Completed Task: 63. Organise I-Tunes Music

In completing this task I learned one, very important thing…Think about ditching iTunes.

One of the reasons I was so keen to organise my iTunes music is because when my laptop crashed last year, I had my music recovered and put on cd’s.  Once this was done I didn’t add iTunes to the new computer straight away and thus had no way to update my music supply on the iPod.  The other thing was that I knew I had to get all my music back into iTunes before I could add new music or else what was on my iPod would be wiped and replaced with the current empty iTunes library (a not so handy and much complained about function).

So when I set out to complete this task one of the first things I attempted to do was to put my music back into iTunes.  Unfortunately this was not as easy as I had thought.  Firstly, some of my music was missing or unplayable and secondly, you are only allowed a certain amount of times to re-access any music you purchased from the iTunes store (I believe it is currently set at 5).  Initially I had bought quite a lot of music from iTunes so wasn’t very happy about losing out opportunities to re-access it and nor was I keen to wipe of my iPod music that was working but that couldn’t be re-transferred back into iTunes.  Oh yes and one other thing…I had lost all my playlists.

If I am starting to not make sense, then I apologise and let me explain in more simpler terms…I was about to:

1. Lose music that was currently playing fine from my iPod
2. Lose all of my Playlists
3. Limit the amounts of times I could access music I had paid for through iTunes
4. Cause myself a headache

I knew that there most be a better and more user-friendly way to do this so I did some google searching and came across a lovely piece of software called Anapod from Red Chair Software.  Anapod helps you move your music in both directions, both to and from your iPod, meaning you can keep hold of all the music you currently had and still have the opportunity to add to your collection.

Downloading the software is super easy (thanks to Super Friend who bought me the software for my birthday!) and once you get over the initial shock of the new programme, navigating isn’t too hard either.  Here is what I have managed so far:

1. Ditch iTunes
2. Transfer all my music from my iPod to my external hard-disk, making sure it is super safe.
3. Added some new music to my iPod

If you are thinking about all those podcasts you signed up for…well I realised I don’t listen to most of them anyways and I can always locate them online and subscribe that way.

The other key thing I learned about organising your music is you need to keep your tags and playlists up-to-date.  And a piece of software that is handy for turning your cd’s into mp3’s is called Audiograbber.