Load a folder into iTunes without adding to the library?

November 13, 2007 5:03 PM

I'm looking for an itunes plugin for OS X that will let me have a playlist separate from my library that would monitor a folder. The goal is to have a folder of new music on my computer and have it automatically loaded into itunes without having to add the songs to the actual library. Limewire does something like this for its download folder in windows, but I'd rather not install a whole program to do something like this. Any ideas?
posted by jjbb to computers & internet (18 comments total)

There's no way that I know of to play local songs in iTunes without it being added to the library.

Why not just create a 'recently added' playlist? something like "Songs added in the last week and playcount = 0". Then, as you go through them, either mark them for deletion or rate them.
posted by chrisamiller at 5:08 PM on November 13, 2007

AFAIK, files need to be in the library for iTunes to know anything about them. You can have iTunes keep the files in their original location, but they'll still be in the library.

If you mean you don't want to have to add the songs to the library manually, it's relatively trivial to set up a folder action to automatically add songs that appear in a folder. This page should get you started in that direction.
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:10 PM on November 13, 2007

It should also be possible to create another folder action that removes a song from iTunes if the file is removed from that same folder. Would that get you where you want to go?
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:11 PM on November 13, 2007

Getting folder actions to both add and remove files as they go in or out of a this folder would be the first part.

Would it then be possible to have a smart playlist that would only have these songs in it? A "recently added" would not be ideal due to songs being frequently added that are not in or from that folder and playcount is irrelevant for my purposes.
posted by jjbb at 5:40 PM on November 13, 2007

AppleScript!

First, I've heard that recent iTunes has the capacity for multiple libraries. Investigate that.

With Applescript, you should be able to read the contents of a folder. Create a new Library.(?) Load those files into that library. Activate that library in itunes and play from that.

Reactivate the other library, and then destroy the temporary library.

That's a lot of steps, but AppleScript makes it possible, at least in theory.
posted by cmiller at 6:18 PM on November 13, 2007

I recall that on Windows, one of the columns available for files was the "location" so you could search (and presumably smart playlist) based on some unique folder name or path. I don't see this on my Mac now though. But if there were a trick to get access to this info, you could pair it with folder actions I woudl think.
posted by misterbrandt at 8:46 PM on November 13, 2007

I've got a similar problem with a program called radioshift, and one way I thought of approaching it was to create a quick program which created an rss feed for that folder and then subscribing to that rss feed in iTunes.
posted by seanyboy at 12:34 AM on November 14, 2007

Here's how to make your very own Automator action for this (I just kicked open Automator to see how easy it might be)

1. Open Automator
2. Click "Custom.." in the "wizard" dialog that comes up.
3. Click the "Files & Folders" category on the left
4. Click "Get Folder Contents" and drag it to the empty Automator workflow on the right.
5. Click "Music" from the categories on the left
6. Drag over the "Import Files into iTunes" action. Configure this action as necessary (for instance, a new or existing playlist)
7. File -> Save As Plug-In..
8. Plug-In For.. "Folder Actions"
9. Attached to Folder : (navigate to the folder in question)
10. Give the action some kind of name. Call it whatever you want. Save this file (the plug-in you created is a pointer to this file) somewhere you're not likely to accidentally throw it away.

Like I said, I just tried this out myself and it worked out pretty well. Of note : the action will only run if the folder you're dropping MP3s into isn't open and being viewed at the time. When you close the folder, OS X thinks "ah! it's ready for actions!" and then runs them.
posted by revmitcz at 12:57 AM on November 14, 2007

What is the functionality that you are trying to accomplish here?

If you want to maintain a playlist in iTunes, by definition, it's going to be part of your iTunes library. What is it about being in the library that you want to avoid?

If you have Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) and you just want to play a series of songs without dealing with iTunes at all, you can select them in the Finder and press spacebar. Quick Look will play them in order for you.
posted by designbot at 8:02 AM on November 14, 2007

The idea is to have a separate place in iTunes for new music as a sort of trial period. If it’s good I can easily transfer it into the library (or just remove it from its separation) and if it sucks I can delete it.

Previous setup: I would transfer the music into itunes and add “Temp” to the comment tag. Then a smart playlist would contain all the songs with the Temp comment tag. I could easily remove the comment tag and it would be removed from the playlist, and hence become a normal song in the library.

Problems with my setup: It becomes labor intensive after a while and there is no way (that I know of) to remove songs from the library directly from the playlist. I would have to search out the music individually or by album and delete them from the library.

What I’m trying to figure out:

1. A script to automate adding the files from a designated folder into itunes, deleting the files after, and tagging them with something to differentiate them from the rest of my library.

