Understanding "delete" in iTunes

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David Arnstein - 21 Dec 2007 00:10 GMT

The way I understand it, iTunes offers two kinds of track deletion from
my music library. After highlighting one or more tracks,
1. Pressing the delete key will cause the track to be invisible from
iTunes. But the disk file containing the track (.mp3, .aac, or
whatever) will not be deleted.
2. Pressing <option><delete> will delete the disk file containing the
track, and also remove the track listing from my music library.

I am trying to understand the first method, simply pressing the delete
key. What if I change my mind, and I want to see that track listed in
my iTunes music library again? Is there a way that I can search for
all such "semi-deleted" tracks?

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David Arnstein (00)
arnstein+usenet@pobox.com {{ }}
^^

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David Empson - 21 Dec 2007 00:46 GMT

> The way I understand it, iTunes offers two kinds of track deletion from
> my music library. After highlighting one or more tracks,
> 1. Pressing the delete key will cause the track to be invisible from
> iTunes. But the disk file containing the track (.mp3, .aac, or
> whatever) will not be deleted.

When you start using iTunes, it brings up a dialog box asking whether to
delete the file on disk when you delete it from your library. If you
checked the "Do no ask again" box then it won't ask any more and will
continue to behave the same way.

> 2. Pressing <option><delete> will delete the disk file containing the
> track, and also remove the track listing from my music library.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> my iTunes music library again? Is there a way that I can search for
> all such "semi-deleted" tracks?

If you still have the original file, you can drag it back into iTunes
and it will add it to the library again (optionally copying it to your
iTunes Music foler if it isn't there already).

If the file was still in your iTunes Music folder, I believe there are
third party AppleScripts which let you compare your iTunes library to
the files on disk and add back any missing files. Have a look at Doug's
Applescripts.

If the file was NOT in your iTunes Music folder the you will have to
drag it back in manually.

Note that you can drag a bunch of files into iTunes including some which
are in your library mixed in with some that are not. iTunes will add the
missing ones. In principle, this means you could drag your entire iTunes
Music folder into iTunes to add everything "semi-deleted" back again,
but I haven't tried to do this, and it could take quite a while to sort
through everything.

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David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

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Posterizer - 21 Dec 2007 02:31 GMT

> When you start using iTunes, it brings up a dialog box asking whether to
> delete the file on disk when you delete it from your library. If you
> checked the "Do no ask again" box then it won't ask any more and will
> continue to behave the same way.

(somewhat off-topic caveat to follow)

Theoretically, yes.

I have, for at least a couple major versions of iTunes, found that the
"do not ask me again" checkbox to be unreliable. There are two
different warnings that I get which have that checkbox, and I always
check it, yet both warnings come back fairly often. Unpredictably,
though.

I also find that whenever I connect my iPod, it NEVER opens the browser
view, despite the fact that I turn the browser view on every single time
I connect the iPod, and it is on when I disconnect it. (The browser view
*does* stay on in the main iTunes music library, however.)

Something with the iTunes preferences has just never been completely
reliable for me, and this has been the case since probably iTunes 5 or
maybe even earlier, on different computers.

_d

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / December 2007

Understanding "delete" in iTunes