Help with iTunes

[CocheseUGA]

Well, it looks like iTunes replicated 75-80% of my library under the iTunes folder. Which sucks for two reasons, because that's (A) 18GB of wasted space, and (B) it screws up my other music players. I'm trying out MediaMonkey now and loading all the album art for my upcoming Zune purchase.

Is there any setting in iTunes to delete the copies, and keep my purchases intact? I don't want to delete any music that I won't be able to get back.

The only way I can think of is to have two folders open of the original and iTunes copies in Explorer and visually delete copies. Is there a better way?

BTW, just deleting iTunes isn't going to be an answer. I'm planning on still using my Mini, and the wife has a Shuffle.

 

[efmchico]

I think the easiest way would be to open itunes and go to yourou music library. Right click on one of the column names (name / artist / etc) and be sure that the "Kind" is chosen. This lists the type of file it is (Mpeg or Protected AAC and the protected ones)
Then go to View and Show Duplicates
This shows all the duplicate songs, then you can pick the songs to delete them by right click on them and hitting delete or hitting the backspace key it should ask you to send them to the trash (and don't delete the ones you purchased)

Hope this helps

 

[Vinny]

You can turn off the feature that makes iTunes do that- it's on by default and it's a bitch.

It's in the preferences somewhere, there's an option for whether or nor you want to let iTunes manage your music. That'll stop iTunes for screwing with your music files any longer but I'm not sure whether or not it'll take care of what it's already done.

And I don't think you can do anything about purchases, those'll go to a pre-defined folder though I believe you can change that.

 

[CocheseUGA]

Yeah, I had turned it off some time ago, even more reason why I can't go in and mass delete.

I think I'm going to go through and make sure all my files are organized in Windows first. I still had a ton of songs I didn't encode from the last time I did this. I think I'll do this, then compare folder sizes/contents.

Or, burn all my purchased music again (just for safe measure - only about 24 songs) and uninstall iTunes. I'm sure it will be a long project if I do it the first way.

The problem I have with all my loose music is all the shit I downloaded a few years ago (Statute of Limitations is up, RIAA dickwads). I'm having to go through there and clean up the files where people put underscores and "ripped by" stuff. Annoying, but the price was nice.

It's funny though, speaking of the RIAA and downloading: Once I stopped downloading, I stopped buying CDs.