Moving Podcast tracks into your iTunes library
A while back, Daniel posted about building an instant indie music collection by subscribing to KEXP’s Song of the day podcast. I did that, and it’s been great. Now I have all this great indie music, but the problem is that it’s locked up in an iTunes podcast. I can’t continually listen to it because iTunes plays podcasts one track at a time.
I’ve been mildly annoyed about this for a few months, but this past weekend I thought I would try to remedy that. I tried importing the mp3 files into the library, and all that did was make each track appear twice in the podcast. So, I tried copying all the files to an external folder, deleting them from the podcast, and then re-importing the files; iTunes re-adds them to the podcast.
After scouring mailing lists and forums, it turns out that the only (known) way to accomplish this is to right click on the files and select “Convert Selection to AAC” (or whatever encoding format you use). This re-encodes the file as AAC and adds it to your library, and now you can delete it from the podcast. This is really annoying. Why do I need to re-encode the files (further decreasing the sound quality)?
You see, iTunes tries to be smart (or it’s too dumb, one of those two). I had a similar problem when I imported an audio book from CD and wanted it to show up under “Audiobooks” in my library. One would think this would be as simple as setting the genre on the tracks, but it turns out, the files have to be encoded in AAC and saved with a .m4b file extension (there’s an applescript available to automate this). All of this makes me think that the whole Library pane in iTunes is a big hack. It only works right when you buy stuff from the iTunes store. Annoying!
28 comments
Actually, there’s another way too (kicks self for not blogging this) in the newer versions of iTunes, but it has some caveats:
Select all the tracks, and Get Info… Go to the Options tab, and deselect “Remember Playback Position” and “Skip When Shuffling”
This will make them act like “normal” tracks, except they won’t show up in your Library.
To solve this, make a Smart Playlist, that grabs everything from that podcast (in my case, the album name is “KEXP Song of the Day”). You can add other things to the playlist too, if you desire.
Finally, this doesn’t fix new tracks, so you’ll have to automate similarly.
April 17, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Did you try changing the genre from “Podcast” to something else?
April 17, 2007 at 02:02 PM
Daniel, Good suggestion. That probably would have gotten me by. But I also like having them in my Library.
Scott, Yes. iTunes doesn’t use the genre for anything useful. You’d think that would be really easy way to figure out which “folder” the tracks should appear in for the podcasts, audio books, and such, but apparently Apple doesn’t think so…
April 17, 2007 at 02:09 PM
A better suggestion I think.
1. Select the podcasts you wish to convert to normal audiio files. 2. Go to the advanced menu, select convert ID3 tags. 3. Change the ID3 tags to version 1.0 4. Drag the podcasts out to a folder 5. Delete the originals from iTunes 6. Drag the files back in to iTunes (I recommend using a playlist) 7. Change the ID3 tags back to the highest version available. 8. Fix any missing tags.
April 18, 2007 at 09:32 AM
Jeremy,
Thanks, that works great. Now if I could just figure out how to convert the ID3 tags in an applescript (looks like it’s not possible).
April 21, 2007 at 10:40 AM
Came accross this while I was searching. As mentioned I didn’t like the idea of re-importing and thus degrading the sound quality. My fix for it is using an external podcast processing app. Juice works all right and is multi-platform and free. Give it the feed and stuff it downloads will be imported into the library and is added a playlist named after the podcast. Downside is you either have to download all the ones you want again or do the import method you mentioned.
May 22, 2007 at 07:10 PM
I’ve got the opposite problem. I’ve imported a few mp3 podcasts into itunes but they show up in the music library. I want to move them into the podcasts library. Suggestions?
June 22, 2007 at 03:55 AM
I have the same problem. I tried changing the ID3 Tags to 2.0, and I checked the “Remember Playback Position” and “Skip When Shuffling” secions, but they’re still showing up in my iTunes library, not my podcast. The oddest part of all: two of them did show up in my podcast, but the other eight did not, although they all were formatted, imported, ect., the same way. Help?
