Itunes merged my music and destroyed my organisation, can this be undone?

February 16, 2006 8:11 PM

Itunes merged my music and destroyed my organisation, can this be undone?I decided to give ITunes a try from winamp. I was trying to organise the my music and it seems once I set the ITunes music folder to my own it took all of my .mp3s and placed them in all new folders. I now have double folder sets, one with the .jpegs and ones with the MP3s. I spend a lot of time organising music into folders, so this is quite frustrating. Can this be undone? Or will I forever despise ITunes for this situation?
posted by Knigel to computers & internet (26 comments total)

Windows or Mac?
posted by teece at 8:33 PM on February 16, 2006

Sorry, Windows XP
posted by Knigel at 8:36 PM on February 16, 2006

D'oh! I guess WinAmp mean Windows.

You can make iTunes leave your song files alone in the preferences of iTunes (although I think that's a Windows-only thing), rather than organizing them the way it likes. [The iTunes paradigm is that you don't care where your music files are -- get them through iTunes, sorting and searching based upon ID3 tags. That's why it moves them. If you really hate that paradigm, iTunes is not for you].

But I'm not sure if you can undo what iTunes has done. Nothing comes to my mind.
posted by teece at 8:36 PM on February 16, 2006

Foobar2000 can move and rename MP3 files based on their ID3 tags or on their filenames. It is, um, cryptic to learn. But it is very, very powerful.

Rough directions: Run Foobar. Take the parent folder that contains all the MP3s you want to sort out and drop it onto the Foobar window. Foobar will generate a list of all the files. Right click somewhere in the list and choose Masstagger/Rename, Move, or Copy Files.

The 'Output File Format' is the key in the popup window. Here you describe how you want your files arranged. When you have things arranged the way you want, click the Run button, and the magic happens.

I'm not sure what happens to files without MP3 tags, so if you have any of those, you may need to pretag them. (using a different feature of the Masstagger, also on the popup menu.)

If you have room, I strongly suggest you make a copy of your music folder and experiment on the copy... don't run it on the real one until you're sure you understand what's going on.

Foobar is very powerful and very fast.... which means you can dig yourself in very, very deep. It's the best tool I know to fix your problem, but tread carefully.
posted by Malor at 9:00 PM on February 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Well, if you were running windows ME you would have the whole 'system restore' option, but you're probably not and that was a stupid feature anyway.

Other then that, there is no way to 'unmove' files in windows that were moved automatically by a program.

Your best bet would be to try an mp3 renaming utility that will name your files based on their ID3 tags. There should be many different ones. If you don't have ID3 tags you're kinda SOL, though. Many of your files probably will have them, depending on how you got them.

There might be some utilities that can sort MP3s by their filenames, so if you still have the artists name + album + track name in the file name you might be in luck as well.

Anyway, good luck.
posted by delmoi at 9:19 PM on February 16, 2006

Well, since I am a go with the flow type of person who likes to try to find the opportunity in anything presented to myself...

...What are the advantages of changing over to the ITunes sorting methodology? I understand that it can be quite powerful in organisation, but how is it with sharing music with other people? For example, if I were to share my fully legal music with people on a program such as SoulSeek, is there a way to keep it organised? Or would it end up in one big glob of a folder? I am also curious as to how to keep the album pictures with the albums.

I have been in a lengthly music sorting and naming process for a while now, so have various directories of sorted and unsorted music. So far Itunes doesn't look accomidating to the updates as I move files into the complete folder unless I take another step and remember to move it to the library as well.

I hope I have communicated clearly, feel free to ask any questions, and thank you for your advice.
posted by Knigel at 9:49 PM on February 16, 2006

"D'oh! I guess WinAmp mean Windows." - not always, they made a Mac version of Winamp, and no, "MacAmp" wasn't it. That was a separate product.

\"...What are the advantages of changing over to the ITunes sorting methodology? I understand that it can be quite powerful in organisation, but how is it with sharing music with other people? For example, if I were to share my fully legal music with people on a program such as SoulSeek, is there a way to keep it organised? Or would it end up in one big glob of a folder? I am also curious as to how to keep the album pictures with the albums."

