iPod Help organize my music folders

[Saint47]

So, I use iTunes. My music library is just under 4,000 songs. For the most part, I like iTunes a lot and how it organizes my music. But I have a lot of empty/pointless folders in my music folder that i want to delete. But that isn't the problem. The thing is, I can't just download a utility that deletes empty folders because while there are many empty folders, the majority of the folders won't be considered empty by a utility that is looking for empty folders to delete. For example there are lots of folders that have no music in them, but may have one JPG file or one readme text document that i don't need and i want to delete all the folders like that.

Here is my bottom line question: Is there a way to automatically delete any folder that does not contain audio files? And does anyone have any suggestions to an alternative for getting rid of these useless folders? (besides deleting them each individually...)

 

[GGJstudios]

Assuming all the folders in question are under one folder such as "Music", you could do a search for all files in the "Music" folder, sort by kind, then simply grab and delete anything that's not a music file. That way, all folders that contained only non-music files would be empty.

 

[Saint47]

would that delete my album art?

 

[GGJstudios]

would that delete my album art?

That depends on how you added album art. If you manually add it to each .mp3 file, the album art is contained in the file, so you won't delete the art unless you delete the .mp3. Some file types other than .mp3 cannot contain art. If you let iTunes automatically download album art for your existing library, it doesn't store it in the file, but in a separate folder.

Always look to see what you're deleting before you delete, and don't empty your Trash until you've completed the entire process and have verified that everything is working properly.

 

[mjones185]

That depends on how you added album art. If you manually add it to each .mp3 file, the album art is contained in the file, so you won't delete the art unless you delete the .mp3.

How do you manually add album art to a single mp3?

 

[GGJstudios]

That depends on how you added album art. If you manually add it to each .mp3 file, the album art is contained in the file, so you won't delete the art unless you delete the .mp3.

How do you manually add album art to a single mp3?

Right-click on the song (or group of songs in an album) in iTunes, "Get Info", click on the "Artwork" tab and drag an image into the box, then click OK. I do mine manually because I want the highest-resolution artwork I can find. The artwork that iTunes automatically finds is too grainy for me.

Tip: If you do this from the album grid view, you can right-click on an album, copy the artwork, and it updates all songs in that album:

 

[mjones185]

Right-click on the song (or group of songs in an album) in iTunes, "Get Info", click on the "Artwork" tab and drag an image into the box, then click OK. I do mine manually because I want the highest-resolution artwork I can find. The artwork that iTunes automatically finds is too grainy for me.

Thanks for the info. I thought you were doing it within Finder. I do have another question: I have a cd in iTunes and I added album art to the songs, displays just fine within iTunes but when I got to the folder location where the songs are saved all songs display album art for each MP3 but one song. How do I get it to show the album art in Finder as a thumbnail? I've tried re-adding album art through iTunes with no luck. I also get this on other songs randomly.

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks for the info. I thought you were doing it within Finder. I do have another question: I have a cd in iTunes and I added album art to the songs, displays just fine within iTunes but when I got to the folder location where the songs are saved all songs display album art for each MP3 but one song. How do I get it to show the album art in Finder as a thumbnail? I've tried re-adding album art through iTunes with no luck. I also get this on other songs randomly.

If I understand what you're asking, you have album art added to each song in an album, but when you open Finder and look at the list of files, it doesn't show the album art icon for all the songs. I've seen this from time to time. Try refreshing your Finder window, or closing and opening it again. For some reason, it sometimes takes a minute or two to show up on some files.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Just let iTunes re-organize your music folder. Go to your Preferences>Advanced> (uncheck) Keep Music Folder Organized. Hit ok. Then go back and re-check this item and hit ok. iTunes will sort through your music folder and make it nice and clean (i.e. remove empty folders).

Artwork will be safe.
Music Folder will be nice and neat.

 

[mjones185]

If I understand what you're asking, you have album art added to each song in an album, but when you open Finder and look at the list of files, it doesn't show the album art icon for all the songs. I've seen this from time to time. Try refreshing your Finder window, or closing and opening it again. For some reason, it sometimes takes a minute or two to show up on some files.

That's exactly what I'm talking about except this happen to some songs and it's been months they are like that, several reboots, re-do's, etc. I have about 71,487 MP3's and probably 10% are like that, one or two MP3 is a full CD set will not show album art for the file in Finder.

 

[GGJstudios]

Just let iTunes re-organize your music folder. Go to your Preferences>Advanced> (uncheck) Keep Music Folder Organized. Hit ok. Then go back and re-check this item and hit ok. iTunes will sort through your music folder and make it nice and clean (i.e. remove empty folders).

Artwork will be safe.
Music Folder will be nice and neat.

... Except I don't like the way iTunes manages files. I prefer to do it myself, since it's much better organized than iTunes does.

 

[miles01110]

... Except I don't like the way iTunes manages files. I prefer to do it myself, since it's much better organized than iTunes does.

That's why he suggested you turn off iTunes' automatic management of your music.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

... Except I don't like the way iTunes manages files. I prefer to do it myself, since it's much better organized than iTunes does.

And how is that exactly? I keep a tight ship on my iTunes Library, but I'm open to suggestion.

 

[GGJstudios]

And how is that exactly? I keep a tight ship on my iTunes Library, but I'm open to suggestion.

Because of the size of my library, I prefer to set up folders by:

1. Genre
2. Artist
3. Album

... rather than have thousands of artists in one folder, as iTunes did when I tried that method. Also, I modify the genres to consolidate many of the "sub-genres" that would be automatically generated, so I don't end up with hundreds of genres.

That's why he suggested you turn off iTunes' automatic management of your music.

No, he didn't.

Just let iTunes re-organize your music folder. Go to your Preferences>Advanced> (uncheck) Keep Music Folder Organized. Hit ok. Then go back and re-check this item and hit ok. iTunes will sort through your music folder and make it nice and clean (i.e. remove empty folders).

Artwork will be safe.
Music Folder will be nice and neat.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Because of the size of my library, I prefer to set up folders by:

1. Genre
2. Artist
3. Album

... rather than have thousands of artists in one folder, as iTunes did when I tried that method. Also, I modify the genres to consolidate many of the "sub-genres" that would be automatically generated, so I don't end up with hundreds of genres.

Seems like a lot of extra work unless there's some automatic way of doing it. But to each their own I guess. I honestly could care less how iTunes organizes music.

 

[GGJstudios]

Seems like a lot of extra work unless there's some automatic way of doing it. But to each their own I guess. I honestly could care less how iTunes organizes music.

Since my library has already organized like that for years, it was easier to keep it that way. It's not difficult to maintain, and it's much easier to locate files that way.