Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions iTunes, how not to create a duplicate library?

I almost put this in another thread where the topic came up but didn't want to hijack it too hard.

When I loaded iTunes on the weekend I did my best to find a setting where it wouldn't re-copy all of my music library to it's own library, thus doubling my music storage needs. Seems simple, but I couldn't seem to do it.

Can somebody please tell me how to play nice and just use the library I already have. I know it won't ever be perfect as it want's to recode the WMA tunes regardless of where they are.

Also, to further the info for anyone who can answer the question, my current library is divided into Three main folders (and subfolders for artists, album, of course).

--FLAC: for all my CD conversions.
--MP3: for downloads where I have only mp3 or wma versions
--MP3 Copies: For CDs I ripped into FLAC but also ripped into MP3 for portable music players.

My Squeezebox points to FLAC and MP3 to access every song.
My MP3 players should access MP3 & MP3 Copies to have every song.


Now iTunes has created yet another folder, a duplicate of all 5000+ songs from MP3 and MP3 Copies.

Is there any way to just point at other folders without it creating it's own library files? I'll probably try to google up the good or bad news tonight but you guys are always a wealth of knowledge so I'll ask here too. That way, I get an answer and you get to make fun of my incompetence.

Thanks all!

Ugh, I too learned all this the hard way.

1) Go to iTunes -> Preferences
2) Go to Advanced
3) Uncheck Keep iTunes Media Folder organized
4) Uncheck Copy files to iTunes Media Folder

The iTunes Media Folder location should point to where you music is located.

If you drag files from the finder/Explorer into iTunes and/or Playlists, the files will be added to the iTunes XML database but it will stay in it's original location.

OK, go to the Advanced Settings/Preferences section. Uncheck the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library."

Thanks folks, I had found the "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library." option but that did not work on it's own. I never would have guessed that the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" had to also be unchecked.

Thank You Greatly.

DAMN those apples.