Consolidate library?

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Level 3

521 points

Consolidate library?

Hi everyone. What exactly does the consolidate library action do? I already have iTunes organize my music and place a copy of my music in the iTunes library... I'm not quite sure I understand what that consolidate library function does? What are the pros/cons?

Thanks,
Keith

Mac Mini 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB HDD, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 3, 2007 2:18 AM

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Answer 1

May 3, 2007 2:56 AM in response to Keithos

Hi,
Basically, it copies all the music referenced in iTunes to your iTunes Music folder, which by default resides at Home/Music/iTunes.
It's a handy method of gathering the music on your drive, and storing it in one folder.
It's also a good way to move your music to another drive, see Apple's article on this - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748

Regards

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Answer 2

PT

Level 7

20,894 points

May 3, 2007 5:42 PM in response to Keithos

To add to Josef's comment, since you already keep everything organized and copies into your iTunes folder, the consolidate library command will do absolutely nothing for you or to your library.
But if you had those options you could add music from all over your hard drive and iTunes would add the name to the library but point to where ever the file is located. So you could have a library pointing to stuff all over the place on your hard drive. If you then used the consolidate command, iTunes would copy all the stuff in your library into the iTunes folder that wasn't already in the iTunes folder.
Patrick

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Answer 3

Keithos Author

Level 3

521 points

May 5, 2007 10:27 AM in response to PT

Thanks guys... I thought it might do "nothing for me" since I already have iTunes keep everything in the iTunes folder for me, but I just wanted to make sure.

As a follow up, if I'm about to format my Macintosh HD and want to backup my music, can I just copy/paste my iTuens folder to my external hard drive, format my computer, update all of the software via software update, open up iTunes and agree to the license agreement (so it creates the iTunes folder for me), quit iTunes, and then copy/paste the iTunes folder from my external hard drive back to my Macintosh HD and everything will be okay?

Thanks,
Keith

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Answer 4

May 5, 2007 11:07 AM in response to PT

Wait...so does "consolidate library" copy the music files themselves, or just the name and reference to the files?

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Answer 5

May 5, 2007 3:07 PM in response to Keithos

Yes. I'm assuming that the iTunes Library file and the iTunes Music folder that contains all your song files is inside the iTunes folder, which is the default configuration. Then you should have no problems. When you reinstall iTunes, a new, blank iTunes Library file may automatically be created. If that happens, just replace it with the "real" library file that you backed up to your external drive.

Be sure not to delete the backed up files until you're sure your iTunes library is working properly on your new setup.

iMac G4 17; iBook G4 1.33 Mhz 14; iPod 3G 20GB Mac OS X (10.3.9)

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Answer 6

May 5, 2007 3:10 PM in response to Monica Schaeffer

"Consolidate library" is all about actually putting copies of song files that aren't already in the designated iTunes Music folder location in that location. So, yes, it will make copies of the files as necessary and then adjust the location information in the iTunes Library file accordingly.

iMac G4 17; iBook G4 1.33 Mhz 14; iPod 3G 20GB Mac OS X (10.3.9)

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Answer 7

Chris CA

Level 10

82,513 points

May 5, 2007 3:17 PM in response to Keithos

if I'm about to format my Macintosh HD
Why?
If you are a former Windows user, there are very few reasons to need to do this.
MacOS is very good about not having to format/reinstall when something is messed up.

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Answer 8

May 5, 2007 9:05 PM in response to Keithos

Hi,

Slightly off topic...

I have an itunes music folder which is 220Gb in size, mainly due to the fact that I have converted the majority of my DVDs to H.246 format and saved them in the "movies" folder.

I have two macs and a PC and I want each to access the same itunes music directory. The external drive I use is a Synology CS407, however when i share the music files from the Synology itunes it self appears to become unstable and often i have to access the advanced settings and reset the music file directory to point to the Synology Nas unit. Also I have to have individual Library files on each of the macs and pcs which access the NAS unit. I would ideally like to have all the files on the NAS, but itunes does not appear to let me do this.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Brgds/Tony.

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