[Gorby]

I have my iTunes music in a shared folder and today another user on my PB accidentally deleted loadsa music.

"Easy" I said on the phone, "Just go to your trash folder and select all the music files, then somewhere in the menu will be a restore to original folder or similar option", "Nope" came back the reply. "Must be" said I.

I get home, and can I find said option? Nope.

It looks like I need to drag'n'drop 200 songs back to album folders manually or have I missed something?

OS: 10.3.2

Thanks, Richard

[keston]

There used to be a command called "Put Away" (CMD-Y), that used to return files to where they came from (also doubled as an eject method for CDs). I remember this from the OS9 days... not sure if it was ever in OSX.

[Developer]

No, this never made it into OS X. You have a chance to undo the trashing directly after you did it, but later there is no other way than manually putting the files back.

[CharlesS]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Ask Apple-Y the hell they still haven't put this feature back in.

[Ganesha]

Originally posted by Gorby:

I get home, and can I find said option? Nope.

Doesn't itunes auto manage your folder structure? All you need is the correct tags.

[Terri]

Everything should have still be in folders. All you had to do is drag them back to where they were. If it was your whole library then it would have only been one folder.

[Gorby]

Originally posted by Terri:
Everything should have still be in folders. All you had to do is drag them back to where they were. If it was your whole library then it would have only been one folder.

Alas, it's not that simple. We have our iTunes music folder shared and she was deleting the stuff from the library that she didn't want and when prompted if she wanted to move the physical songs to trash, Yes was the answer....

hey ho.

Many thanks all

[gorickey]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Ask Apple-Y the hell they still haven't put this feature back in.

[Chris Grande]

If you just drop the songs back into iTunes it will recreate the folder structure based on the tags in the songs file.

[P]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Ask Apple-Y the hell they still haven't put this feature back in.

Likely the same reason Publish and Subscribe never made it in - too few people used it.

The point of Put Away was that people should drag files they're working with to the desktop before working with them. Then the files have to be put away again, and the Mac did this automagically. In the real world, people just open the file on the spot in the file structure.

When System 7 was released, Apple acknowledged this and changed the Desktop. The files used to have a position in the file system but with a flag of "show on the Desktop". In System 7, the Desktop became a folder, and files were positioned in it (Same thing happened with the Trash). I use it as a stopover point - new files are created there and then filed when I don't need them all the time. I rarely pull the files back to the desktop, though it happens. It's also handy for shortcuts to programs or folder positions, though I use Drop Drawers for that these days.

When the Desktop was a file flag, Put Away was a simple command: zero the desktop bit, update the Desktop, update the file's folder window (if open). With System 7, you had to remember the old position for all files, which is much trickier. I look at it this way: OS X removed Put Away and gave me a real Finder Undo instead. I think its a fair deal.

[Developer]

Originally posted by P:
You had to remember the old position for all files, which is much trickier.

It's not hard for a computer to remember such things. That's in fact what they are designed for. It's much harder for me to remember the old position.

It just needs to be implemented. I would have preferred they had done that over giving the Finder a brushed look

[Gorby]

Originally posted by Chris Grande:
If you just drop the songs back into iTunes it will recreate the folder structure based on the tags in the songs file.

Thanks, this worked a treat and made life easy.

I also did the feedback on apple.com. Maybe in 10.5 or 12.0

Many thanks all for tips.

[Thinine]

If you haven't moved any thing else with the Finder, you should be able to undo the move. At least she didn't empty the trash!

[Big Mac]

You seem to know a lot more about the subject than I, P, so if I'm unfairly contradicting you I apologize. If I recall, System 6 and below didn't feature the Put Away command - I'm almost certain it wasn't around until System 7. In fact, I'm so certain of that fact that if I were a betting man I would put some money on the table.

[Twilly Spree]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
You seem to know a lot more about the subject than I, P, so if I'm unfairly contradicting you I apologize. If I recall, System 6 and below didn't feature the Put Away command - I'm almost certain it wasn't around until System 7. In fact, I'm so certain of that fact that if I were a betting man I would put some money on the table.

I'm with the Big Mac. I don't think it was in System 6.

[littlegreenspud]

I have just had a look on my Mac Plus running 6.07, not multi Finder, and "Put Away" is there!

