Should I delete the original files after importing to iTunes and iPhoto?

Hi Guys,

Just moving from a Windows computer, so I think I've got some perception problems that I wanted to bounce of the forumers before I made a decision

In Windows I normally keep my photos and files in a older e.g. Cmp3\julie\julie - song.mp3 and pictures in cphoto\birthday\birthday.jpg.

Now the issue is when a copy a folder with some mp3 files somewhere to my Mac, and import the songs, iTunes copies it to the itunes media\music\<artist name> or something like that...so should I delete the original files that I had?

I'm generally wary about deleting my original files, since I'm not sure what iTunes does to the file. From the most obvious point is that I see the files in the iTunes media folder have been renamed to <songname> instead of <artist - songname>.

The same deal goes for iPhoto I guess, no point repeating myself.

I obviously want to be able to copy out my pictures/songs to be put into a flash drive and taken around with me as and when I feel like doing so. (These aren't purchased tunes, ripped from normal CD using my Windows PC).

Summary: Should I delete the source files after importing to iPhoto/iTunes? Worried I may need the originals in case of some mistake.

Cheers and thanks in advance.
Kinson.

Hi:

Welcome to the forums! And congratulations on your new Mac.

We have three iPods that we use in our family and a fairly large collection of various songs, books, Bible teaching, and so forth... While iTunes seems to be able to keep track of everything nicely, I have found on occasion that things get a bit out of sync and get lost.

Keeping a backup of your photos, music, audio books, and whatever else you have is a good idea. The best way to do that (aside from the actual CDs and recordings you own) is to use the very handy Time Machine backup program that is included with the Snow Leopard OS. You'll need an external drive to use for the backups. External hard drives are fairly inexpensive even for large capacity units.

Backups not only protect your iTunes collection, but more importantly, all your data, photos, documents, and the OS itself.

Regards.

@chscag

Thanks for the speedy reply

Yes, I do plan to do regular backups, just trying to figure out how I should partition my external hard disk.

I agree that it would be a good idea to keep copies, that being said, if I keep two copies (the itunes library and my original mp3 files), i'll have 2 copies of the file, and when coupled with a backup, there will be four copies (2 copies of the itunes lib and 2 copies of the original file). I don't mind the redundancy for the backups, since that's the whole point of it, but having both the iTunes lib and my original files does seem a bit over the top.

I suspect my problem is my lack of confidence and understanding how iTunes works. Sorry if I'm not being clear here. I'm trying to figure things out

kinson said:

@chscag

Thanks for the speedy reply

Yes, I do plan to do regular backups, just trying to figure out how I should partition my external hard disk.

I agree that it would be a good idea to keep copies, that being said, if I keep two copies (the itunes library and my original mp3 files), i'll have 2 copies of the file, and when coupled with a backup, there will be four copies (2 copies of the itunes lib and 2 copies of the original file). I don't mind the redundancy for the backups, since that's the whole point of it, but having both the iTunes lib and my original files does seem a bit over the top.

I suspect my problem is my lack of confidence and understanding how iTunes works. Sorry if I'm not being clear here. I'm trying to figure things out

Click to expand...

Hi there! I understand perfectly what you mean and I was wondering if you found an answer to this question...

Depending on your settings, iTunes generally copies music files into the iTunes Music folder when you import them, so if you're going to back up with Time Machine anyway, you probably don't need the original files. Seems like a waste of hard disk space to me.

As for iPhoto, I've heard that fiddling with the files it creates in the iPhoto library folder can cause issues so you might want to keep an original set of your photos someplace else, but really, you if you needed to modify a file for some other use, you could always just copy the iPhoto version.

I believe in either case it's the same principle; the application makes a copy of the file being imported for its own use but it can still be used for some other purpose if you just reveal it in the Finder and make another copy.

Bottom line: both iTunes and iPhoto COPY imported songs/photos into their own libraries, so YES you can delete the "original" after they've been imported.

Time Machine (or the backup strategy of your choice) will take care of keeping the data safe.