DevonThink and iTunes

I setup all my iTunes12 smart folders into smart groups in DTPO. Now I find I can edit all my songs much easier than I could do in iTunes. Also they are protected from iTunes removing and adding duplicates and other files in iCloud, which I do not need.
A lot to learn yet, as a Newbie to DTPO, but pleased with ability to edit iTunes.

Sounds (!) like a good idea :laughing: Can you please detail the steps you took to do this? Thanks.

I would also be interested in this. iTunes “Smart Playlists” (like any OS X smart folder or DEVONthink Smart Group) are saved searches – they have no physical content – and no presence in the filesystem that could be indexed in DEVONthink – but the smart playlists merely list the results of the search. Have you perhaps indexed the media folders in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music?

I’d also be interested in knowing what “edit … songs” means.

korm, as usual you put it better than I do! I did wonder what “edit…songs” means as well.

Perhaps what I did is not as sophisticated as you might think. First I should explain what I attempted. I perform shows, where I read the list of songs in order, and on the side, I have the lyrics (from DesktopLyrics app). I use my own names for filename, so that I can arrange the songs in order. They are called ggshw01, 02, 03 depending on show. The type of song is the next 2 letters, eg ggshw02_10 means an accompaniment. Finally I need the song order, so the next 2 letter are, ggshw02_1005, which would be the 5th song of the show. This naming convention is followed by the name of the song, such as ggshw09_1007 Amazing Grace.

Now, the reason I needed to explain all this is that iTunes messes around with my convention, especially using iCloud Match. I get omissions, duplicates, changes in filename, etc. What I needed was a back up so that I can remember the complete list, which normally need not be ever changed.

So I decided to copy all my iTunes shows, complete my file name convention into DTPO. I could not copy the actual smart folders, just the songs. So, then I needed to make smart groups for all my shows. For example ggshw01 with filename starts with ggshw01, then the files, ggshw01_1002, etc all appear there. I do the same with all my smart groups. Now I can change anything in these smart groups, knowing that they will not be changed by iTunes. When iTunes screws up my files again, I have this list of the way the files are supposed to appear, and I can transfer them back to iTunes. It worked well.

But - then I was wondering if I had included all files, so I did a search and found all the songs on all my devices, and copied them into DTPO. This gave me twice as many files, and I found that there were many duplicates, so it defeated my purpose. The duplicates were not even in blue.

The ‘edit songs’ I mentioned was merely renaming, putting in another order, moving a song from one show to another, and therefore changing it’s name.
I am a novice at DevonThink, but learning all the time, mostly from my mistakes.

Sorry, I get the idea you had thought that I had come up with some fancy footwork, but alas, it has not ended up being so. Learning all the time.

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah :laughing:

Thanks!

I am thinking that you drag-and-dropped the actual music files from your iTunes Library into DEVONthink, is that correct?

Yes, I did, not knowing any better.
Also after adding my music from every device later, I ended up with multiple duplicates. They seemed to be recursively added to various smart groups like:

ggshw01 group containing all the files.
Under this lots of the same song files.
I moved all the duplicates to the Global Inbox, to deal with later. Now I have no duplicates and reduced the database to half it’s size.

I am hoping I am learning with all these antics. :laughing:

I welcome any comments to straighten out my thinking on all this. That is, if you have a clue of what I am trying to do. :slight_smile:

I can see why you might want to rename the files for your own purposes and putting them in DEVONthink is a way to do that. For one moment I wondered if you were using DEVONthink as an alternative to iTunes including playing your music—perhaps you are?

I would seriously consider using DevonThink as a substitute for iTunes, except that I still need DesktopLyrics app to show lyrics, which the latter gets from iTunes Get Info/Lyrics metadata. Haven’t figure that out yet.