[Twilly Spree]

Originally posted by littlegreenspud:
I have just had a look on my Mac Plus running 6.07, not multi Finder, and "Put Away" is there!

Well shucks.

Can you take a screenshot?

[CharlesS]

To be honest, I thought the same thing as Big Mac when I read P's post. However, vMac doesn't lie:

[Fonzie]

First off, how can someone accidentially delete music files- it takes alot of work to do so. In iTunes you'�ll have to accept a deletion and in Finder you'll have to go through some folders to get to the music folder. And then you'll have to mark them and delete. She/he must have dirt for brains.

[Gorby]

Originally posted by Fonzie:
First off, how can someone accidentially delete music files- it takes alot of work to do so. In iTunes you'�ll have to accept a deletion and in Finder you'll have to go through some folders to get to the music folder. And then you'll have to mark them and delete. She/he must have dirt for brains.

easier than you think, oh brainy one.

Delete said tracks from your library and it asks if you wants to move them to Trash. As we have a shared library, I still have the tracks in my library, except media isn't there any more.

Don't need to go through folders, nor do I appreciate the insult on my wife.

Regards

[Big Mac]

Well I was really wrong about the "Put Away" command - I humbly apologize. . .

[ryaxnb]

Actually, System 6 had a Put Back command. It's worth noting that in System 6, the Trash was also just a file bit.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
To be honest, I thought the same thing as Big Mac when I read P's post. However, vMac doesn't lie:

*Snipped Image*

Darn, I swear that command was called Put Back in System 6.

[bewebste]

Wasn't Put Away also used for ejecting disks? Back when the eject command still left the ghosted image of the disk on the desktop, Put Away would both eject the disk and remove it from the desktop (equivalent to dragging the disk to the trash).

[P]

Put Away was indeed used for removing floppies entirely from the desktop. The default behaviour when ejecting wasn't changed until OS 8. At first Put Away was also the only way to remove a shared network drive from the desktop.

And yes, it may very well have been called Put Back at some point. I only used Swedish versions of the OS back then, so I really don't know. Come to think of it, the Swedish translation is much closer to Put Back than to Put Away...

[P]

Originally posted by Developer:
It's not hard for a computer to remember such things. That's in fact what they are designed for. It's much harder for me to remember the old position.

It just needs to be implemented. I would have preferred they had done that over giving the Finder a brushed look

Sure, you can store it. But you'd have to find it again, and fast, when necessary. And the information should ideally follow the file across devices. This is just another type of metadata, and making room for it is not always easy.

A better way to fix this would be to have a database-style file system. Then the file could appear anywhere and still be left in its old position. If it's not a true database for files but rather a database for file information that sits on the drive beside usual files (Like MS is planning for Longhorn), you could have a field for the last position of the file. Or the last ten positions, for that matter.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by P:
Sure, you can store it. But you'd have to find it again, and fast, when necessary. And the information should ideally follow the file across devices. This is just another type of metadata, and making room for it is not always easy.

A better way to fix this would be to have a database-style file system. Then the file could appear anywhere and still be left in its old position. If it's not a true database for files but rather a database for file information that sits on the drive beside usual files (Like MS is planning for Longhorn), you could have a field for the last position of the file. Or the last ten positions, for that matter.

Except that I'm fairly sure that HFS+ already has the metadata field for this. It worked fine in OS 9...

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by bewebste:
Wasn't Put Away also used for ejecting disks? Back when the eject command still left the ghosted image of the disk on the desktop, Put Away would both eject the disk and remove it from the desktop (equivalent to dragging the disk to the trash).

Yes. The Eject Disk behavior had been left in for one-disk systems.

[ryaxnb]

Originally posted by bewebste:
Wasn't Put Away also used for ejecting disks? Back when the eject command still left the ghosted image of the disk on the desktop, Put Away would both eject the disk and remove it from the desktop (equivalent to dragging the disk to the trash).

http://homepage.mac.com/ryaxnb2/Pic1.jpg
System 1.1. I knew it was called Put Back sometime.

[ASIMO]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Ask Apple-Y the hell they still haven't put this feature back in.

Oooh, nice one. That was tricky.

You deserve a cookie. Wait -- make that double.