June 24, 2007 at 10:41 PM
Dave & Summer,
I’m not sure how to solve that. My guess is that you would have to be subscribed to the podcast that the tracks came from.
June 25, 2007 at 02:32 AM
I have the same issue as Dave and Summer. I’ve imported older podcast mp3 files (not available on the podcast iTunes episode list), and they all end up in the music folder. I’m subscribed to the podcast, but I can’t seem to move the files to the podcast folder. They are all stuck in the music folder, even if I change the genre to podcast.
Lisa
July 11, 2007 at 06:46 AM
Lisa, you can try using this script to move those episodes to the podcast list. They’ll show up as a separate podcast (not in the same podcast with the other episodes downloaded as podcasts), but at least they’ll be categorized the same way.
On the flip side, I did a little experimenting with Jeremy’s comment, and I think you only need to downgrade the ID3 tags to v2.2 to break the connection between the tracks and the podcast. Thanks for the poke in the right direction, Jeremy!
July 13, 2007 at 05:12 PM
Haha wow, I’m trying to do the exact same thing. I love the KEXP song of the day podcast, but I hate having to listen to each song individually by clicking on the podcast episode.
July 17, 2007 at 12:44 PM
Absolute easiest way to go either direction? Use the (oddly named) program Atomic Parsley (http://atomicparsley.sourceforge.net/)
You just have to set the Podcast Flag to either True or False to determine where the mp3 will end up when you drag it back into iTunes.
-Z
July 22, 2007 at 10:49 PM
i moved my itunes folder via disk mode to my new computer. all music added flawlessly however my podcast directory is empty. it says it contains 10 gb and all the tracks however they are not in the list. i tried dragging the podcast mp3 folder onto the podcast library and again it loads them and displays the drive space used yet they are not shown. i use vista and the latest itunes version. any help would be great.
September 03, 2007 at 06:14 PM
Seems it can be done by resetting the genre, but not with iTunes. Remove the podcasts from the iTunes library, but obviously leave them on the hard drive. Download MP3 Tag Tools (V.1.2.008 works), free. (Google will get you there). Load the podcasts into the Tag Tool. Delete genre, reload gendre as required. Note it seems to be a two shot process. ie Have to delete 1st, then reload. Just trying it in a one shot does not seem to do the trick. Reload into iTunes and files should pop up in the music library. Just done all my KEXP Song of the Day files this way…......
Paul
September 26, 2007 at 12:00 PM
The solution mentioned above by Jeremy seems to be the best way to make this happen without adding a whole piece of software just to do it. Thanks Jeremy, and Brandon for this post!
October 11, 2007 at 03:27 PM
So I keep seeing suggestions about how to apply scripts to your iTunes library but I have no idea what that means or how to do it. Is there a good link to explain, somewhere?
October 15, 2007 at 02:07 PM
Thanks so much for Jeremy. It worked great. I had a bunch of podcasted songs and some worked and some didn’t. I found that I had to play around with changing the “Remember Position” and “Shuffle” options, and then they all worked.
October 21, 2007 at 02:18 PM
I had success with Jeremy’s ID3 tag method. I had used the podcast to download Jonathan Coulton’s Thing a Week podcast, which concluded over a year ago. Thus, there was no reason to leave it in podcast form, so this helped my integrate it. Thanks.
January 06, 2008 at 04:23 PM
take a look in http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051014133654579&lsrc=osxh there explain a much more ‘elegant’ solution without losing any other information…. also to changing back normal mp3 files to podcast using the MP3Tag ( http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html ) to look and change the ITUNESPODCAST property (look than also you need to move out from Itunes your files and then moving them back.
January 19, 2008 at 04:57 AM
Here’s another great Top Tunes podcast from KCRW in Los Angeles. http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/tu
January 25, 2008 at 12:24 PM
I tried doing what Jeremy suggested, but none of it worked. My podcasts still ended up in the Music Library, and I believe I followed all of the instructions. I’m really frustrated right now.
