Red Mosquito :: View topic - iTunes

Amigos,

A quick explanation of my situation, then a couple questions...thanks in advance:

Most of the music collection on my laptop is in the form of WMA files (Windows Media Audio). They came mostly from ripping my CD collection to my hard drive using Windows Media Player, and then I have a bunch of others that I downloaded (as MP3's?) via Napster back in college.

They are located in various folders in the My Music folder on my computer (Rock, Rap, Country, etc.). By default, any time I rip a CD using Windows Media Player, it automatically creates a new folder (under the name of the artist) in the My Music folder and sends them straight there. From there I move them into the appropriate genre folder, then add them to my iTunes after that (at which point they're converted).

I have an HP laptop running Windows XP by the way if that's important.

I have added all these songs (which had to be converted to whatever file type iTunes uses) over to my iTunes on my laptop. There is a folder called "iTunes" within the My Music folder that appears to contain my entire music collection (or most of it, anyway) in the form of M4A and MP3 files...those must be the formats iTunes recognizes, as opposed to WMA, no? Instead of sorting by genre, it automatically sorted those by artist name.

As you can see I'm confused.

QUESTION 1: If I delete all these songs from the My Music folders (Rock, Rap, Country, etc.) to free up space on my hard drive, will they still be on my hard drive? I feel like I now have unnecessary duplicate copies of all these songs eating up space on my hard drive. I must, because I deleted a couple songs from My Music to test this theory, and they still played when I ran them on iTunes.

QUESTION 2: When I get a new computer, if I had since deleted these songs from My Music folder, how do I transfer my iTunes library from one computer to another? Is there any way for me to transfer them all FROM my iPod TO the new computer? And for that matter, what happens to all the songs that I've used iTunes to download (and thus never had a WMA copy of them in the My Music folder)?

QUESTION 3: Am I correct to assume that my entire music collection as it appears on iTunes is also sitting there in the iTunes folder within the My Music folder, sorted by artist? And therefore I can just copy those over to my new hard drive and load them to iTunes from there? And therefore the genre folders of WMA songs in my My Music folder are unnecesarry duplicates?

What it comes down to is that I would like to delete everything from the My Music folder (WMA files) if I know that I don't run the risk of losing them forever...in other words, they'll be still present in my iTunes Library (in another file format I assume) and I will have a way to safely transfer them over to my new computer.

HELP??!!??!!

Gracias! Mucho, mucho gracias!

Author:	Bammer [ Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:30 pm ]
Post subject:	iTunes - Technical Questions
Amigos, A quick explanation of my situation, then a couple questions...thanks in advance: Most of the music collection on my laptop is in the form of WMA files (Windows Media Audio). They came mostly from ripping my CD collection to my hard drive using Windows Media Player, and then I have a bunch of others that I downloaded (as MP3's?) via Napster back in college. They are located in various folders in the My Music folder on my computer (Rock, Rap, Country, etc.). By default, any time I rip a CD using Windows Media Player, it automatically creates a new folder (under the name of the artist) in the My Music folder and sends them straight there. From there I move them into the appropriate genre folder, then add them to my iTunes after that (at which point they're converted). I have an HP laptop running Windows XP by the way if that's important. I have added all these songs (which had to be converted to whatever file type iTunes uses) over to my iTunes on my laptop. There is a folder called "iTunes" within the My Music folder that appears to contain my entire music collection (or most of it, anyway) in the form of M4A and MP3 files...those must be the formats iTunes recognizes, as opposed to WMA, no? Instead of sorting by genre, it automatically sorted those by artist name. As you can see I'm confused. QUESTION 1: If I delete all these songs from the My Music folders (Rock, Rap, Country, etc.) to free up space on my hard drive, will they still be on my hard drive? I feel like I now have unnecessary duplicate copies of all these songs eating up space on my hard drive. I must, because I deleted a couple songs from My Music to test this theory, and they still played when I ran them on iTunes. QUESTION 2: When I get a new computer, if I had since deleted these songs from My Music folder, how do I transfer my iTunes library from one computer to another? Is there any way for me to transfer them all FROM my iPod TO the new computer? And for that matter, what happens to all the songs that I've used iTunes to download (and thus never had a WMA copy of them in the My Music folder)? QUESTION 3: Am I correct to assume that my entire music collection as it appears on iTunes is also sitting there in the iTunes folder within the My Music folder, sorted by artist? And therefore I can just copy those over to my new hard drive and load them to iTunes from there? And therefore the genre folders of WMA songs in my My Music folder are unnecesarry duplicates? What it comes down to is that I would like to delete everything from the My Music folder (WMA files) if I know that I don't run the risk of losing them forever...in other words, they'll be still present in my iTunes Library (in another file format I assume) and I will have a way to safely transfer them over to my new computer. HELP??!!??!! Gracias! Mucho, mucho gracias!