Well, your music will have proper idv3 tags, and generally things will be a lot cleaner. I hate downloading mp3s only to find that they're bad rips or are very poorly tagged. iTunes does a good job of tagging & sorting stuff.
posted by drstein at 10:32 PM on February 16, 2006

I am also curious as to how to keep the album pictures with the albums.

Album covers are kept as metadata on a song file, just like artist or title. That's the little window just below the list of playlists in iTunes (last I recall, it's kept open by default). You can drag-and-drop images onto there. (However, if I recall from my roommate going through the same thing, you have to choose an album, choose 'File > Get Info', then drag an image onto the Album Art box to set it for multiple files.)

So far Itunes doesn't look accomidating to the updates as I move files into the complete folder unless I take another step and remember to move it to the library as well.

The idea is that you don't drag music into a folder. This is going to take some getting used to for you WinAmp people, I've seen this in person: you don't drag it into a folder, you drag it into iTunes. It has an 'add songs to my library as they are played' option (or something like that, I'm going off the top of my head here) that, along with the 'keep my music organized' option will basically let you take a file, drag it into iTunes, and then not care about where in the filesystem it's placed - deal with it entirely through iTunes, and let it handle file management.

Again, WinAmp people are used to their own layouts, they're picky about file management. iTunes people (and yes, it's iTunes, not Itunes - someone's gonna bite your head off about it eventually, because some people get anal about it) care more about the music metadata than the file organization. I say pick whichever one you're comfortable with; for me, having multiple playlists without constantly having to find them in a file dialog - not to mention smart playlists - was the killer.

(Disclaimer: I also own a Mac.)
posted by philulrich at 5:53 AM on February 17, 2006

Previous questions about automatically adding album covers in iTunes.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:02 AM on February 17, 2006

Media Center works like a combination of Foobar and iTunes and can either leave your music alone or rearrange it competely or selectively based on your preferences. My directory structure uses something like:
[Artist]\[Artist]__[Album]__[Track #]__[Name]__[Comment]

For some of the more extensively tagged files I add some fields for Producer, Label, Catalog Number, and so on.

You can concatenate any combination of fields (built-in or custom) into a file rename pattern and then apply it wholescale or collectively.

What I really like is that you can also create and apply custom rename patterns to sync profiles, so your files can be renamed on devices according to your preference. For some players that use directory browsing this is a godsend. FOr others like the iPod it's not so critical, but it's still nice to be able to browse the device and see actual filenames instead of that weird obfuscated crap that iTunes likes to dump on disk.
posted by meehawl at 8:36 AM on February 17, 2006

Media Monkey lets you do arbitrary renaming of file structure based on various information in the tags. I used it to recover when Musicmatch did basically the same thing as iTunes, without asking.
posted by Caviar at 1:24 PM on February 17, 2006

Knigel,

You asked about the advantages of iTunes so I'll preach a bit here. I'm not really a "fanboy" as much as I don't see any of the problems everybody else does.

This tiny window constricts my thoughts so I'll just explain in factoids: or opinionoids:

- I set it up to allow iTunes to manage music within my directory. That directory is set up to be "My Music" [I'm on Windows]. Any music I want to add, I first place in My Music/ Then drag that file to iTunes. It then moves that file to where it should be. I bring this up only because iTunes can somehow be set to COPY music into your music folder and that's just a pain.

- iTunes organizes like this: MusicFolder/Artist/Album/Track# - Title.mp3 Does anybody else do anything different? Why not let iTunes handle this? I think people are really upset because they're used to Winamp sorting things by filename only. Databases are the future, man! Dynamic filtering & sorting at anytime!

-Here's the wonderful thing. You can select a bunch of songs from the same artist, hit Ctrl+I, change the album name and it creates a folder for that album underneath the artist, moves the files, everything's fine. Not that it matters to you, because you almost never need to know where the file is. If iTunes knows, why should you care? If you do need it, right click and "show file", the folder opens and you can do what you want. Heck, typing the name into the search area and showing that file is probably quicker than drilling down to find it anyway.

