Should I consolidate files in iTunes

[Barnaby]

Hi

 

I have a very basic question here.

 

I have around 765 albums in iTunes on an external HDD and I have been backing up these using SuperDuper. I have also switched the HDD I've used for my library in playback on a couple of computers. Anyway, I have noticed a small number of albums don't appear on my "Main Music" folder but are in my "iTunes Media" folder.

 

This doesn't make any difference when I play music through iTunes but some albums didn't appear in Roon, thought a bit of fiddling around and selecting both folders for Roon to use solved this.

 

I've always found iTunes file management to be confusing and I'm not sure how this has come about but I'm wondering if I should use the option to consolidate all my files in iTunes. I believe this would copy everything into the iTunes Media folder thus giving me a massive library. Should I

 

a) Do this and then once everything is in "iTunes Media" folder just delete everything from the "Main Music" folder?

b) Drag my files from the iTunes media folder into the Main Music folder

c) Do nothing

 

Seems odd that this has happened and I'm not sure why. I have the option to copy everything to the iTunes Media folder when adding to Library ticked but clearly that hasn't happened and folders have been sent to either one or the other of these folders.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Thank you.

[g-audio]

I would do a)

Trust iTunes, it's doing a great job of keeping your files. I kept making the same mistake until about 6-7 years ago. Then I stopped resisting the Apple paradigm. All my headaches went away. Just pretend your a computer illiterate and it will work to your advantage.

[Barnaby]

Thanks. So if I copy everything to the media folder I can then delete everything from the main music library without fear?

[Paul R]

This commonly happens when an external drive is, for whatever reason, temporarily offline. ITunes will, in that case, use the default media folder. Until the main drive comes back online.

 

It's a catch 22 situation about whether or not you want to manage your media files outside of iTunes, or just let iTunes manage them for you. iTunes makes it really easy, and since you are using Roon, there probably is not a lot of advantage to curating them by hand. On the other paw, hanving a pristine physical media library opens up so many other possibilities, but it is also a "non trivial" bit of work to clean up a library.

 

In your case, I think I would let iTunes have its way, and depend upon Roon being smart enough to handle pretty much any nonsense iTunes might get up to in the physical file system. But make sure you have a current backup first, just in case!

[Barnaby]

Thanks Paul. So just to be clear I can consolidate the files and then delete from the main music. I'm guessing I can just click a button, let iTunes mull over the copy for a few hours, come back and then empty the Main music folder so fairly easy?

[Paul R]

Thanks Paul. So just to be clear I can consolidate the files and then delete from the main music. I'm guessing I can just click a button, let iTunes mull over the copy for a few hours, come back and then empty the Main music folder so fairly easy?

 

Yep, it should be that easy.

 

But again, update your backup just before you start. Not scary at all to do, but who knows when some

drunk is going to smash into a power transformer?

[Barnaby]

Good point. I have 4 HDDs with the files on them because it took me months to rip the CDs and I doubt I'd go through it all again