Adding the iTunes Media Folder

See Make a split library portable and/or Move your iTunes library to a new computer. The iTunes library has two main components, the database and the media. You cannot change the media folder preference and expect iTunes to show you what is in it.

If you have a previous machine with the database for this library then connect the drive back to it and prepare for the move by copying your library files into the My Media folder and accessing the new copy of the iTunes Library.itl file with the shift-start-iTunes method. Once you have fixed that you can (optionally, but I would) close iTunes, rename My Media as iTunes then shift-start-iTunes to access the library again. Then you can move the drive to the new machine and shift-start-iTunes to connect to the library once more.

If you only have the collection of media and no .itl files to draw on use the shift-start-iTunes method to make a new library at G:\iTunes, move your iTunes Media folder from G:\My Media into G:\iTunes and use File > Add Folder to Library to add the contents of the media folder to the library.

See also Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy.

tt2

OK, if you want to start from scratch:

Press and hold down shift immediately after clicking the icon that launches iTunes, keep holding until asked to choose or create a library, click create and choose a suitable location, i.e. G:\iTunes.

This should make the library file G:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl and the media folder should be G:\iTunes\iTunes Media. If for some reason it isn't use the reset button in File > Edit > Preferences > Advanced where you're looking at the current value to correct it.

Use File > Library > Organize Library > Rearrange Files if it isn't greyed out to switch from old layout to new one. If the option is greyed out there is nothing to do and the library is in the new layout already

You can now move or copy existing content into the iTunes Media folder and add it to iTunes using drag & drop or File > Add Folder to Library.

If Keep organized is enabled, or you use the Automatically Add to iTunes folder, or Copy files is enabled and you drag in content from outside of the media folder, iTunes will arrange music into the standard <Media Folder>/Music/<Artist>/<Album>/## Name>.<Ext> layout you're aiming for.

tt2

Just to add to tt2's sage advice ... the iTunes Media Folder Location setting (somewhat confusedly) does not determine where iTunes looks for existing library content - that is specified within the iTunes database (the iTunes Library.itl file). All the location setting does is to determine where iTunes will add new library content (in combination with other settings). If you use the portable format, as tt2 describes, the library file will be in the same parent folder as the iTunes Media folder and - irrespective of where that containing folder is - iTunes will default to the correct media locations.

For example, on my primary system the iTunes library is stored on a external drive (K:) in a top level folder (K:\iTunes). This folder contains both the iTunes Library.itl file and the iTunes Media folder. The default settings in Edit > Preferences > Advanced are as follows:

Launch iTunes with the Shift key held down, click on Choose Library, and specify it.

(158225)

The database file should be in the parent folder of the media folder, not inside the media folder, and it is the parent folder that you sync. The media folder is normally called iTunes Media and the parent folder iTunes. You would normally edit one library, then mirror any changes to the other before making any edits in that one. See iTunes Folder Watch for a tool that can scan the media folder for inconsistencies that might arise if you make edits to the two copies independently and then sync. I use SyncToy but I assume GoodSync does a similar job. The clones of my libraries work on various drive letters and paths, including a switch from Windows to Mac.

tt2

There are two locations of interest for each library, the location of the .itl file, and the location of the designated iTunes Media folder. When you see an error with iTunes not locating a track please post the true path to the file, the path as shown on the Song Info > File tab, and the media folder location, then perhaps we can see what is going wrong.

tt2

In both cases the media folder should be the folder ...\iTunes Media not ...\iTunes Media\Music.

You may have hidden .iTunes Preferences.plist files in the Music folders that are set with the old layout value, 0, meaning that Artist folders are put in that folder rather than a Music subfolder. Check for the same files in the iTunes Media folders and make sure that the layout value is given as 1, which adds the Music subfolder into the path between the media folder and the artist folder.

tt2

Each library should be self contained, i.e., include both the iTunes Library.itl file and the iTunes Media folder. While it is theoretically feasible to set things up so that two instances of iTunes can access the same library, it requires extra configuration (e.g., for both systems the drive letter and path to the folder containing the iTunes Library.itl file and the iTunes Media folder would have to be the same) and would be more prone to errors than the standard setup.

This is what I use:

• System 1 has the iTunes Library on an external hard drive with the iTunes Library.itl file and the iTunes Media folder contained in K:\iTunes.
• System 2 has the iTunes Library in the standard/default location, C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes
• I do updates on both systems - #1 is the one I use most of the time, but only #2 has an optical drive so I use this one for importing new CDs to the library
• I synch the two libraries regular (often daily), using a portable hard drive as both the transport mechanism and as an additional backup of the library content - so if I've made changes to the library on system 1 I will:
  • synch K:\iTunes on system 1 to the iTunes folder in the root of the portable drive, and then
  • synch the iTunes folder on the portable drive to C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes on system 2

Obviously this synch process is reversed if I've made updates to system 2. The key to this is to never make changes on both systems and hope to magically "merge" them later - this doesn't work! It is possible to set something up without using the additional portable drive, and synch the two libraries directly over a network - practically, though, I've found this slower than using the portable drive and it lacks the benefit of having an additional "failsafe" backup of the whole library.

To recap. The current details are:

Desktop:

G:\My Media\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\Cosmic Mojo\Zodiac Retrowired Spinmachine\01 Zodiac Attac.mp3

The .itl file is inside the iTunes parent folder.

iTunes Media Folder Location in preferences is G:\My Media\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music

Stop if I'm wrong and correct me.

Inside the Music folder is a file called .iTunes Preferences.plist. Copy it into the iTunes Media folder above if there isn't already a file with the same name. Drag the version from iTunes Media into Notepad or NotePad++. The contents will look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>GUID</key>

<string>0FE1A7219B7699D7BA74A7BFAF9CC2C0</string>

<key>Layout Version</key>

<integer>0</integer>

</dict>

</plist>

Change the integer from 0 to 1 and save.

Open iTunes. Change the media folder from ...\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music to ...\iTunes\iTunes Media.

Turn Keep organized off and on again just to make sure, assuming you have it on in the first place.

Personally I'd then close iTunes, move the iTunes folder up one level to G:\iTunes and shift-start-iTunes to access from the new cleaner path.

tt2

I should have added that although you have a copy of the iTunes Library.itl on each system, they are "the same" in the sense that they catalog the same media content and, after each synch operation, will be identical.