iTunes files help?

Hi all,

Here's my situation...I need to make some more room on my laptop and my music is the biggest culprit in taking up space. I think I know the reason why but I don't know what to do about it...

I use iTunes, but I didn't when I first had the laptop, I got it a few months after. So, I had already loaded all my music on my laptop into My Documents --> My Music. Then, I got iTunes, which created me the folder My Documents --> My Music --> iTunes Music (a kinda subfolder - think everyone with iTunes has this).

My problem is that, when iTunes did its thing with loading up for the first time when I installed it, it copied across all my music to this subfolder, meaning I have it all twice (is that right?) - once in the original format and once in iTunes format. Now, obviously since then, I have added lots of new music to my laptop, and I believe this has just been saved into the original music folder My Documents --> My Music (but they still play in iTunes). So I have a mixture of old and new music in between these 2 folders!

Anyway I was wondering if there was a way to delete the duplicated files from these 2 folders. After looking through iTunes I've found a way of deleting duplicate songs, so I did that and it eased some space...but as far as original file locations go, I think I have the same songs twice between "My Music" and "My iTunes music".

The last thing I wanna do is mess about so that songs don't play in iTunes because I've removed the original file path, so I have to be careful here cos we're talking about a lot of music, but it would be good to get rid of them so my laptop isn't so sloooow!

I've heard about doing consolidate library, but am worried this will give me 2 of everything...will it?

Any help would be much appreciated, I hope I explained it clearly enough!

Liam

 

I can't tell you exactly how right now because I am not on my Mac but I believe if you go into the iTunes preferences there is a way to tell it not to copy the files to their own folder. This will prevent iTunes from duplicating them and you should be able to just use your original music folder instead.

 

Hi Anthony - thanks for that...if there was any way you could let me know exactly how to do that, that would be great

 

Hey Liam,

I am not sure how Windows iTunes works but the Mac version I go like this.

iTunes>>Preferences>>Advanced Tab

Then there is a check box Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library. I think that's the one you want to uncheck and also you might have to change the Music folder location to your default music folder rather than iTunes. If you have the exact same files in both music folders I would just delete the iTunes one and then clear your library, then uncheck the box and change your folder and re add all the files. I hope this isn't confusing you haha. That way it would just keep it more organized in my opinion.

 

Hi there - I will probably try that Clone Remover software ... but before I do, does that just remove duplicated songs (as in, if the song name is the same), or does it remove the duplicate files between your folders "My Music" and "My iTunes Music"...if that makes sense...? Thanks.

 

Why not simply use software that detects identical files? This program finds identical file pairs (triplets, etc.), based on file content, not file name. This is what I would personally use in your situation.

http://majorgeeks.com/Easy_Duplicate_File_Finder_d5695.html