Sorry if this is a rant, but I deal with a lot of databases and enjoy them and the idea of normalization, I have a few friends who are all "iTunes unorganized my music and it is the devil" and I just want to shake them and say "This program is like your flat file structure database but with intelligence and a single window interface, you deserve to have everything screwed up if you don't see the beauty in that!" (The fact that you asked sets you apart.)
posted by Brainy at 2:01 PM on February 17, 2006

iTunes organizes like this: MusicFolder/Artist/Album/Track# - Title.mp3 Does anybody else do anything different?

Exactly. That's all I was doing. I'm happy to let iTunes worry about it.
posted by teece at 3:44 PM on February 17, 2006

Not that it matters to you, because you almost never need to know where the file is. If iTunes knows, why should you care?

Because he might not always use iTunes? Not saying iTunes organization is bad, but if he's got an existing one he's comfortable with, why change it?

I was actually under the impression iTunes could cope with files without NEEDING to import them into its own structures...I don't use use it myself, preferring the lighter weight musikCube which does just that -- it creates an internal iTunes style database without touching the filesystem.

I have problems with any program that wants to mess with my carefully organized files, whether it's music, images or general data. A layer of abstraction is nice, but any individual application needs to know its place and play nice with existing structures and any programs I might decide to replace it with. Again, there's nothing wrong with letting iTunes handle it if you like, but it should be impossible for it to happen accidentally.
posted by Pryde at 4:12 PM on February 17, 2006

Does anybody else do anything different?

You're not really serious, are you?
posted by meehawl at 5:01 PM on February 17, 2006

it should be impossible for it to happen accidentally.

Isn't it? When you choose "have iTunes organise my music", which is not the default, doesn't a big dialog box come up saying "this means we will move all your files around and it cannot be undone"?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:47 PM on February 17, 2006

Well, the original poster evidently was not sufficiently deterred by whatever warning popped up, and reportedly the same thing happened to a few friends of Brainy's. Sounds like there's a usability/design problem somewhere.
posted by Pryde at 7:34 PM on February 17, 2006

^Yeah, I'm generally very good at understanding warnings that say they are about to mess me up. I usually go with my caution. I was actually surprised that it did that since I was under the assumption that Mac was more user friendly, and set up for grandma's first computer. I have fixed the problem with MusicBrains Tagger, but now I'm into contemplating how I can use ITunes(I hope I bug the nitpickers:). I'm grateful for the advice that I've gotten and I can already see some uses.

I think I have one last question for everyone. How does the file structure work with filesharing programs effectively? One SoulSeek and other apps I've seen some ITune directories and was not impressed at all. One of the main reasons for my organisation is not for myself, but for other people.
posted by Knigel at 11:09 PM on February 17, 2006

How does the file structure work with filesharing programs effectively?

Most serious collectors of electronica (especially on Soulseek) organise by publisher/label and then by catalogue number. In this case, my Media Center filename mask would be:

[Label]\[Catalogue#]\[Album]__[Track #]__[Artist]__[Name]__[Mix]__[Alias]__[Producer]


I use the Alias field for the published names of Artists, and the "Artist" field for their most common names. Richard D James, Mike Paradinas, or Pete Namlook are classic culprits that demand lots of flexible Alias< ->Artist fixing.

A windows utility called Bulk Rename is also good here for rationalising downloads into your preferred naming structure. Does fixed and regex replacement.
posted by meehawl at 10:36 AM on February 18, 2006

I was actually surprised that it did that since I was under the assumption that Mac was more user friendly, and set up for grandma's first computer.

