OMG I'm ready to shoot myself. F#$#$ ITUNES

[djlightsout06]

I love my iPhone, i really do. But why does itunes have to be the suckiest, slowest, most unintuitive piece of **** software I've ever used? I hate it. Is there a good Itunes alternative for the iPhone before I take my iPhone and beat myself to death with it in frustration?

I have an mp3 folder. Inside this mp3 folder I have a gazillion of other folders. One for each album, and each folder has a playlist for the album. All I want to do is control click every album's folder then add the folders to itunes. But since I have playlists inside them I get duplicates. Like I said I have a billion folders so going through them all and deleting the playlist would be a pain in the ass. Is there a way for me to go about doing this?

[BigCiX]

Welcome to EIC.

[acosmichippo]

i'm assuming you're on a Windows computer...

...if so, i would add all of your folders to your library like you really want to do, and then remove the duplicates. Now, iTunes has a tool for this very situation. It's been a while since i used it in iTunes for windows, but i think it's in the "advanced" menu... "show duplicates" or something like that. Once you find that, i would order them by the "date modified"... hopefully that separates the duplicates from playlists fairly well so you can delete them in bulk easily.

[djlightsout06]

i'm assuming you're on a Windows computer...

...if so, i would add all of your folders to your library like you really want to do, and then remove the duplicates. Now, iTunes has a tool for this very situation. It's been a while since i used it in iTunes for windows, but i think it's in the "advanced" menu... "show duplicates" or something like that. Once you find that, i would order them by the "date modified"... hopefully that separates the duplicates from playlists fairly well so you can delete them in bulk easily.

That doesn't seperate the dupes well at all. I would have to ctrl click thru 132412341234 dupes to delete them which is a huge pain in the ass :( , I give up.

[psylichon]

In Windows' file explorer, search your main iTunes library folder for playlist files and select all the results and delete them or move them to another directory (not sure if they will be any good if you do that. I don't use playlist files)

I think that should work.

[oakie]

uh...

go into your start menu, and in the search box, type "*.ipl" with no quotes... or whatever the type of playlist format you use, be it "*.xcl" or "*.m4u". the asterisk just stands for "wildcard" and will cull every playlist on your computer.

once the search in completed, it will have every playlist file you have all in one explorer window where you can highlight all by using ctrl+a and ctrl+x to cut them... then just paste them into a folder on your desktop to preserve them if you so choose or just ctrl+d to delete them.

once removed, you can then import all of your music into itunes by using: file > import folder

if you want itunes to manage your music for you, you can choose within the prefs to "have itunes manage my music folder" and "copy music to itunes folder". if you choose to do this, all your music will be duped into the itunes default music folder, usually: (user name) > documents (or 'my documents' in XP) > music > itunes > itunes music. this would be especially handy if you choose to preserve your playlist files so u can put them back into their original folders using the undo option in the explorer search window you used to find them all in the first place and without duping them in your default itunes folder... therefore you'll be able to run itunes smoothly AND have an archive of all of your music exactly how you wanted it.

or you can just have itunes run from your established library once you've culled the playlists out... just make sure you dont put the playlist files back into their respective folders and keep them separated to prevent accidental duping.


no need to get frustrated and have a tantrum in a new forum. just learn how to use your operating system.



edit: yeah, what the guy above me said, but mine is the "it took 10 minutes to type it" version"

[psylichon]

I was lazy. Nice guide.

I hated iTunes too, until I had all my stuff tagged properly.

[oakie]

I was lazy. Nice guide.

I hated iTunes too, until I had all my stuff tagged properly.
i just assumed he needed very specific instructions since he wasnt aware of the wildcard search function in the first place.

and i personally think itunes has gotten too bloated for its own good beginning with v7. i wish apple had a micro-app just for managing the iphone without having to fire up itunes and leave itunes strictly for music and media syncing only.

but i agree, it does run much smoother after getting all of your files in order. i purchased Tune Up to take care of it for me and it does work quite well for 99% of the files and album art. the last 1% can be done by hand in a few hours in my case. worth the purchase price considering i had a lot to clean all at once when i finally decided to take it on.

[gingerwave]

I'm about to buy a new laptop. Is itunes really that much better on a MAC? thx http://imageplace.info/img/990/d08c1113rufk/laugh4.gif

[Napoleon_PhoneApart]

I prefer the old Agent Ransack to Windows Search; it's available at:

http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/Page.aspx?page=download

Much faster than the Windows Search.

[impaler]

Wow, you need a hug.