QThe music files on my Windows 7 PC are stored in three different folders, and this makes it difficult to find a file to include as an attachment in an e-mail. One file has 222 songs, one has five and another has nine. How do I consolidate all the songs in one place? I use iTunes almost exclusively, but also have Windows Media Player.
CHESTER JACOBSEN, RICHFIELD
AYou can put all your songs in a single directory, or folder, that will be used by iTunes.
Because you have 222 songs in one folder, it would be easiest to consolidate the other 14 songs into that folder. Why? When you shift a song to a different file folder, you change its address on the hard disk and iTunes can't find it. That means you'll need to add each song's new location to iTunes -- and it will be easier to do that 14 times than 222 times.
The best consolidation method is to copy the 14 song files from their existing folders, then paste them into the 222-song folder. This leaves copies of the songs at their original locations so that Windows Media Player can still find them.
Then, in iTunes, go to File and click "add file to library." Using the resulting directory, highlight your consolidated song folder. To add the 14 songs you just transferred to the folder to iTunes, one at a time, highlight the song and click "open" at the bottom of the menu.
Now you need to weed out the duplicate song listings in iTunes, which will now show that you have two copies of the 14 songs, one in the old folder and one in the consolidated folder.
To find out which of the two song copies you want to delete, right-click one of them in iTunes, then click "get info" from the resulting menu. Look at the "where" listing at the bottom of the info box to see which folder the song is in, and delete the one at the old location. To eliminate a song from iTunes, right click it and choose "delete," then click "remove."