"user friendly" means "the machine knows better than you".
posted by Caviar at 11:39 AM on February 18, 2006

Actually "user friendly" means "if you think grandma cares what folders her MP3s are in, you are high, and since she doesn't care, let the computer worry about it." I cannot believe in the 21st century people are worried about filesystem folder hierarchies. (That is to say, I can't believe computers still make us care, I am not bashing those who do care.)
posted by kindall at 1:43 AM on July 31, 2006

Personally, I'm a fan of the filesystem. I like the way it allows me to create symbolic links or Windows shortcuts to any file I like, and organize directories full of those shortcuts any way I want. I like that I can use this technique to organize any collection of files in any way that makes sense to me - in fact, in multiple overlapping ways, if I want - independent of whatever application programs I'm using to get at my stuff.

If I want to make playlists, I just make directories full of shortcuts. If I want to sort my collection by playing time, I just make directories full of shortcuts. If I want to group songs by album, or by year of release, or by bass player, I just make directories full of shortcuts.

I've always hated photo organizers, and although I've never installed iTunes, I suspect I would be in the "evil evil evil" camp if it reorganized my files without giving me a way to undo that.
posted by flabdablet at 4:00 AM on July 31, 2006

I'm a fan of the filesystem. I like the way it allows me to create symbolic links or Windows shortcuts to any file I like, and organize directories full of those shortcuts any way I want. I like that I can use this technique to organize any collection of files in any way that makes sense to me - in fact, in multiple overlapping ways, if I want - independent of whatever application programs I'm using to get at my stuff.

You don't like the filesystem, you like the things you can do with it if you're willing to learn enough about it. There is no reason you should have to subject yourself to the filesystem to have a multi-faceted view of your data. The computer can do all that for you, and should, but doesn't.

It's the twenty-first century. I don't understand why computers still force us to give documents names, why (given that requirement) each file has to have a different name but only if they're in the same directory, why each version of a document has to be a separate file, and 1001 other annoyances we have learned to take for granted.
posted by kindall at 1:17 PM on July 31, 2006

Begging your pardon, but I do like the filesystem. I like it precisely because it doesn't matter what tools I use to play with it; everything understands files.

Files and documents are not the same thing. A file is just a named collection of bits. Computers don't force us to give documents names. There is nothing stopping you from making all your documents anonymous and concatenating them all into one huge file, if that's your pleasure; in fact, that's exactly how most email clients work.

Naming files is useful for the same reason that words are useful. It's handy to be able to refer to things quickly.

We give files in a given directory distinct names for the same reason we don't name all the children in a given family Eamon. I don't understand why you seem to think this is a bad idea.

It's also not true that each version of a document has to be a separate file; there are many different variations on versioning systems, each oriented toward a particular use. There is nothing stopping you from creating documents on-the-fly from a file containing a base version and any number of patch files.

Complaining that the filesystem doesn't do everything is a bit like complaining that bricks aren't wall-like or house-like or paved-path-like enough. The point of a good filesystem (and I will allow as how some are more annoying than others) is that you can build endless useful structures using it.

As for where filesystems are going in the twenty-first century: have a read of Hans Reiser on name spaces and see what you think.
posted by flabdablet at 5:05 AM on August 1, 2006

We give files in a given directory distinct names for the same reason we don't name all the children in a given family Eamon. I don't understand why you seem to think this is a bad idea.

Files aren't children. The requirement for unique names is to let the computer uniquely identify them.

As for why it's a bad idea, teach someone who has never used a computer before why they can't name all their pictures of their son Billy "Billy." I mean, the pictures are of one person, Billy, not separate people named Billy01, Billy02, Billy03, etc. You would be surprised as to how counterintuitive this is. When you have photos in an album, they don't even have names. Imagine if, before you could put photos into an album, you had to name each of them uniquely!

There is nothing stopping you from creating documents on-the-fly from a file containing a base version and any number of patch files.

Okay, tell me how to do that using Word.

The point of a good filesystem (and I will allow as how some are more annoying than others) is that you can build endless useful structures using it.

Sure, if you want to do work a computer should be doing all day. The idea that I'm going to spend hours creating folders full of shortcuts, and then spend additional hours maintaining them? Not. Computer's job.

A database is a much better idea.
posted by kindall at 8:57 AM on August 2, 2006

Files aren't children. The requirement for unique names is to let the computer uniquely identify them.

