Seach in iTunes by file location

Question

Is there a way to have iTunes show where a file is located, and search on that field? I know I can "get info" on individual files, but that isn't feasible for large numbers of files,nor is it a searchable component.

I use Windows 7 64-bit, so Mac scripts don't help me. I'm not prepared to let iTunes "organize" my media. I tried that in the early days - what a mess.

Most of my media is on a home server, but some files linger elsewhere on our network. I have disconnected from the server to see which files can no longer be found. This way gave me a subset of files that aren't on the server.

I hope to properly tag my files and the ability to search by location would really help. My next question is how to get the tags made inside of iTunes to "stick" when iTunes isn't organizing the media.

Answer 1

As far as I know, the file path is not available as a smart playlist criteria.

However, you can use Teridon's iTunes Scripts (written in Perl), which are similar to AppleScripts. They're a bit old, and some of them might not work anymore, but "itunes_find_by_location" still appears to work well with iTunes 10.

1. Download the "EXE" link for itunes_find_by_location
2. Unzip and run the application while iTunes is open.
3. Select the itunes_find_by_location script and start it
4. In the console window, enter a pattern - a part of the path. For example, you can simply type D: to get all files on your D drive.
5. Select a playlist to look through, 1 for the entire library
6. Matching results will be placed in a new "Location" playlist.