ITUNES, Help!

PaulJM

Hi, hope you can help, ITUNES and Apple stuff drives me to distraction!

I'm no means computer illiterate, and I've had Apple stuff for years, but sometimes I find it so difficult to use, especially ITUNES (On Windows anyway!)!

My last PC died, with ITUNES on, and I need to transfer it all up to the new laptop.
I have my old files retrieved, and I've moved some of them onto my new computer. Some of the music I had previously in ITUNES, and on my IPOD classic were bought off Amazon, and some have come from CD's, etc - so they were spread accross different files.

I've found that when I download ITUNES and sign in, it only brings up about 10% of what I had on there before.
I'm scared to plug my IPOD in, as I have 34 Gig of content on there - I'm really worried that ITUNES will sync it all out when I connect it up.

Any ideas what I can do here?
I've tried the Apple forum, and you don't get assistance very often, as it's very busy - so really hoping I'll get some help on here!

marvell-kid

Did you consolidate your libarary on your previous laptop, if so all your itunes music will be in one easy to access folder.

If not it will be much longer to do, but not any harder.

Sigining into iTunes will only enable you to re-download music you have bought off of iTunes. To retrieve downloads from other places you will need to find where they are saved (the retrieved files) and import them.

If you had consolidated the folders in iTunes you just need to look for the retrieved iTunes folder and follow the following steps; If you didn't consolidate then you will need to find the main folder with all the retrieved files in.

Steps: (Sorry these are very simple)
1. Open iTunes
2. Click 'Edit' and 'Preferences'
3. Go to 'Advanced Tab' (Top Right)
4. Ensure both 'Keep iTunes Media Folder Organised' and 'Copy files to iTunes Media Folder...' are ticked and Click 'OK' (bottom right)
5. Click 'File' (Top Left)
6. Click 'Add Folder To Library'
7. Find retrieved iTunes folder or retieved files folder.
**DONT use the one that auto comes up as that is your current one**

This will add ALL music in those folders to your iTunes Library, and will consolidate it all into one folder, so no music is elsewhere.

Once this is done, check to see if all music is uploaded (not sure if it will work for amazon downloads).

I hope this helps

PaulJM

Thanks so much for this - I'll have a look in the morning, I gave up on it before, as it kept asking for my username and password over and over again, even though itunes had already been signed in in the background!
I think it's the interaction with Windows that makes it so user-unfriendly, I tried it on the IPAD, and it was brilliant.

Anyway - really appreciate your help!

PaulJM

Marvell-Kid,

This worked well, thanks - now my ITUNES library is pretty much as before.
There are quite a lot of duplicates now though (over 500 on 4500 entries.) as I hadn't kept the folders tidy on the last computer, so for eg, where I've renamed a best of album to something easier to see on the car's display, the folders have duplicated.
Any way of getting rid of duplications do you know, without ploughing through and highlighting each one?

P.S - Love the way it now consolidates into one folder -much better than before. Why don't they come set up this way? I only got my Classic last year - I've had ITUNES for a while though.

marvell-kid

iTunes is a pain on a PC, but it wasn't originally intended for PC. But thats another story.
iTunes has a simple way to display all duplicates:
If you go to 'file' and select 'Display Duplicates' you will see every song that has the same Name. There isn't an easy way to delete them so you will have to delete them individually if you can, but 'Ctrl' can help make it less so.
At the bottom of iTunes it will tell you that its displaying duplicates.

This is the way I would check; as some songs may have the same name or are duplicates but from a compilation album and an artist album (ie on NOW74 and the original artists album)
1. First Check to see if you are displaying only Duplicates
2. Sort it by Album Name (Click on 'Album' in the bar near the top), this is so you can check for duplicates from the same album and not just by name
3. Manually scroll down looking at the song Name, when you see a duplicate, this will be a proper duplicate. And the rest of the album may be duplicated.
4. SINGLE LEFT click on the duplicate (2nd one down (and 3rd/4th etc if you have them), PRESS and HOLD 'Ctrl' on your keyboard (should be bottom left of your keyboard), now single Left Click on each duplicate (2nd one down), until you get to the end of the list or album.
**NOTE: Do it in stages so their is less chance of messing up.
**NOTE2: If you accidently select one you don't want to delete, single left click it again and it will un-highlight.

5. Once you've highlighted a few, press 'Delete' On your keyboard (NOT BACKSPACE (Arrow pointing left)).
6. You will get a pop-up confirming the deletion. Click on 'Delete Songs'.
7. You will get another pop-up asking if you want to keep or delete the files. I suggest you delete them (/Move them to Recycle Bin) as you can always restore them from the recycle bin. Click 'Move to Recycle Bin'.
8. Duplicates will dissapear from the list, but the ones you want to keep until you exit out of the Duplicates List.
**NOTE3: Check to see if your music will still play, select the left songs and play them, if they dont play, see below.

9. Repeat until you are happy.

If your music gives an error or cant play, go into your recycle bin and 'restore' it by double clicking and restoring it, if it doesn't restore to the iTunes folder then see where it goes and edit the following to suit.
Go into your Music Drive and into the iTunes Folder, find where the album is and cut and paste it to your desktop, check the folder for duplicates (As this use to happen in older versions of iTunes) and delete like a normal file. Now Remove any evidence of the deleted song/album if you need to.
In iTunes Delete the songs with errors.
Now 'add folder to library' as I've said before, this time from the desktop.
It should upload one copy of every song.

Sorry about the length of this, I rarely check the forum due to the amount of work I have on atm, so I wanted to make sure I had everything covered and don't leave you waiting for over 12 hours again.

Hopefully this helps.

marvell-kid

As an additional Point, my iTunes states it has 304 items /20 hours / 1.52 GB of duplicates, but they aren't as I have a few greatest hits, a few NOW's and all the R1 Live Lounges.

PaulJM wrote: »

Marvell-Kid,
P.S - Love the way it now consolidates into one folder -much better than before. Why don't they come set up this way? I only got my Classic last year - I've had ITUNES for a while though.

I discovered it ages back, when I wanted to do a sort out (but it wouldn't do it the way I actually wanted). I believe its doesn't come with it as standard as people may have their own way to store their music and consolidating it will just duplicate the files (although conveniently), thus wasting space on a hard-drive.