General

[Schmitti]

So my wife was moving mp3 (mp4) files from her old laptop to the new computer and had to do all of the copying and pasting through i-tunes.

I tried searching my computer searching for *.mp3 and *.mp4 (because she said i-tunes converts the files to .mp4 unless you tell it otherwise) and nothing came up. Where the heck are these files and how can I get to them outside of i-tunes.... also how the heck can it be legal that i-tunes hides your mp3's from you?

E

[Fluff]

E, try winamp, that is what I use to play games with mt ipod.

[Kindred]

mp4 is an apple video file, more or less the same as a quicktime formatted file.

Red Chair Software makes "Anapod Explorer".
It's a fantastic replacement for iTunes...does NOT require iTunes and allows you to copy in any which direction.

It's the best $30 you'll ever spend.

Does NOT work with the iPod touch however.


Anapod, Notmad Explorer™ Music made easy. MP3 Software. iPod Software, iPod Backup, iTunes Alternative, iPod Transfer, iPod Management, iPod Explorer, iPod Manager, iTunes Replacement. Software for Creative MP3 Players, Creative Nomad Software, Creat

[Schmitti]

So basically it's spend the money or continue to use i-tunes to move files?

WTF?

That seems very shady.

E

[titan aresta]

to find any song's file through itunes start the program up, select the song you want to find, right-click on it, select "Show in Windows Explorer", and you should get a Windows window show up with your file selected file.

IIRC by default all the songs that are in your itunes library should be in My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music, and then organized in folders by artist.

All the recent versions of itunes ask you if you want the program to handle your files after installation, so most likely at one point or another whoever installed itunes on your computer did indeed agreed to have all the files moved.

I'm sure you can also configure how itunes handles all the files (and whether it converts them or not) from within the program's preferences options.

[Sir Brass]

Originally Posted by Schmitti

So basically it's spend the money or continue to use i-tunes to move files?

WTF?

That seems very shady.

E

Songs will not be converted unless you tell iTunes to do so. Thing is that it will convert by default but not until you tell it to start doing so. And it won't convert .mp3 or other files which are playable in itunes. It will convert things such as wma's, which may or may not be able to convert depending on DRM.

iTunes really isn't hard to navigate. I've been using it for years after switching over from winamp (which didn't really work all that great for me). Converted files will be put into the iTunes folder inside your my music folder.

Best thing to do is to go into your settings and set your my music folder as your iTunes music folder and to set it to NOT auto-sort (or cleanup or whatever it wants to call it) your collection. it'll then go through and add all the playable media files in that folder to your iTunes library and will ask if you want to convert any files it finds that it cannot play but recognizes as media that it could play (i.e. wma files). It's that easy.

[HP_Lovecraft]

On the new computer, you can plug in the IPod in thumbdrive mode, and simply copy the songs directly to the computer. Then install the i-tunes, and drag them into it.

I've done that a few times, though the song titles sometimes are encoded.

[flyweightnate]

.aac is another file format it might use, that you could search for. and yeah, it's frustrating.

[DarkStar]

If you copy them via the file system you will loose their filenames (at least I always have). There are software solutions out there to copy the data off the IPOD.

I've used this one: iPodRip But i'm sure there are others.

Are you sure your files are mp3 and not aac? aac is the iTunes default...

[B]

If the songs were not transfered by the i tunes on board transfer the music will be in MP4 or MP3 format depending on age. They will be in the my music folder if you did not change that designation. i have been through this a couple of time having to replay 200 gig of music for itunes to recognize it all over again. I may be in for this all over again as my external hardrive no longer shows up as E drive but now G drive all my music is addressed as E:/ #@#@$%%$% and is no longer found by I tunes. ( another nasty habit my system has it it also puts all new music on my C drive not the E drive) To say I am frustrated with this is to be little the situation.