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Organizing the Home

iPod/Music Organization

16 years ago

I gave my husband an iPod last Christmas and now find myself in the midst of downloading every CD we have onto it. So far I've downloaded 3500 songs and have about the that many more to go.

Outside of carrying the iPod with me, does anyone know of a method to take the information from iTunes and converting it into another format (Excel?) so that I can carry an inventory in my Palm? I've done a little experimenting and haven't been successful yet.

Although it sounds a little tedious, my purpose is (1) to have an inventory, and (2) avoid purchasing duplicate CDs in the future. (I haven't found that many, but still have found enough.) I have a complete inventory of all of our movies and books, so it seems like a natural progression to inventory the music.

Any advice welcome!

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Comments (4)

netla
16 years ago
In iTunes, go to File and choose Export. It can save the information about the songs as a text file or an xml file. Choose txt. Then open the txt file in Excel, choose "delimited" in the first window that comes up, click "next", choose "tab" and click "next", then in the next box that comes up choose the data format for each column (I use "general" for all of them) and finally click "finish". All the dates will be messed up, as Excel doesn't offer an option for importing dates with times, but the rest of the information should be correct.
THOR, Son of ODIN
16 years ago
Here is one way on a Mac (I can't help on PCs, maybe something similar would work?):

Open iTunes
click on Library > Music
move mouse to Music window with all the songs and Select All (Edit > Select All or use Clover + 'a' key)

Open Excel - however you get a new worksheet
click paste (Edit > Paste or use Clover + 'v' key)

voila!

A Mac program that works well for moving music between from the iPod BACK to your computer, or between iPods is SENUTI (spell iTunes backwards - clever).

More on Senuti

-Lena
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Do you have any DRM protected content that you purchased from itunes? That may make a difference in how you do this. You can copy protected content to more than one PC, but there is a limit (I forget what the limit is). You can simply copy the contents of "My Documents\My Music\iTunes" from your current PC to the new one to start. Since you can have the content on 2 PCs, this works for the protected content, also. If you're using itunes, you can use the ipod with both PCs, but I don't think you can use the ipod to transfer between the two PCs (at least not readily). You can use it with both PCs. To do so, when you connect it, on the ipod summary page, check the Manually manage music and videos button. Then, when you want to copy to the ipod, you drag from the left bar to the ipod. If you click help and search for manually manage, you'll find detailed instructions. You can also check the box to enable disk use, but itunes doesn't copy files to the ipod with the same names as it uses in Windows, so that won't be much help, I don't think.
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TommeCA
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you both for great, detailed instructions. I've finally finished the loading and am now doing the first sync w/ the iPod. I hope to be able to work on exporting the information in the next week or so.

Thanks again!
gayle0000
16 years ago
I don't have an IPod, so no help there.

As for making sure you don't buy duplicate CD's, my solution is not so much maintaining & carrying around an inventory of what I already have...but carrying a wishlist of what I want, or "need" if you work on building collections.

If it made my wishlist, I know I don't already own it.

If it made my wishlist, I know I've thought about it and want it more than any impulse buy and it serves a purpose for my music tastes and collection.

If I see a CD in a store that's not on my wishlist & could be an impulse buy...I DON'T buy it!!!! I write it down on my wishlist for the next planned trip...or to verify, or to think about it or research it in the event I discover I really don't need or want it in the next few days. I've had to discipline myself to do this, but it absolutely works for me in stopping wasted money on impulse buys. If the CD is released, remember that IT WILL BE THERE THE NEXT TIME, and if it's not, there are so many other ways to buy the CD online or in other stores. You're not missing any opportunities if you walk away from impulse CD purchases.

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