Audiobooks being imported into main iTunes folder, not iTunes Media / Audiobooks

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Audiobooks being imported into main iTunes folder, not iTunes Media / Audiobooks

I've successfully moved our iTunes library onto an external drive, thanks to much help from people here. We can both now run off the external drive and access everything in the library.

In the process, I set iTunes to Keep iTunes Media folder organized, and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library. Everything looked great after that.

Then I started importing audiobooks, both from CDs and from other places on my laptop. They're imported as music, which has always happened. I just do a Get Info and change the kind to Audiobook and the title to the format I like (Title (publication year) author). I do that before importing if I can (this seems to be when I import from CDs), after importing if I can't do it before.

The books don't seem to be going into the iTunes Media / Audiobooks folder. iTunes is creating a new folder for each author in the main iTunes folder. Sometimes it creates a folder for each book by that author inside the author's folder; sometimes it just imports the chapters without putting them into a folder for the book.

What I've been doing is closing iTunes and moving those folders into iTunes Media / Audiobooks outside of iTunes. If no folder for the book was created, I create one and move the chapters into it.

I seem to be able to access that content in iTunes after I've moved it, but I don't know why it's putting this outside the Audiobooks folder, or why it sometimes creates a folder for the book but other times does not. I dislike dragging things around outside of iTunes because sooner or later that has got to cause problems.

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Jun 17, 2018 6:32 AM

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Answer 1

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terydeb Author

Level 1

26 points

Jun 17, 2018 9:01 AM in response to turingtest2

Duh.

It was <external drive name>/iTunes (not pointing to the iTunes Media folder). I set it to the same folder I select when I option-click to start iTunes, and did not see that despite checking it multiple times.

I changed that to <external drive name>/iTunes/iTunes Media. It asked if I wanted to rearrange things in the new iTunes Media folder. I said yes to that. The effect was that it went through the Audiobooks (that's the only folder I've looked at so far) and put all files for an author under the author's name, removing the folders they were in (one folder for each book inside the author's folder). I prefer having a folder per book but will do without that if it will confuse iTunes.

The other folders are from the major cleanup I had to do on this drive. It's been an iTunes drive for several years, through several iTunes updates and a few iTunes disasters and, I think, accidental resets of things. My spouse was panicked that I would lose something, so I put many things in that "saved in case needed" folder. The Previous iTunes Libraries folder was already there and it seemed wiser to not delete it.

I'll delete the book I just added later today and put it back in. I'm guessing it will now go to the correct location, though I don't know if it will put the book in its own folder inside the author's folder (which it did do the first time).

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Jun 17, 2018 6:42 AM in response to terydeb

Make sure that your profile has full read and write permissions to the iTunes folder and all subfolders. Use Get Info on the iTunesfolder in Finder. Click the lock at the bottom right to make changes. Make sure that Locked isn't ticked and that your own account has Read & Write access, then use the gear icon to Apply to enclosed items and confirm.

If iTunes cannot create new folders where it wants to then content can end up in a higher level folder or occasionally on the desktop.

See also Organizing audiobook chapters.

tt2

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Jun 17, 2018 9:01 AM in response to terydeb

What is the location of the media folder given under iTunes > Preferences > Advanced? It ought to be <Some Path>/iTunes/iTunes Media, but you're showing other content in the main iTunes folder that shouldn't normally be there. See Make a split library portable for more information.

tt2

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Answer 4

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Jun 17, 2018 9:17 AM in response to terydeb

I don't know why Apple won't put audiobooks in their own folders, but they generally sell single file books so I guess they think that giving each author their own folder is enough. Since I have many multi-file books I prefer the one book one folder approach and use a custom script to add the structure that iTunes won't.

tt2

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Answer 5

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Jun 17, 2018 5:40 PM in response to terydeb

terydeb wrote:

Perhaps I should learn to write scripts. I think it would be fun.

It is, most of mine are for the Windows version of iTunes - see http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/scripts.asp - but I've started dabbling in AppleScript. See https://dougscripts.com/itunes/index.php for a wide selection for iTunes for Mac.

tt2

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Answer 6

terydeb Author

Level 1

26 points

Jun 17, 2018 7:33 AM in response to turingtest2

I checked the main iTunes folder, the iTunes Media folder, and the Audiobooks folder within iTunes Media, and set all of them so I have read & write access (I didn't check to see if they were that way before, I just reset everything from the main iTunes folder down, then checked the individual folders to be sure).

I imported 2 CDs from a book (highlighted in the screen shot). iTunes still put the book in the main iTunes folder.

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Answer 7

terydeb Author

Level 1

26 points

Jun 17, 2018 5:11 PM in response to turingtest2

Perhaps I should learn to write scripts. I think it would be fun.

And thanks again!

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Audiobooks being imported into main iTunes folder, not iTunes Media / Audiobooks

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