If you purchase music from iTunes or rip a CD into your music library, the album shows up in your iTunes collection. But if you try to locate it on your computer, sometimes you'll find it hasn't been stored in the appropriate folder, at least not the way you want it set up.
Plus, the album may be organized in iTunes by the "wrong" artist, by "various artists," or by some other name you'd prefer not to use. You can correct all this by putting the music in the folder of your choice and changing the album's artist. Let's check out this process in Windows, though we'll also mention how to do this on the Mac.
First, fire up iTunes on our computer. Then insert a CD you want to rip into your iTunes collection; iTunes asks if you want to import the CD into your iTunes library. Click Yes to proceed.
iTunes starts ripping the album into the library track by track.
When the ripping is finished, you can scour iTunes for the album based on whom we consider to be the album's artist, but you may not find it. You scroll down to the very bottom of your iTunes library only to find the album listed under compilations and the artist's name listed as "Various Artists."
This typically happens if the album contains songs by a variety of different artists or has one main artist who played duets with other artists. Either way, you'd rather organize the album by its main artist.
First, let's place the album into the right folder. In iTunes, click on the album to reveal all the songs inside.
Right-click on the first track and from the pop-up menu, click on "Show in Windows Explorer" in Windows and "Show in Finder" on the Mac.
In Explorer or Finder, you'll see the album listed under Compilations if that's how iTunes treated it. Go to the folder marked Music under iTunes Media. Create a new folder with the name of the album artist if it doesn't already exist. If such a folder does already exist, you can leave it as is.
From Windows Explorer or Finder, go back to the folder for the album and right-click on it. From the pop-up menu, click on Copy.
Move back to the folder for the name of the artist. Right-click in that folder and then click on Paste from the pop-up menu.
The folder for the new album is now in the folder for the artist's name.
Go back to iTunes. Right-click on the album. From the pop-up menu, click on Delete from Library.
iTunes asks if you are sure you want to delete the selected songs from your iTunes library. Click on the Delete Songs button. iTunes then asks if you want to delete the selected songs or keep them in the iTunes Media folder. Click on the button to Delete Files in Windows or Move to Trash on the Mac.
In iTunes, click on the File menu > Add Folder to Library.
Click on the artist folder you previously created or just the album name if the artist folder already existed. Click on the button to Select Folder in Windows and Open on the Mac.
The album is added back into iTunes under your preferred folder arrangement.
Hang on, though, there's one more step. The name "Various Artists" is still listed as part of the album's data, which means the album is still filed under Compilations, and we don't want that. Scroll to the album and right-click on it. From the pop-up menu, click on the command to Get Info.
In the Details section, click in the field for "artist" and type the name of the artist. Do the same for "album artist." And then turn off the checkmark that says: "Album is a collection of songs by various artists" if it's checked. Click OK.
Now scroll to the spot in your iTunes library where the album should appear alphabetically according to the first name of the artist, and you should find it nestled in the right place.
For more, check out these Apple explainers:
- How to Turn On Apple Two-Factor Authentication
- How to Share Your iTunes Library Among Multiple Devices
- How to Find Cover Art for Your iTunes Albums