:orb_angryitunes is really winding me up.

Does anyone know of decent (Free) software that I can use to help prevent duplicate copies of music being added to itunes. After adding a folder of new music today its scanned my entire computer and I've got duplicates of every song, and its randomly chosen tracks to sync with my ipod!!

:orb_angry I HATE itunes

:orb_angryitunes is really winding me up.

Does anyone know of decent (Free) software that I can use to help prevent duplicate copies of music being added to itunes. After adding a folder of new music today its scanned my entire computer and I've got duplicates of every song, and its randomly chosen tracks to sync with my ipod!!

:orb_angry I HATE itunes

I have the same problem, I thought it was just me being a clutz, instead it might be that we are BOTH clutzs

tbh it sounds like the way you manage your music/ipod syncronation is the problem, not itunes. Sorry.

tbh it sounds like the way you manage your music/ipod syncronation is the problem, not itunes. Sorry.

I

I

When you first connected it up, you said YES to "Do you want iTunes to scan your system for music...

How do you manage your music? Do you let iTunes manage it or do you have your own filing structure or both?

Chris

I recently started using Media Player 11, and that was fine, but recently I got an ipod so I went to itunes. It

I recently started using Media Player 11, and that was fine, but recently I got an ipod so I went to itunes. It

I sounds as though you need to consolidate your library, this copys all you music into the itunes music folder. Then delete any stray music outside of that folder (to check where you itunes folder is, look at iTunes preferences>Advanced)...

In future the way to avoid duplicate songs is to do the follwing:

1. When importing CDs, import them using itunes.

2. When downloading them from the net 'drag' them into itunes, then delete your original downloaded files.

3. When copying from someone else, copy them straight to itunes, by dragging them in.

You will need to make sure your iTunes preferences are set to the follwing, under the advanced tab, have these two options ticked. "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" and "copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library"

Hope this helps.

Chris

Great, much appreciated. I

Itunes is wa*k

If you dont actually use itunes for buying music, check out anapod

It gives a nice "drag and drop" interface for the ipod without all the rubbish itunes has..

Im in the same boat, ive a large amount of music, and i have to duplicate them on my hdd to keep tracks separate from itunes and the rest of my music... its not an issue at the moment because ive only got a 4gb nano.. but if i had a 80gb one :eek:

Itunes works wonders if you have it set up right.

If you have 3 copies of a song then you are going to get it 3 times in the player.

Only sync 1 of the drives in itunes to overcome this.

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Previous post about putting music on your ipod without storing it on your PC.

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i dont store any music on my PC.

to transfere music already on your pc.

All you have to do is see pic 1.

Manually manage music and videos. tick it.

You can then directly drag music from a folder. Pic 2.

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off a cd: rip music to itunes library and drag over, then delete music from library.

iTunes doesn't go off and scan your drives.. unless you tell it to.

There is an option in the view menu to show only duplicates, this still means deleting every other track...

Alternatively you could remove everything from itunes and drag and drop in the directories of the music you actually want in there. If you have itunes set to "copy files to the itunes music folder" when you do this it will make a copy of everything you drag and drop into it. This is usually in My docs/my music/itunes/

If you don't want it to do that.. then simply make sure it's not selected in the preferences and it will simply play the songs from their original location in your original directory structure.

On my iBook i have a mixture of mp3s in my itunes library directory and mp3s on and external/network drive and it works just fine, no need for extra copies of mp3s just for itunes.

Itunes is wa*k

If you dont actually use itunes for buying music, check out anapod

It gives a nice "drag and drop" interface for the ipod without all the rubbish itunes has..

Im in the same boat, ive a large amount of music, and i have to duplicate them on my hdd to keep tracks separate from itunes and the rest of my music... its not an issue at the moment because ive only got a 4gb nano.. but if i had a 80gb one :eek:

I

Amanda sounds like the best thing for you to do would be to select everything in within iTunes and hit delete, IMPORTANT if it asks if you want to delete the files as well click "Keep Files"

Then just drag in the directories that you want in to your itunes as and when, bear in mind any wma's it finds it will offer to convert them to m4a/mp3. If it did this first time round then the new files will be in my docs/my music/itunes.

