Use an AppleScript to update all Album Artists in iTunes

Mar 09, '07 07:30:03AM

Contributed by: tbdavis

iTunes 7.1 adds the Album Artist field in the user interface, and some music (such as iTunes Store purchases) include this information, but music imported from CDs may not. I wanted to add this information, but didn't want to do it manually, so I wrote an AppleScript to do it.

The script creates a new folder (for easy deletion) containing two playlists. The first, working, will be populated with every track in your Library that doesn't already have anything in the Album Artist field. The second one will hold any of the tracks which are not updated by this script.

The script will go through the working list album by album, and for those albums whose tracks all have the same artist, the Album Artist will be set to that artist. For those with multiple artists, the user will be given a choice of all of those artists, or Various Artists, or None of the Above. If the user chooses None of the Above, the album will be moved to the Album Artist Work playlist, otherwise the user's choice will be used as the Album Artist

While the script is running, you can select the working playlist and watch the updates.

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]

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