March 05, 2008 at 08:00 PM
I have 179 podcasts of “KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune”. (The number 179 determined by a smart playlist pulling everything with the album name “KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune”. All tracks appear under Podcasts; none appear in Music. However, in the finder, 171 are inside the Podcast folder [iTunes Music/Podcasts/KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune], 8 are outside the Podcast folder in the artist folder “KCRW.com” instead [iTunes Music/KCRW.com/KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune]. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but what mysterious thing is going on?
March 26, 2008 at 10:48 PM
thank you all! I’ve been using the procedure outlined by Jeremy for my KCRW Today’s Top Tune. It’s a bit of a pain in the ass because I’ve been downloading these for over a year (I’ve got nearly 500 of them). Thank you also for the tip that KEXP does it, too!
A tip for everyone who’s doing stuff like this: I’m leaving the podcast name as the “album” title, but that leaves hundreds of artist folders. Make sure you check “part of a compilation” once they’re back in.
Michael: KCRW changed the format of the Top Tune podcast awhile back. If you ever need to reimport your library (ask me how I know…), you’ll find that you’ve got at least two copies of your subscription to KCRW’s Top Tune. It was a “seamless”’ change from the user end but likely messed up all of our iTunes Music folders.
April 18, 2008 at 11:11 AM
I’m in the same situation as Leah -
If you’re trying to make ‘songs’ into ‘podcasts’, Jeremy’s solution doesn’t seem to work.
April 20, 2008 at 12:00 PM
For those trying to make a normal ‘song’ into a podcast, I’ve had success doing it. I used the mp3tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html) program. My steps were as follows:
1. Create a working folder somewhere NOT under your iTunes Musing folder 2. Select all the songs you want to convert in iTunes, right click, select ‘Convert ID3 Tags…’ 3. Convert all of your songs to version 2.4 4. Drag all the ‘songs’ you want to make into a podcast into the folder. 5. Open mp3tag, add the folder. 6. Group select all the songs in the list and select ‘Extended Tags…’ 7. Add a tag ‘ITUNESPODCAST’ value ‘1’ 8. Add a tag ‘ITUNESPODCASTCATEGORY’ value ‘Podcast’ 9. Add a tag ‘ITUNESPODCASTDESC’ value ‘Brilliant new podcast’ 10. Add a tag ‘ITUNESPODCASTURL’ value ‘http://someurl.com’ 11. Add a tag ‘RELEASETIME’ value ‘2005-07-15T21:54:00Z’ 12. Select ‘OK’ and ‘OK’ and perhaps one more ‘OK’ 13. Delete the ‘songs’ out of your music list in iTunes. When it asks let it move the files to the recycle bin. 14. Drag the edited ‘songs’ back into iTunes. 15. Lather, rinse, repeat for each set of podcasts
Note: I don’t think that all of those fields are necessary, but they seem to work for me. One thing you can do is move an existing podcast over into your work directory and look at its tags in mp3tag to see how it all works.
Also, I think the ALBUM tag is used to identify the name of the podcast (I think), but I haven’t figured out that relationship totally.
June 23, 2008 at 04:46 PM
Jeremy’s solution worked great (thanks), but then when I plugged in my iPod and tried to sync, I was told those songs I transferred using what I’ll call the Jeremy method couldn’t be found. What gives?
July 29, 2008 at 10:59 PM
I’m not sure if I’m late to the party, but when it comes to the issue of converting an audio file (which was one a podcast) back to being a podcast, here’s a possible solution:
1. Create a new standard playlist (not a smart one) named “Temp”. 2. Drag the audio files from the smart playlist (which was originally generated by iTunes) to the “Temp” playlist. The Podcast section of the iTunes Library will begin to show an increasing file count as it recognizes the audio files as podcasts. 3. Delete the “Temp” playlist
I discovered this fix entirely by accident and I hope it works for you too. The neat thing is that one can re-subscribe to those podcasts right out of the Podcast Library.
Good luck!
August 09, 2008 at 08:30 PM
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