organizing/importing music into iTunes

Hello all, this is my first post.

First time iTunes user and longtime PC owner here (will be getting an imac within the next yr. or so though +) ), getting 60gb iPod today.

My question is this, I have about 13gb of music in a folder with sub-folders inside sub-folders (ie: music/genre/artists), what would be the best way to import/organize all that music into iTunes? Also, should I keep the genre's labeled the way I have them or would it be better to just use iTunes genre labels ?

Any help would be very appreciated +)

The way you have your folders setup is irrelevant since once you import them into iTunes, iTunes will reorder everything to its own setup.

To import them, just drag the top level folder into the iTunes screen and let it do its job. Then you can delete the original folders.

schweb said:

The way you have your folders setup is irrelevant since once you import them into iTunes, iTunes will reorder everything to its own setup.

To import them, just drag the top level folder into the iTunes screen and let it do its job. Then you can delete the original folders.

Click to expand...

the very top level folder ? (entire 13gb of music and all it's subfolders/subfolders)

Yep, iTunes will automatically import everything under it. Then you can delete the original folders.

if you delete the original folders, it will delete your music. then when you try to play your music it will tell you that it can't find them.

oh and regarding your genre selection. i like to make my own genre's based on what the music sounds like to me. for instance, itunes doesn't have a "screamo" genre or a "jrock" genre, but once you type them in, it'll "save it" so next time you go in to change a genre, if you start typing "sc" it'll finish it with "screamo." hope that helps a little. i'm just like you when it comes to music. i have them all in order of artist, album (by release date) and then song.

Whenever I import music into iTunes it moves it to the iTunes folder and organizes it. I always delete the original folders and never have an issue.

schweb :good looking out - workin like a charm, thanx for the advice +)
Jonster : under the preferences you can opt for saving a copy of the file into the iTunes library folder when importing into the software.

@kid_crackle - gotcha. That's not set on my iTunes because I'm a stickler about how my music is organized. If I were to delete the original folder, all my music would go bye-bye.