Mass add music to library?

I had all my music on an external hard drive. Over the years, itunes failed several times or the library file corrupted and created new library files. Because we have 3 users, nobody really realized that music from the library was missing (still ON hard drive, but not showing up in library). So many version of the library files are out there, each with bits & pieces of our entire music collection. Backups were done but I think the only reliable thing is the music files themselves (not all the various library files).



I had the external hard drive cleaned up and fixed and will be transferring it all to a new hard drive tonight. Like I mentioned above, NONE of the existing library files are complete with all songs, so I'm thinking it might be best to create one new library file and delete all the corrupted & partial ones.



I know that when I'm in itunes, I can go to File --> import music and choose a folder from the hard drive. Do I have to do this for every artist/album? Or is there a way to mass import everything in my music folders? I don't care about playlists or stats telling me how often a song has been played, etc. I just want all my music in ONE library again.



Side question....with keeping the music files on an external drive, should I also load the itunes program on that hard drive? Or load it onto the computer and just direct the program to look to the external for the files?



Thanks!

Pam

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