2. How to easily delete music that sucks with as little manual work as possible.

3. Any other creative strategy I can use to accomplish my goals.

The whole "Not being part of my library" isn't as big of a deal
posted by jjbb at 5:56 PM on November 14, 2007

To answer your 3 figurings-out :

1. Alter the script I explained how to make earlier, by using the "Files & Folders" category again to "move finder items to the trash" after adding them to iTunes. Optionally, if you're looking to tag them within iTunes, there's "Set Info of iTunes Songs" that you can add into that workflow - just after adding them to iTunes and just before the "delete" function I just described.

2. Deleting the music from the playlist is very simple - just select them from that playlist that the files are being auto-dumped to, and hit the "delete" key on your keyboard. If you want them gone from your Library - select a song and either right-click/control-click the song and choose "Show in Playlist -> Music" and delete from there (which actually takes the song out of your Library and its associated place on your hard drive if iTunes is managing your music) or hold the alt/option key while clicking the little iTunes Music Store arrow that comes up when you have a song selected and delete it the same way. The process is identical once you get past how you choose to filter the library.

3. I'm sure there's other creative strategies - but this should do it.
posted by revmitcz at 7:56 PM on November 14, 2007

I can't get the last two steps of automator to work.

The files are found and imported to the library and playlist, but they are not tagged or deleted. Also, I have the "repeat for each subfolder" box checked in the first step, but the script will only work if I move the files directly into the folder and will not work if I move the directory in as a whole.

Any ideas?

This has been amazingly helpful thus far.
posted by jjbb at 8:55 PM on November 14, 2007

The order I have is:

1. Get folder contents
2. Import files into itunes
3. Set info to songs
4. Move finder items to trash
posted by jjbb at 8:57 PM on November 14, 2007

Mkay. I was wrong about setting the info via the Finder. While I'm sure there's an easier way to do this - I'm teaching myself Automator while teaching you what I learned :)

What I found is that if you make a script that JUST adds info to selected iTunes songs and save it as "Plug-In -> Scripts Menu" then it'll work fine. I also discovered that holding down option while hitting the "delete" key on your keyboard in iTunes will automatically delete the song from the library AND the playlist it's in. I just discovered that, so I thought I'd pass it along.

Anyway...

Keep your automator script as it is - but remove the "set info to songs" step. I'm pretty sure you can keep the "move finder items to trash" step in there and it'll work. If it doesn't, add another "get folder contents" action AFTER the "import files to iTunes" step, and then "move finder items to trash" (cause it might just need to re-select those files).

As for the tagging - Make a script like so :
1. Get Selected iTunes Items
2. Set Info of iTunes Songs

Save As.. Plug-in -> Scripts Menu. (I called my test version "setinfo")

Now, you'll see a little scroll-looking icon in your menubar. This can be accessed all the time, from any application. When you're in iTunes, select all the files that you want to apply the special info to (should just be command-A since all the files in your temp playlist will get this info) and then open that scripts menu by clicking the icon, and select the script you made for setting iTunes info.

Again, someone far more knowledgeable than I am could probably give you a much easier solution to this - but it worked for me when I was testing it out.
posted by revmitcz at 11:53 PM on November 14, 2007

Okay - ignore that last post. I figured it out. It was a little tricky but I've got a screenshot of the workflow I used and I tested it out and it's perfect! (finally)

Here's that screenshot
(important note : you'll have to right-click/control-click the "Find Finder Items" action and select "ignore input")

This is assuming you'd be pulling all your MP3s from one folder, and importing all the MP3s in that folder to iTunes. Because it's a search within a folder, it'll automatically grab the items recursively.

Oh, and you can just save the finalized file as a plug-in - no need to save that "pointer file". I was wrong about that. It's just the one file :)
posted by revmitcz at 12:36 AM on November 15, 2007

Got it.

I made 2 minor changes to your script:

I added an additional "date added:today" criteria onto the find songs action so only the newly added songs in the playlist would be tagged.

and I changed the criteria for deletion to size <>
Thanks for all your help. I think this is as close to ideal as I will get.
posted by jjbb at 1:51 PM on November 15, 2007

that should say something about deletion criteria is size less than 1 gig to get rid of anything else i may transfer into there, album art, playlists...
posted by jjbb at 2:06 PM on November 15, 2007

Glad it worked out for ya. I learned a lot about Automator in making this work, so it's all good :)

(oh, and figuring out the option-delete trick in iTunes is gonna change my life)
posted by revmitcz at 10:59 PM on November 15, 2007