- 8 About Music and Video Formats
- 9 Import a Music CD into iTunes
- 10 Get CD Track Names Manually
- 11 Add a Music or Video File to Your iTunes Library
- 12 Import Your Existing Digital Music Collection into iTunes
- 13 Add Album Art to Songs
- 14 Submit CD Track Names to the Gracenote Database
- 15 Import a CD with Joined Tracks
- 16 Extract a Secret Track into the iTunes Library
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
12 Import Your Existing Digital Music Collection into iTunes
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Run iTunes for the First Time
Put Your Home Movies and Downloaded Videos on Your iPod
Eliminate Duplicate Tracks
Restore Your Music Library Database from a Backup Copy
Let’s face it: You probably already have a number of MP3 files on your computer. If you’ve been using the Internet for a while, you might have hundreds or even thousands of MP3s, either imported from your CD collection using other software or obtained from the Internet. iTunes makes no judgments about where your music comes from; it organizes it all equally, letting you transform your flat listing of music files in a folder somewhere on your computer into the multilevel database that makes iTunes’ music navigation so easy.
This task lets you bring your collection of MP3 files—no matter how large—into iTunes with a full understanding of the consequences
of the organizational options that iTunes gives you. First you set iTunes to treat imported files the way you want it to;
then you import your music collection—as lengthy a process as that might be—as described in 
Add a Music or Video File to Your iTunes Library.
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Open the Preferences Window
Open the iTunes Preferences window. (In Windows, choose Edit, Preferences; on the Mac, choose iTunes, Preferences.) Click the Advanced tab, and then click General.
Choose to Copy Music Files to the iTunes Music Folder
The Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library check box determines exactly what happens when you import a new file or group of files into the iTunes database. If the check box is enabled, iTunes makes a duplicate of each imported file and places it into an appropriate place in the iTunes Music folder, in subfolders based on the Artist and Album info tags. If the check box is disabled, the iTunes database instead points to added music files wherever in the system they happen to be; it does not duplicate them into its own folder.
The default behavior is to allow iTunes to copy newly added files into its managed folder, which keeps all your music files neatly organized in a single location. You might want to turn this feature off if you like keeping certain “one-off” MP3 files in a certain folder outside your iTunes Music folder for quick access in the Finder or Windows Explorer or by other applications but you also like to use iTunes to play those files from time to time.
Enable the option if you want iTunes to keep its own copy of each music file in its own folder, to do with whatever it needs, while leaving your original copy untouched. Disable the option if you don’t want iTunes making duplicates of all your imported files, a process that doubles the disk space that your music files need (at least until you get rid of the originals).
Choose to Keep Your iTunes Music Folder Organized
The other relevant option in the Advanced tab of the Preferences window is Keep iTunes Music folder organized. With this option enabled, every change you make to the info tags of a file in the iTunes interface is reflected immediately in the files themselves. For instance, if you change the title of a song, the file is renamed in the background to match (with a prefix reflecting the disc number, if it’s part of a CD set, and the track number). If you change the artist name or album name, the folders into which the file is organized are also renamed and the file is moved accordingly. Disable this option if you don’t want iTunes messing around with your files’ names.
For example, if you want to import all your music into iTunes while leaving the files in their original locations on your hard disk and with their original names, disable the Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library option. If you want iTunes to copy your music files to the iTunes Music folder and add them to appropriate locations in the folder tree depending on the initial state of the Artist and Album info tags in each of the files, but not to update the folders or filenames after they’ve been imported, enable the Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library option but disable the Keep iTunes Music folder organized option. If, however, you want to allow iTunes to perform all the organizational duties for which it was designed, taking full advantage of all the flexibility of music files with rich info tag data, leave both options enabled; this means you’ll always be able to navigate to your appropriately named music files in the Finder or Windows Explorer, just as easily as you can in iTunes.
Add Your Music Collection to iTunes
When the two important settings are configured to your liking, click OK to close the Preferences window. Now you’re ready to bring all your music into iTunes.
If you have several music folders and a lot of time on your hands, you can import each folder individually into iTunes as
described in Add a Music or Video File to Your iTunes Library. However, the most fun way—especially if you enabled both organizational options in Steps 2 and 3—is to throw all your files
into iTunes at once, even if you have thousands of songs in your collection. To do this, first consolidate your music collection
by placing all your folders of MP3s into a single parent folder. Then drag the parent folder into the song listing area of
the iTunes window and release the mouse button when you see the + icon on your mouse pointer.
Depending on the speed of your computer and the number of files you have, the length of the ensuing process can be several minutes or more, even up to the better part of an hour. As iTunes copies and sorts your music files, you can watch them being filed away into the appropriate folders within your iTunes Music folder. iTunes will be unresponsive, but using the Finder or Windows Explorer, you can watch your music collection be organized for you while you wait.
Fill Out Missing Info Tags
Now begins a task that will probably take you days, if not weeks or months, to finish to your satisfaction, depending on how
obsessively neat you are: editing all the newly imported entries in the iTunes database so that all their info tags are properly
filled out. Whether you’ve chosen to let iTunes update the underlying filenames or not, keeping the info tags correctly updated
is important to allowing you to navigate efficiently, set up Smart Playlists based on the info tags, and share the music over the local network or to your iPod in such a way that you can navigate it
smoothly. See 
Examine and Modify Song Information Tags for more information on updating your songs’ details, and 
Add Album Art to Songs to enhance your songs with appropriate album art.