# Albums on iTunes split up to various albums. Is there a simple all around fix? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 16, 2019, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039 "2019-05-16T05:50:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/1 "2019-05-16T05:50:18Z")
In the iTunes music, all the Albums that we’ve worked to set up get split up & seperated into other albums. We have looked up the general fix that is given, but it is so time-consuming to do this with each album. Is there not an easier way that just restores all the albums as we set them up without going through each one? [https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-10012](https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-10012) Fix split Album or Artist listings in iTunes Also, there is this side effect my friend is experiencing “All those singles I’ve listed the album as Friends Mix. But I have like 100 Friends Mix albums in there. I’ve tried selecting them all and getting info. Then I try just changing the album so they all go back together. But that seems to remove the genre and artist. There has to be a fix.” ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/2 "2019-05-16T06:52:22Z")
I downloaded a lot of music that were just singles so I would always call the album ‘Mix’. But when I look in Album view, all the songs in that ‘album’ are split up by each song. Somehow the songs often have track numbers, even though they were put in as signles. I’ve tried to delete the track numbers, but it doesn’t combine all the songs into one Mix album. I’ve tried highlighting all the songs and going into Info and changing one thing. But then it will affect all the other songs. Like make them all the same genre, if I change that. How can I put all the separate songs into one Mix album so they aren’t all split up into many of the same album name? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/3 "2019-05-16T11:29:29Z")
Merged two questions on the same issue. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/4 "2019-05-16T13:09:58Z")
If I understand correctly (and I may not), you want to make “playlists,” not “albums.” ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/5 "2019-05-16T15:30:01Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > If I understand correctly (and I may not), you want to make “playlists,” not “albums.” Well, the Mix is more of a playlist but iTunes does it to actual albums. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/6 "2019-05-16T17:59:01Z")
iTunes didn’t do it, you did it when you named the album field for the song as _Mix_. You are going to have to go back and fix the fields for each individual song file. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/7 "2019-05-16T18:00:59Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > iTunes didn’t do it, you did it when you named the album field for the song as _Mix_. > > You are going to have to go back and fix the fields for each individual song file. Fix in what way, however? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/8 "2019-05-16T18:39:06Z")
iTunes is just a database. Each file can be labeled using a variety of fields, primarily as follows. Song name Artist Album Track number Year Genre By filling in the Album field as _Mix_ or _Friends Mix_ for each file, when you look at your database by Album, it has created multiple Albums because many of the files may have the same track number so iTunes assumes those cannot be from the same album so it creates another album of the same title. I assume you would like to see all of your songs by their correct album, as opposed to having this universal _Mix_ album. Why did you do this in the first place? It sounds like you just wanted to play all your songs or certain songs in an album you called _Mix_. If so, that’s what playlists are for. There’s no universal fix for this. You will need to go to each song, select _Info_ and then change album field back to the correct Album name. ie R.E.M.'s _Near Wild Heaven_ to **Out of Time** for the album, and Track 4. This way you can see what songs you have by each album appropriately. You can additionally create a _Playlist_ and call it _Mix_ and just drag and drop whatever songs you want to go into that playlist. You can then create another playlist and call it _Mix2_ and drag and drop any other or the same songs into it for a different playlist. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/9 "2019-05-16T19:36:03Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Why did you do this in the first place? It sounds like you just wanted to play all your songs or certain songs in an album you called _Mix_. If so, that’s what playlists are for. > > There’s no universal fix for this. You will need to go to each song, select _Info_ and then change album field back to the correct Album name. ie R.E.M.'s _Near Wild Heaven_ to **Out of Time** for the album, and Track 4. > > This way you can see what songs you have by each album appropriately. > > You can additionally create a _Playlist_ and call it _Mix_ and just drag and drop whatever songs you want to go into that playlist. You can then create another playlist and call it _Mix2_ and drag and drop any other or the same songs into it for a different playlist. We didn’t want to have 150 albums with just one song in each one. We wanted 1 album with all those singles songs in it. Plus, we never had the original info about the song to begin with. Most of them came from mixes anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/10 "2019-05-16T20:30:51Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > We didn’t want to have 150 albums with just one song in each one. We wanted 1 album with all those singles songs in it. Plus, we never had the original info about the song to begin with. Most of them came from mixes anyway. I assume that all of the songs are by different artists, which would mean that each song is listed as being in an album named “Friends Mix” by the same artist. If this is the case, you should be able to join them all together by entering something like “Various Artists” in the Album Artist field. This should result in a single “Friends Mix” album by “Various Artists”, and each song will show its particular artist separately. This can be done all at once by going to Songs, sorting by Album, selecting all of the tracks with the album title that you want to unify, and then changing only the Album Artist field. If you have already done this, or if the songs are already all by the same artist, it could be another issue I’ve encountered with iTunes where it just inexplicably separates a few tracks from an album, when the album artist and album title are the same. When this happens, I just select all of the tracks from the album, change the album title, then after saving, change the title back. It also helps to be consistent with things like track numbers and disc numbers. For example, they should all be either “[number] of [blank]” or “[number] of [number]”, rather than some of one and some of the other. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/albums-on-itunes-split-up-to-various-albums-is-there-a-simple-all-around-fix/834039/11 "2019-05-16T22:15:23Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > We didn’t want to have 150 albums with just one song in each one. We wanted 1 album with all those singles songs in it. Plus, we never had the original info about the song to begin with. Most of them came from mixes anyway. Why not? You downloaded them from 150 different albums. It’s not like you have 150 LP’s lying around with just one song on each. They are just data lines.