Multiple iTunes folders on my hard drive

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Level 1

4 points

Multiple iTunes folders on my hard drive

I need help please! My iTunes library is in several folders on my hard drive. I'm running Windows 7 and when I go to "My Music", there's 2 folders, one marked "iTunes" and one marked "Music". When I open the "Music" folder, there's yet another "iTunes" folder inside along with a folder marked "My Music", when I open the "My Music" folder, there's yet one more folder marked "iTunes". When I open any of the "iTunes" folders, the content is different from any of the other "iTunes" folders. How can I consolidate them into one "iTunes" folder? It's a pain when I need to find a song because in iTunes it keeps losing the file location and I can't play the song (not the same song, it changes which songs it loses the file location for) or put it onto my iPod.

Dell laptop-OTHER, Windows 7

Posted on Jul 5, 2017 10:55 AM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

279,061 points

Jul 5, 2017 2:22 PM in response to arboc378

Windows can introduce some confusion with some virtual library folders that appear independent of the normal hierarchy of files and folders. Drill down into C:\Users\<User>\(My )Music\iTunes and see what folders exist below that.

See Make a split library portable for some background on the standard layout of the library.

How many different .itl files do you have? Do you know how to switch between them? Is there a good reason to have more than one?

tt2

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Answer 2

javaliga

Level 10

120,399 points

Jul 5, 2017 11:23 AM in response to arboc378

See the "Consolidate your iTunes library" section in:

Manage and back up your iTunes media library - Apple Support

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Answer 3

the fiend

Level 7

23,722 points

Jul 5, 2017 12:31 PM in response to arboc378

As a general rule, iTunes does not lose songs.

What does happen though is that when the song is no longer where iTunes thought it was, iTunes marks it as missing (by putting an exclamation mark next to the title). In other words, iTunes looks in the relevant folder; for example Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/<artist name>/<album_title>/song_title> but cannot find it. And the reason for this is because the song file has been renamed, deleted or moved.

One thing that can cause problems is if the music is stored on an external drive, which is either not ready when iTunes looks for the music or has a different drive letter than before. There is a danger therefore, that if you attempt to consolidate your music into one folder, you will actually make the problem worse.

One good reason why there may be more than one folder with your music in is if you purchase music from somewhere such as Amazon. Amazon automatically places music I buy from them into a separate folder to the iTunes music. So in the My Music folder, I have a folder named iTunes and a second one named Amazon MP3.

I think you should begin by trying to understand why iTunes is "losing" songs. Is any of your music stored on an external drive ( a drive which might not be ready when iTunes starts up), or are you renaming or moving the files? (If you need to rename an album, a song or the artist, it is better to do so in iTunes, not in Explorer or Finder.)

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