Actually, it's not; it's to let the computer unambigously and conveniently refer to them, which is exactly the same as the function of children's names with respect to children.

Unique identification, in filesystem terms, is done by inode numbers or FAT cluster ID's or hash keys. Unique identification of children is typically done by face recognition. The attachment of filenames to inode numbers is every bit as arbitrary as the attachment of children's names to children's faces.

Assignment of unique filenames within a directory is analogous to assignment of unique children's names within a family, and is useful for the same reasons.

As for why it's a bad idea, teach someone who has never used a computer before why they can't name all their pictures of their son Billy "Billy." I mean, the pictures are of one person, Billy, not separate people named Billy01, Billy02, Billy03, etc. You would be surprised as to how counterintuitive this is.

Anybody who can understand why all the Harry Potter books aren't all simply called "Harry Potter" can understand this.

When you have photos in an album, they don't even have names. Imagine if, before you could put photos into an album, you had to name each of them uniquely!

Typically, nobody actually has to name their photos anything at all. Typically, the camera gives them some meaningless but unique name perhaps based on a date, and when they're uploaded they get put into a folder with another possibly meaningless name. In this instance the filesystem is doing the minimum work required to keep all the photos distinct and accessible.

Most people can easily be taught to think of the act of uploading photos to their computer as analogous to dropping a stack of negatives into their desk drawer, the name the camera gave the photo as analogous to the frame number on the negative, the act of dropping a shortcut into a folder as analogous to sticking one of an unlimited number of reprints into an album, and the act of renaming a shortcut as analogous to writing a label under the print that's stuck into the album. All of these tasks are, of course, completely optional.

Any decent filesystem GUI will auto-recognize photo files and show you thumbnails without you needing to worry about names, let you drag those thumbnails and drop shortcuts to them in a different folder, and auto-create unique names for the shortcuts. You can work with photo files purely by pointing, clicking, dragging and dropping without needing to pay attention to their filenames at all, much as you can work with physical prints without needing to pay attention to the frame numbers on the back.

I have in fact taught several computer-naive people how to make a folder called "Billy" and drag and drop shortcuts to all their photos of Billy in there, and all of them found this procedure easier to learn and remember and use than having to deal with Yet Another Album Organizer each time they bought a new camera.

At least one of these people was naive enough to be overjoyed to the point of tears after realizing that three years of Kodak photos had not in fact evaporated when her new Nikon camera auto-installed its own album organizer and made it the default camera-connection handler.

They also found the minimal amount of filesystem organization knowledge acquired during these tutorials to be of use for keeping track of other digital documents.

Okay, tell me how to do that using Word.

With Word, you don't even need separate patch files; you just turn on its inbuilt version control stuff and all the patches get saved right inside the same file as the base document.

If Word did in fact have some ability to split revision patches out into separate files, and if it didn't use undocumented proprietary file formats for everything, I think it would be even more useful than it is already.

Sure, if you want to do work a computer should be doing all day. The idea that I'm going to spend hours creating folders full of shortcuts, and then spend additional hours maintaining them? Not. Computer's job.

A database is a much better idea.

If the computer in fact has as much understanding of the material it's organizing as you do, it can auto-index it and save you a lot of time; that much is true. But I don't see why a reasonable objection to manual indexing should make auto-indexing on top of a database any better or worse than auto-indexing on top of a filesystem, if the filesystem is capable of providing the kind of indexing facilities actually required.

I've written, for my own use, a handful of short scripts to build and maintain indexes - in the form of directories full of symlinks - for my own media collection, based on assorted embedded metadata. These indexes are adequate for my purposes, convenient, extensible, mutable, ignorable and future-proof. I can use them with any media player and any form of metadata (including none), and I'm completely free of vendor lock-in. Why? Solely because the underlying filesystem is universally understood. I like the filesystem.

Show me any database at all that's as easy to connect to any arbitrary app as a filesystem is, and I'll reconsider my position.
posted by flabdablet at 8:31 PM on August 2, 2006