Songs imported in wrong order if dragged in by folder.

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Level 1

14 points

Songs imported in wrong order if dragged in by folder.

I tried all the views, and yes while sorting by Album works, it does not allow me to edit the playlist at all. So it actually doesn't work, because I need to be able to edit the playlist. I have searched the many threads with this issue and no one has an acceptable answer.

It's only been since version 12, before I could grab a whole folder, drag it into a playlist, and all songs were in order of filename (or track # if the metadata was there). Now when I drag in a folder the songs are in some kind of random order having nothing to do with anything.

My view is "Songs" and sorting is "playlist order," ascending (the very first column, arrow pointing up). This way I can put the songs in whatever order I want. This is the only way to fly since I have hundreds of playlists that are in my specific curated order. Any other sorting option is not acceptable.

I discovered that if I highlighted and manually dragged the songs from a folder in, they keep their proper order. But dragging the folder does not. It's so much more of a hassle this way!

Why did this change? I am serious, I would like an iTunes rep to answer this. There is NO REASON for this to change like this, so please answer me.

And finally, what is the fix? It needs to return to the way it has always been since iTunes version 1.

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016), iOS 11.2.5

Posted on Feb 13, 2018 6:14 PM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Feb 16, 2018 1:21 PM in response to Disco Danny

This is a user to user support forum. There are no iTunes reps to answer such questions. The community specialists who sometimes answer questions here are unlikely to have any access to the source code, which is ultimately where the details that affect your question lie.

While I have no deeper knowledge my guess would be that when you select a block of files in Finder and drag them to another application they are delivered in the current displayed order. On the other hand when a subroutine attempts to process all of the files in a folder there is no obvious reason to sort the files into a given order before they are evaluated. It may be that in an effort to improve iTunes there has been a change in the code that governs import, or it could be change in the behaviour of Finder.

Use Feedback - iTunes - Apple to express your thoughts to Apple.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Feb 17, 2018 3:03 PM in response to Disco Danny

Under the hood they probably aren't sorted by name. Typically at the level of the OS they are probably stored in the order in which they are added to the folder. Finder will take care of showing them to you ordered by filename, date added, colour, size, or some other property as you choose. I do a little bit of programming and know from experience that you cannot make assumptions about the order that collections of objects are presented to your code when you make the request of some system code or other application. Some time back I wrote a Windows script designed to reimport tracks so the iTunes would show them in the correct album order when viewing the library in date added descending order. To guarantee that would work I had to ensure that each track was imported at least one second apart or iTunes could still get it wrong.

tt2

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Answer 3

Disco Danny Author

Level 1

14 points

Feb 17, 2018 1:20 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks for the link, I just sent them this problem.

"when a subroutine attempts to process all of the files in a folder there is no obvious reason to sort the files into a given order before they are evaluated. It may be that in an effort to improve iTunes there has been a change in the code that governs import, or it could be change in the behaviour of Finder."

I don't get this at all. Why not preserve the file order by name? That's how it's been since day 1. And it makes the most sense. The fact that the song metadata has the proper order, which is ignored, also makes no sense.

The only thing that makes sense, is that Apple is trying to discourage people from having control of their music. I can only hope that my pointing out the labor-intensive "fix" of highlighting the actual files and dragging them in, doesn't result in them changing the code so that stops working!

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Songs imported in wrong order if dragged in by folder.

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