Good luck!

Amanda sounds like the best thing for you to do would be to select everything in within iTunes and hit delete, IMPORTANT if it asks if you want to delete the files as well click "Keep Files"

Then just drag in the directories that you want in to your itunes as and when, bear in mind any wma's it finds it will offer to convert them to m4a/mp3. If it did this first time round then the new files will be in my docs/my music/itunes.

Good luck!

It

Well your other option is in the view menu click "show duplicates" this will list all the duplicate tracks you have.

It's then a case of removing one (or more) of your duplicate tracks so you left with just the one.... the catch here is u need to work out which of the duplicates are in a playlist... the quickest way is to right click on the track and there is a "Show in playlist" option, hover the mouse over that and it will show you which playlist(s) that song belongs to.

Either way I don't envy your task... depending on how many playlists you have will be the deciding factor on which way is the easiest. Any smart playlists will automatically repopulate themselves when you add the mp3s back into your library

When there are so many thousands of CDs ie 10s of thousands of tracks, I think the delete and start again slowly will be the best option.

My itunes says I have (not including wavs and wmas) 414 days of music!

:orb_angryitunes is really winding me up.

Does anyone know of decent (Free) software that I can use to help prevent duplicate copies of music being added to itunes. After adding a folder of new music today its scanned my entire computer and I've got duplicates of every song, and its randomly chosen tracks to sync with my ipod!!

What are the settings for your ipod? sounds to me like it's been set to randomly fill your ipod with different songs from your collection every time it's connected.

When there are so many thousands of CDs ie 10s of thousands of tracks, I think the delete and start again slowly will be the best option.

My itunes says I have (not including wavs and wmas) 414 days of music!

Thats a fairly large collection of mp3s you've got there

It may be a fair bit of work getting it all into itunes... but once there it's much easier to manage especially across several drives.

Good to here you've spread them around and kept backups on other drives:thumbup: ... not the easiest option but still better than having them on a single disk.

This is the reason I put mine on to a raid1 array... 2x80Gb drives one is an exact mirror of the other, so although I lose 80Gb of space it's much safer and any changes are replicated automatically.

There is software available that will mirror selected directories on different drives saving you the task of keeping them in sync manually

Thats a fairly large collection of mp3s you've got there

It may be a fair bit of work getting it all into itunes... but once there it's much easier to manage especially across several drives.

Good to here you've spread them around and kept backups on other drives:thumbup: ... not the easiest option but still better than having them on a single disk.

This is the reason I put mine on to a raid1 array... 2x80Gb drives one is an exact mirror of the other, so although I lose 80Gb of space it's much safer and any changes are replicated automatically.

There is software available that will mirror selected directories on different drives saving you the task of keeping them in sync manually

To be honest I

If you treat itunes as your drag and drop window for your ipod, then you can.

I have nothing constructive to add, only that I, and everyone I know hates ITunes.

To be honest I

have around 220gb of mp3 + m4as, plus a further 100gb of wavs and wmas on them.

:eek::eek: How much?

I've only got about 40gb.

thanks for the help people. Guess i'll have to delete my library tonight and start it all again. Although I don't really want to lose all the music I've got selected to sync with the ipod at the minute.

Looking at the library it looks like the songs have duplicated as I've been moving folders about and trying to consolidate my music into one folder.

Even though it may be my stupidity that has caused my problems I still hate itunes as it seems to use far too much processor time for a media player but I bought the ipod so I guess I'll just have to to live with it:rolleyes:

I never thought I hear myself say it, but I prefer Microsoft Media player 11. please don

I never thought I hear myself say it, but I prefer Microsoft Media player 11. please don’t tell anyone though……………..

I'm ashamed to say I agree with you there.

:sofahide:

Going to try anapod as NEO_VR suggests and see if its any good.

Anyone know decent software to sort out ID3 tags?? I've got an old copy of moodlogic kicking about but not sure if its any good