Filed under: How-tos, Odds and ends, iTunes
iTunes 9 Focus: iTunes Media organization
iTunes was never known for organizing things well in the Finder. It pretty much just dumped everything in your iTunes Music folder, whether it was an album, movie, or a season of TV shows. You could still find what you were looking for, but it was kind of a pain, because you'd have to scroll past potentially hundreds of music albums before you got to your Movies or TV Shows folders.In iTunes 9, there's a new feature that remedies this organization problem, appropriately named iTunes Media organization. It moves your folders around into a much more logical structure, with separate folders for audiobooks, iPhone apps, movies, music, podcasts, ringtones, TV shows, and voice memos.
Another extremely useful organizational feature that's come out in iTunes 9 is a new folder named "Automatically add to iTunes." This folder does exactly what it says; drag a file into it, and not only will it be added to iTunes immediately, it will also automatically move to the appropriate folder. So, for example, if you drag a movie file into the "Automatically add to iTunes" folder, it'll show up your iTunes library immediately, and it'll also automatically move to the iTunes Music > Movies folder. This makes it easier than ever to keep things organized.
Sweet, sweet organization, how I love thee
One thing to keep in mind if you're backing up using Time Machine: sadly, Time Machine isn't smart enough to know that your files have merely been moved around, not deleted and re-added. So if you upgrade to iTunes Media organization, Time Machine will back up your entire iTunes library again. This might not be a big deal to you if your iTunes library isn't very big, but if you're one of those people toting around half a terabyte of media files, you might want to think twice before upgrading to the new organization scheme. My library was only 78 GB, but that still entailed deleting five months worth of backups from my Time Capsule and an overnight backup.
The "Automatically add to iTunes" folder is enabled automatically when you install iTunes 9, and is located in the /Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ folder for each user on the Mac. This happens whether you enable iTunes Media organization or not, so all you'll be losing by not upgrading to the new organization scheme is the peace of mind of having a far less cluttered library in the Finder. Unless you're a fiend for organization, it might not be worth the hassle of backing up your entire iTunes library again.
Note to readers: the last paragraph was rewritten to clarify how the Automatically Add to iTunes folder works, how it is enabled, and where to find it.
The "Automatically add to iTunes" folder is enabled automatically when you install iTunes 9, and is located in the /Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ folder for each user on the Mac. This happens whether you enable iTunes Media organization or not, so all you'll be losing by not upgrading to the new organization scheme is the peace of mind of having a far less cluttered library in the Finder. Unless you're a fiend for organization, it might not be worth the hassle of backing up your entire iTunes library again.
Note to readers: the last paragraph was rewritten to clarify how the Automatically Add to iTunes folder works, how it is enabled, and where to find it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Carrie said 7:40PM on 9-10-2009
i dream of storing my tv shows and movies on an external hard drive and everything else on my internal hard drive. it wasn't previously possible even with the help of aliases. anyone know if it's possible yet?
Reply
frankie said 8:05PM on 9-10-2009
It has been possible for a while now, just uncheck the "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" I do this for all of my movies, then when I add music I turn it back on.
I don't know how to do it if you buy all of your media from the iTunes store, I add all of my stuff from DVD backups.
Phil Boardman said 8:10PM on 9-10-2009
If you mount your external / remote drive, move all your movies over, then delete the "Movies" folder under "iTunes Music". "Create an Alias" of the folder where your movies are now mounted, rename it "Movies" and place it in the "iTunes Music" folder.
jadam said 8:50PM on 9-10-2009
Even if you have the option checked to move your media to the iTunes folder, if you hold down option+command while you drag the media in, it won't copy the files. I keep my movies and TV shows on an external drive while my music remains on the internal drive, and it works great.
huth.sebastian said 6:26AM on 9-11-2009
Yes. It was possible with iTunes 8. It's just a bit of a hassle, you have to open every single file you want to add in QuckTime, then save it as a reference (only gives you a file a couple hundred kB big) and add that file to iTunes.
You can't move the file afterwards though without going through it again, so organize your library on your hard drive in advance.
I don't know what it does with syncing them to an iPhone or iPod, never tried it because I only used that method with divx files.
cole said 8:30PM on 10-11-2009
Curious what option you chose from the replies to your comment.
ack154 said 7:40PM on 9-10-2009
Now if they would just give me a little more control over file names.
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Devin said 7:42PM on 9-10-2009
Oddly, it still all lives in a folder called “iTunes Music”. However, if you set up a new user, it names it “iTunes Media”, so I think the fact that it doesn’t rename it when updating is just a bug. I manually renamed mine after upgrading my library and didn’t have any problems (other than big Time Machine backups, of course).
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Joshua Meadows said 7:47PM on 9-10-2009
Maybe I'm obtuse but how do you enable the media organization thing?
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J Doss said 7:49PM on 9-10-2009
Thanks for asking, I didn't want to look stupid. :)
Adam said 7:52PM on 9-10-2009
Yeah, the article neglects to mention that; it's File > Library > Organize Library.
R2B2 said 7:54PM on 9-10-2009
Yes, it would have been nice to have been mentioned in the article, but alas I have found it… it's under the File > Library menu.
Joshua Meadows said 7:54PM on 9-10-2009
Ah okay great, thanks. I knew there was a consolidate library option but I couldn't find it again for the life of me.
R2B2 said 7:55PM on 9-10-2009
Err, what he said ^
William Slater said 7:55PM on 9-10-2009
Precisely where would one enable this function??
Jeff said 8:40PM on 9-10-2009
Yeah, i read and re-read the article that stupidly never mentions HOW to use the new feature. :\
d3bruts1d said 9:58AM on 9-11-2009
Thanks @Adam!
Brad said 8:04PM on 9-10-2009
I opted for the Media organization and it was fairly quick for my large library, however, a few Artists folders remained in my iTunes Music Folder and were not properly placed into their respective media folder. It even split my Charlie and the Chocolate Factory album into two, with track 18 labeled Danny Elfman and the other tracks were placed in a folder named Original Soundtrack. Not sure why it did that, so I manually fixed it.
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pathumx said 12:51AM on 9-11-2009
yeah that happened to me too, how did you fix it?
Janichsan said 3:57AM on 9-11-2009
*raises hand*
Same here. Most artist folders made it safely into the "Music" subfolder, but quite a few remained. :(