Author:	cutuphalfdead [ Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:33 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: iTunes - Technical Questions
I don't have itunes on my computer anymore so I can't say with the utmost specificity, but there's an option in settings that tells itunes to copy all the music you import into the itunes music folder. If that option is selected they files exist independently within the itunes music folder, if that's not checked when itunes plays the song it pulls it from the original folder you had it in. So if you use the first option you can delete the originals but if not you can't. Also, take it to tech support.

Author:	Rebar [ Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:04 am ]
Post subject:	Re: iTunes - Technical Questions
as far as transferring them to your new computer, there is a setting in your iPod screen in iTunes that allows you to change your iPod to a disk drive and essentially use it as an external hard drive. You can copy your music that way, or just run a USB cable from one computer to another.

Author:	nepal [ Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:38 am ]
Post subject:	Re: iTunes - Technical Questions
Bammer wrote: Amigos, A quick explanation of my situation, then a couple questions...thanks in advance: Most of the music collection on my laptop is in the form of WMA files (Windows Media Audio). They came mostly from ripping my CD collection to my hard drive using Windows Media Player, and then I have a bunch of others that I downloaded (as MP3's?) via Napster back in college. They are located in various folders in the My Music folder on my computer (Rock, Rap, Country, etc.). By default, any time I rip a CD using Windows Media Player, it automatically creates a new folder (under the name of the artist) in the My Music folder and sends them straight there. From there I move them into the appropriate genre folder, then add them to my iTunes after that (at which point they're converted). I have an HP laptop running Windows XP by the way if that's important. I have added all these songs (which had to be converted to whatever file type iTunes uses) over to my iTunes on my laptop. There is a folder called "iTunes" within the My Music folder that appears to contain my entire music collection (or most of it, anyway) in the form of M4A and MP3 files...those must be the formats iTunes recognizes, as opposed to WMA, no? Instead of sorting by genre, it automatically sorted those by artist name. As you can see I'm confused. QUESTION 1: If I delete all these songs from the My Music folders (Rock, Rap, Country, etc.) to free up space on my hard drive, will they still be on my hard drive? I feel like I now have unnecessary duplicate copies of all these songs eating up space on my hard drive. I must, because I deleted a couple songs from My Music to test this theory, and they still played when I ran them on iTunes. QUESTION 2: When I get a new computer, if I had since deleted these songs from My Music folder, how do I transfer my iTunes library from one computer to another? Is there any way for me to transfer them all FROM my iPod TO the new computer? And for that matter, what happens to all the songs that I've used iTunes to download (and thus never had a WMA copy of them in the My Music folder)? QUESTION 3: Am I correct to assume that my entire music collection as it appears on iTunes is also sitting there in the iTunes folder within the My Music folder, sorted by artist? And therefore I can just copy those over to my new hard drive and load them to iTunes from there? And therefore the genre folders of WMA songs in my My Music folder are unnecesarry duplicates? What it comes down to is that I would like to delete everything from the My Music folder (WMA files) if I know that I don't run the risk of losing them forever...in other words, they'll be still present in my iTunes Library (in another file format I assume) and I will have a way to safely transfer them over to my new computer. HELP??!!??!! Gracias! Mucho, mucho gracias! Okay, first of all, you can copy music from your iPod to your computer, I made a user manual for that a while ago. My iTunes is not in english, but the manual is written in english and you can find all the menus from the same place. Here's the 6 page manual I made with screencaptures: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CDISNLXC Edit: I guess the real benefit of the manual is when you have music on your iPod which you don't have on your computer, and you want to back it up/transfer it to your computer. Question 1: Yeah you have duplicate files on your computer. One copy of you music is in the folder where you have ripped/downloaded it, and when you have installed iTunes and added your music to it, it has copied and reorganized all the music to the My Music/iTunes folder. This is also something you can prevent from happening from iTunes settings. Not sure whether it plays it now from the original source or the iTunes/My Music -folder, but should be easy to find out. I will write more if you haven't solved the issue yet.

Author:	Bammer [ Mon Oct 04, 2010 9:28 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: iTunes - Technical Questions
Thanks again. I sent ALL of my music to an external hard drive, then deleted everything from my computer's hard drive except for the iTunes folder. You're right, I did have duplicate files and when I open up iTunes everything seems to work just fine.

Red Mosquito http://archive.theskyiscrape.com/

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