Add folders to the iTunes library via the command line

Sep 04, '08 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: prehensile

If, like me, you like to make yourself feel all l33t by doing a lot of system and file management on the command line, you'll have been frustrated at least once by failing to be able to add freshly-downloaded MP3s to the iTunes library (once you've salted them away in your carefully-ordered music stash, naturally) via Terminal.

Well, be frustrated no more! Here is a handy-dandy AppleScript I wrote to do just that right in the shell. It takes the path to your newly-minted MP3 folder as an argument, and here's the code:

on run named_folder
  set folder_alias to POSIX file named_folder
  tell application "iTunes"
    add folder_alias to library playlist 1
  end tell
end run
On Leopard, save this to a text file with this as the first line:
#!/usr/bin/osascript
Then chmod a+x the script to make it executable, and you can invoke this as you would any shell script:
~/scripts/addToITunesLibrary ~/Music/mp3/_purchased/Malcolm Middleton/
On pre-Leopard systems, you'll need to save it out as a regular AppleScript via Script Editor, and invoke using osascript, thusly:

osascript ~/scripts/addToITunesLibrary.scpt ~/Music/mp3/_purchased/Malcolm Middleton/

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

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