[iTunes] Organize mp3's

[Andrew Elliston]

Rick said:
> What would be a couple of good ways,
> to categorize mp3's, I found out trying by date,
> is not always the best way, due to the fact,
> you maybe listen to the great hits of the 80's
> and they have a 2003 record date, so you would
> have to edit all those mp3's by hand.
>
> So, what would be the next best choice to
> keep you files listed by some "type" that doesn't
> change.

I have many thousands of MP3s (>23 MB iTunes Library file).

Over the years, I've tried several methods for organizing the files, and this is what
I've settled on. (Keep in mind that organizing MP3s should be very individualized).

I have a folder called "0-9", and a folder for each letter in the alphabet. *All* of my
MP3s, which have been extensively corrected and tagged by hand, have also been renamed.
Artist-Album-Track Number-Song Title.mp3 is the format I use. Then I put them, based on
the first character in the file name, into the appropriate aforementioned folder.

In the cases where a letter folder ("D", for example) contains more than 4.5 GB of
files, I create a D-1 and D-2 folder to split things up. That way I can keep each folder
archived on a DVD-RW for safe-keeping.

That's my method - I long ago decided to just keep things split up that way to simplify
storage, and then just use the power of iTunes (or other future players) to actually
interact with and play the songs. There's never any reason for me to actually go digging
through a folder for the file unless I need to delete it (and AppleScript makes that
easy). All of my actual interaction with the files, creating of playlists, etc, is just
done within iTunes.

Just my $.02,
Andrew Elliston
macdigitalaudio.com