iTunes help

It's never occured to me before. I know iTunes keeps an automatic backup but it hasn't done that in over a month.

I imagine Erik means clicking File > Export Library and saving it as an xml (?) file.

If you look at the iTunes folder in My Documents it will contain a folder called Previous iTunes Libraries.

I'm not sure how often it backs it up or if it is possible to control the frequency it does this.

I back up the folder, but the backup only contained the backup.

I'm sure there's not going to be a helpful answer to this - because it is about searching in iTunes.

Is it possible to find new releases the last week in iTunes? I go to music>soundtrack and scroll down to select "new releases" and then re-order them by release date and the most recent hit is almost a month ago. And it looks like it's a featured album rather than the most recent.

For example, I know that Mikael's most recent Screamworks Records release, Dawning, is released today. And searching in iTunes I find it no problem. But trying to find it as a title that is released today is almost impossible.

It looks like that, if you know something is released and you know all the details then it is relatively easy to find. But if you are not looking for something specific, and only looking for an overview of what's new on offer then forget it.

Is this a fair assessment of searching on iTunes?

Concerning the cloud... this is probably the info you are seeking.
http://www.apple.com/ca/icloud/features … tunescloud

As for the download button... maybe it's to upgrade your purchases to a higher bit rate... which will still cost you money to do so.

-Erik-

I have all my favourite tracks listed in iTunes but whenever I want to listen to entire scores I tend to use MediaMonkey. I know that I could easily add my entire collection to iTunes by (I assume) asking iTunes to monitor the specific part of the hard disk where these files are.

I have a couple of questions:

1) If I have all my CDs on an external hard disk, will iTunes "throw a wobbly" if the hard disk is not connected? Would iTunes list all the tracks it found on the disk at a previous scan of the disc but would just not be able to play them if asked and if the disk is not connected?

2) If I wanted to make a "smart playlist" of all these complete CDs could I set up a rule for the smart playlist purely on the grounds of the location? The reason I ask this is that my favourites are collected in a smart playlist using the genre "soundtrack". If I added all my CDs to iTunes and, if they are all genred as "soundtrack", would they be added to my current favourites smart playlist?

Doing a bit of research, I think that the answer to my question is "no".

And I think that I would be loathe to change anything in my iTunes set-up because it's all working fine at the moment.

Hmmm. I originally thought that it could have been with a problem with the files themselves until you said that the problem is the same after re-downloading but at different points.

In my experience, the files themselves may be the problem.

I bought an album off iTunes and all the tracks had skips, clicks, etc 3-4 times in each track. I contacted iTunes about it. They refunded my purchase.

I then contacted the composer himself to alert him of the problem. He was kind enough to send me "good" tracks and he said he would contact iTunes about it. I just checked that album and it still has the clicks and hisses on the clips. So, nothing seems to have been done.

Perhaps I would contact iTunes, get refunds and look somewhere else for the album(s).

What are the albums? Maybe someone has encountered the same issue.

Does your track time show the proper time on your media player and then just jumps part way through? Or are the tracks themselves shorter than they are advertised?

Is it common for iTunes to just "forget" a huge portion of your library?

I was a little confused today when I noticed it only contained music from 2006 onwards.

All my files still existed in the iTunes folder and I just had to import them again. Maybe the library file became corrupt.

This is the most logical answer. I backup my library file weekly just in case something like this happens.

-Erik-

This sounds correct. I don't think iTunes can delete files by accident, simply forget where they are.

Anyway, if you can, back up your entire hard disk.

I'm trying to think ahead to when my laptop hard disk is getting too full with all my iTunes library tracks. I want to move my files to an external hard drive and have iTunes know where they have all gone. I am assuming that this is going to be tricky and would like some advice on how best to do it.

For all the files I have in my iTunes library about 50% are in the default "users/username/My Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music" folder. However, the remaining (early tracks) are in three different folders in the "users/username/My Music" folder and iTunes is linked to these folders via the settings in iTunes itself.

Is the way to go:
1) try to migrate the files over "as is" to the new drive and re-associate music in iTunes
2) move over the files to the external hard drive and create a new library with all files in the same place
3) use the opportunity to dump iTunes as my media player (& only for iTunes store access) and use a different media player?