In a perfect world you would add music to your iTunes as you get it, and build a perfectly manicured iLibrary over time.  And when you first started using iTunes I bet this was the case.  But here I am trying to combine the iTunes libraries of two now defunct computers into one.

There are two options:

1. Add everything into iTunes, and then consolidate the iLibrary.

2. Or have iTunes copy every file as you add it, and organize it for you as you go.

I first tried scenario one.  This got me duplicate files that were on both of the old computers, and took me hours to weed out the doubles.  Once this was done I tried to consolidate.  Consolidation of a normal iTunes takes forever, but consolidation of a mega iTunes built over several years takes an eternity…only to end with iTunes freezing, and having to shutdown the computer.  And guess what?  When you try to restart the consolidation…it begins to copy the same files that it already copied.  While you don’t have duplicate files in the iTunes there are duplicate files on the hard drive.  This option clearly doesn’t work.

The second option is definitely a better choice, but not by much.  With the second option you have to add bits of your music Library at a time (I’m currently doing it by letter…which is roughly 1,500 to 2,000 songs at a time), and allow for it to copy the files into the iTunes Music File.  Again this takes forever…but it has yet to freeze on me.

You may ask: Why do you want iTunes to organize your music….and I’ll respond…after three computers and two external harddrives someone has to do it, and I sure as hell don’t want to.  I just wish it was a little easier.