iTunes Problem

[ross * pilot]

Hey guys,
I was just looking through my itunes folders and i realized i had a lot of folders of various artists just clumped together. I decided to make a "music" folder to put all of the artists folders in(that had all their songs in their folders). Now that its nice and neat, i go back into itunes and try to play a song, but it says that the original file could not be found and an exclamation point shows up at the very left end of the song title. I try playing another song, and its the same. Its happening to every song in my library now.. i cant listen to anything. I'm not sure what i did.. i checked my recycle bin to make sure and theres nothing in there. This is really disappointing me

[08Lud08]

its because you moved them from the original folder they were in. you can drop the whole folder that you have them in now and delete the doubles that wont play. or you can go through every song and update where it is now.

[Paradox313]

Or he can delete itunes, and reinstall it so itunes does it for him.

[ross * pilot]

where do i drop the folder that i have them in now in? and even though i dont have an ipod( mine broke) but still have a library full of songs, i can delete itunes then reinstall it and it will still transfer all of my songs from my library to the new itunes, even ones from cds?

[colonel_moo]

the itunes library is basically just a list of shortcuts to each song. you moved all the songs, and therefore the shortcut is referencing a place that no longer contains the song.

[badlandsrox]

even better idea, is to "consolidate library" and then it will put all the artists music into one folder, for each of the artists, and then it takes care of everything

[08Lud08]

the itunes library is basically just a list of shortcuts to each song. you moved all the songs, and therefore the shortcut is referencing a place that no longer contains the song.
he said it better than me.

[durrell]

even better idea, is to "consolidate library" and then it will put all the artists music into one folder, for each of the artists, and then it takes care of everything

That's the best thing you can do for iTunes. But before you can do that, you need to get your shortcuts fixed so it knows where to look for the files.