorrectly or is messing up stuff.

I don't know that it's working incorrectly. It did just what I told it to do. iTunes is bad because they gave no warning that I was about to irreversably change my hard drive. Shame on iTunes and c'mon you got to admit it. Aren't you just a little bit surprised that this happened? You said yourself, several times, that iTunes never touches any folder outside of the music library. Wel it can. It does. It did, and in my 43 years of living, other than deaths in the family, I believe that this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Thank you iTunes. Merry Christmas. As you can well imagine, I have deleted iTunes from my computer. Thank you Chris. I know you're trying to help. Unfortunately, you can't. No one can. I got a lot of work ahead of me, trying to salvage what I can, while trying to hold back the tears. lol. Aaaaah crap this bites.

alfalfa63 Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2006 6:29 PM in response to rudawg

On to a solution....

Solution? I deleted iTunes from my computer and have started the monumental task of trying to resort the files that I can figure out what to do something with. It will never be right and a lot of it will just have to be redownloaded. I originally only came here to find the newly released track by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I found them here but am now sooo glad that I gave none of my money to Apple. Hey yeah, and one last thought. Wasn't iTunes supposed to a copyright infringement with Apple Music Corp.? I was sort of hoping that iTunes would be shut down. Oh well, I can always hope.

thanks

alfalfa63 Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2006 6:40 PM in response to alfalfa63

I understand this and had they just reorganized

they way things are viewed through iTunes, I would be
very happy right now but they changed my hard drive
and it has ripped my soul out! Well, it feels like it
anyway.

Oh, wait. Maybe my soul hasn't been ripped out. I think it has just been removed from it's usual location and put back somewhere else that Apple thinks is easier to organize!

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Dec 30, 2006 7:37 PM in response to alfalfa63

Yes, I understand you are ticked.
I don't think I would be because the organization on the HD is not that critical. I can find any song I have, in about 3 mouse clicks with iTunes. Even in the Finder (like Windows Explorer) it still only takes about 3 mouse clicks.

Fine. It does, what it does. SO THEN WARN ME!
Warn you? It's not like you are going to do it on accident.
You have to go way out of your way to make it do what it did.
First, you have to open iTunes prefs and select Advanced - General.
The you have to change the location of the iTunes library.
Then you have to go to iTunes prefs -> Advanced - general. Then you have to tick the box which states exactly what it is going to do.
Then you have to click Apply. Only after you do ALL of these steps will it change your folders as it did.

yesterday you were telling me that you have NEVER heard of iTunes messing with the original folders. Now today your saying that it will
Because you told iTunes to make them the same. You went into prefs and set the iTunes folder to your music folder.

Organize the way I view things all you want but don't change my hard drive. Ever!
That's just too funny. You jump thru hoops to get it to do exactly what you told it to do an then you do not want it to do that, EVER?

One simple warning was all I would have needed and I would have stopped and said no thank you. That simple.
How many times should it ask you to do what you went out of your way to do?

trying to salvage what I can
Whatever you do and before you get carried away organizing everything, I HIGHLY suggest you make sure you properly fill in the ID3 tags of all your music.
Get a good ID tag editor (find one here - > www.versiontracker.com).
(If you did this first, it'd take iTunes about 10 minutes to organize it all for you into the proper folders.)

not looking for an answer to this last question. Just something to think about.
So what's the big deal with having them organized on the HD?
Why do you care exactly where they are?
If all your songs are in a music folder and you can find anything you want in many different ways with a few mouseclicks or key presses, why does it matter exactly how they are sorted? Why not sort them in some sort of a music manager, whether it's iTunes or WinAmp or WMP, or...?

rudawg

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2006 7:37 PM in response to Chris CA

Thanks,

I appreciate the help. The compilations are a big issue with my collection. Will itunes create a directory/folder called compilations and store all compilations there?

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Dec 30, 2006 7:50 PM in response to rudawg

If it's marked as a compilation, yes, it will put them in the Compilations folder in the music folder.
If it's unmarked, it will move them into the artists folders.
In iTunes prefs go to General tab and select Group Compilations when browsing.
If you do not set this pref, they will still be stored in the Compilations folder but iTunes will list all the artists separately.
You can see this by turning it on, view the library and then turn it back on and see the difference.

The option to show Compilations is also on the iPod.

rudawg

Level 1

0 points

Dec 30, 2006 7:52 PM in response to Chris CA

As far as going out of the way to make itunes do what it did, I strongly disagree. I did not go out of my way to ask itunes to do this.

This will happen to new users who:

1) have a large collection and use an external storage device. My hard drive is not big enough to store all my music in the My Music folder within My Documents. So I..

2) Set itunes to look for the external drive and to sync the two. And then

3) Misunderstand the fine print under the check box. Considering the magnitude of the action, there should be a clearer explanation of what 'organize' means and where it will occur. It should not be a riddle and then an I told you so.....this is where my conspiracy theories begin because there is no good reason for it.

When itunes asks if you want to shuffle your songs, it would be reasonable to assume it wasn't going to randomly shuffle your hard drive. In my opinion, same thing...

Dawg

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Dec 30, 2006 8:32 PM in response to rudawg

have a large collection and use an external storage device. My hard drive is not big enough to store all my music in the My Music folder within My Documents. So I..
2) Set itunes to look for the external drive and to sync the two.
Why would a new user do this? Where did you read this?

Don't change the iTunes music folder. You don't have to and in your case and alfalfa63's case you shouldn't have. Then you should not have told it to Keep iTunes music folder organized.

Go into iTunes prefs - Advanced - Importing.
Uncheck copy files to iTunes folder when adding to library.
Now drag your music to iTunes. It will get added to the library and you can play it via iTunes.

Now here is the main point I have been saying. It will NOT do anything with the music in the original folder since the external drive is NOT the iTunes folder.
It will NOT copy it to the internal drive since you told it NOT to.

Dec 30, 2006 9:04 PM in response to Chris CA

Hey guys. You're not alone. Something similar happened to me. My old computer recently crashed so I copied my music folder from my iPod to the hard drive of my new computer in order to add it the iTunes library. However, in doing so, the subfolders/files (songs, albums, etc.) were saved as "f01, f02, etc." Now iTunes "cannot find the original files". I made sure to copy the music file back into where iTunes searches, but to no avail...I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point as I don't have the time or patience to go through each song individually....

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

Dec 30, 2006 9:27 PM in response to lildeemar

in doing so, the subfolders/files (songs, albums, etc.) were saved as "f01, f02, etc.
That's how they are on the iPod.
Go to File -> Add folder to library and select the top level folder where the songs are.
Go to iTunes prefs -> Advanced.
Check "Copy files to iTunes folder whan adding to library"
Check "Keep iTunes folder organized".
All the songs will get put into the iTunes folder and renamed properly because iTunes labels everything according to the ID3 tags.

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iTunes re-arranged my entire mp3 collection. Can it be restored?