I am going to be buying a portable device soon as a gift for my wife (her birthday is in October). Since I have no experience with such devices, I was hoping someone could tell be what the limitations are on file name length with these devices. Just wondering if I'm going to have to go through our entire MP3 collection and do some mass renaming at all, which I would like to have completed before said gift is given instead of after. Thanks all!

You can download iTunes and add your current selection of mp3s to the iTunes library.

You won't have to rename any files.

You can chose either to leave the files at their present location or to have iTunes copy them to the iTunes folder. iTunes will automatically rename files and structuring folders.

However for any jukebox software to work with your songs you should make sure they are tagged properly, at least with artist, title, tracknumber and album.

I have been using an iRiver flash player but I didn't like the user interface.
It was very cumbersome to find songs and put them on the iRiver. So in the end I ended up hearing the same songs over and over again.

I have since changed to iPod and there is just no comparison when it comes to the ease of use. Even my wife who is normally scared of technology was able to operate it and enjoy the music in a matter seconds. I had to fight her to get my iPod back!

You sound like a walking advertisment for Apple

I think what digisurfer was getting at was if there any restrictions on filename length due to filesystem restrictions.

Well, like said sehested, iTunes can point to original full length named files.
But transmitted to the iPod the long name is lost since it is renamed in the transfer (mostly on special chars).

On iRiver, I think it's using FAT 32 with Joliet support. So as long as Joliet is in I suppose the same maximum length for filenames is possible like in Windows.

I own the iRiver H320 and in so far as I know, the iRiver does not have a filename length restriction in so far as you use the file directory system (sort of like windows file tree).

But if you use their database compiled from ID3 tags, there will be a 52 character limit - files with title tags longer than 52 characters will not be included in the database. The iRiver DB manager is rather ineffective anyway - hangs on me all the time.

Most iRiver users choose to use the file directory system because of better start-up time (around 9-12 seconds average with 10+GB stored) or the TDT (Tag Database Tool - superior in every way to iRiver's - faster, more stable, more reliable, more functions) that can be downloaded at Mistic River.

Hope this is useful to you.

The length of the filename is irrelevant on the iPod (for audio) since it displays songs based on the tag information (artist, title, ....)

For other files it's simple. Iieuw either format your iPod on windows or mac and get FAT32 or whatever filesystem OSX uses. Ieuw can read a FAT32 formatted iPod on anything (windows, linux, osx...) and it acts like any other firewire harddrive.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've been trying to gather info on filename length restrictions ever since I ran into it on my Win XP system (NTFS) the other day. Gave me quite a scare because I couldn't play, rename, cut, or delete one of my MP3 files without getting an access denied error (or something along those lines). My first thought was that maybe my hard drive was breaking down. Luckily moving the folder that contained the file fixed the problem.

My file naming scheme involves either "Genre\Artist\Date - Album\Artist - Track - Title.mp3" for most music, or "Genre\Album\Album - Track - Title.mp3" if it's a soundtrack. As you can guess and I've recently discovered, this can result in some spectacularly long filenames. From what I've been able to gather, FAT32 and NTFS file systems are limited to 255 characters, and this includes the whole directory path and not just the name of the file. At least, that how I understand it to be anyways. iRiver uses FAT32, so I think I have that all squared away if I'm correct.

Regarding the iPod, as near as I can tell iTunes automatically renames files (on my PC too or only when copying files to the iPod, I don't know yet) and builds a playlist from the tags. Is that correct? If so, what happens if a file has no tags? Yeah, I know what your thinking. I could probably just download the software and figure it out for myself. But I still haven't decided which unit to buy yet, and I'm a little afraid of what iTunes might do to my files if I'm not careful. Nevertheless, I am leaning towards the iPod because of a few well thought out accessories (like the Monster all in one FM tuner 12v power cable for example), and easy charging abilities (from USB/1394). Plus you can get an inscription free if ordered before the end of September which is great since this is going to be a gift.

Anyways, thanks again for the replies. Hopefully I'll be able to have everything set up and running smoothly right out of the box for her, which ever unit I choose to get. Hehe, and it's not just the player that is going to be a surprise to her, but also the massive collection I'm gathering/encoding/sorting and getting all tagged correctly so that they work properly with all the players functions. Can't wait to see her face when I explain what 40GB of music actually amounts to, lol. Take care all!

Everything you send to the ipod will be automatically renamed to something along the lines of "Tracknumber - Abbreviated songname." That doesn't matter, though, because the ipod determines all of the relevant information through the file's tags, and you access them via artist, album, genre, composer, or title. If your files are improperly tagged, this isn't really a problem (just a hassel), there are all kinds of programs that can tag your files en masse, including foobar. It also doesn't matter because from what you said you're not going to be taking files off of the ipod, just putting them on (even if you weren't, there are programs to take tag data and rename files however you want--PodUtil can even do this straight off the ipod).

Distinct from that renaming on the ipod, iTunes can rename all of the files on your hard drive, I believe to an Artist\Album\Tracknumber - Abbreviated songname format in whatever directory you set to be the main iTunes directory (it will put compliations into their own director labeled by Album). This feature is easily disabled and, if you don't want to use iTunes at all, foobar has an extension that can send files and playlists to the ipod. There's also something available on www.dbpoweramp.com called Sveta that can do the same.

If it's a gift for your wife and she's not particularly computer savy, I'd have to recommend the ipod because it has a really, really simple and intuitive user interface and, as a bonus, it is more asthetically pleasing to most women. Battery life isn't the problem it used to be either (though I have to say I'm okay with my 3G's battery life).

Small tip--if you do get an ipod for her, get her new headphones, muggers look for ipod headphones. Don't be too creeped out, this isn't really a problem, just an extra precaution some people take.

I was thinking the same after writting the post.

But rest assured I only get paid by this company
ROVSING Dynamics

However what I'm is a user who have tried both iRiver and iPod.


iTunes won't rename you files. However if you enable Soundcheck in iTunes it will add an iTunNORM comment tag to your mp3 files.


I had a feeling this was the case...
You can use a tagging application, such as foobar2000's masstagger or TGF to tag all your mp3's based on info from their filenames.

This job you really need to complete before considering a portable player.

Otherwise iTunes will list the song as having the filename as their title with Unknown Artist and Unknown Album.

A couple of things:

First, you may want to consider using foo_pod, a plug-in for foobar2000, that lets you manage the songs on your iPod. foo_pod will not rename your files and it works quite well. It's all I use to transfer files to my iPod.

Secondly, some clarification about how the iPod file system works. When iTunes or foo_pod transfers a file to the iPod it writes the file's tag info to a database on the iPod. So if you change the tag info of a file while on the iPod without the database being updated, the iPod will still display the original tag info. The iPod reads the song info from the database not the song file. Secondly, if you wish to copy the song files off your iPod without using a front-end (like foo_pod) you'll have a hard time finding your song files since they are spead out in directories name f01, f02, f03, etc to speed up the directory navigation.

I own an H120 and I've not had any problems with any of my filenames. Some of my filenames are rather long too so I guess that's encouraging.

Thanks for all the info everyone. The tip on the headphones is something I'll definitely take into consideration. Regarding MP3's with no tags, I have managed to mass tag pretty much everything (was a ton of work) but I still have a "Miscellaneous" folder filled with a bunch of random songs broken up by category (Rock, Soundtrack, etc). Many, if not most, aren't named correctly. I guess I'll have to track down the info on each one and enter the ID3 info all by hand using web resources (freedb, Amazon, Gracenote, etc). Perhaps I'll give MusicBrainz try on them (read about it in another thread a few days ago). Thanks again everyone, your help has been greatly appreciated.

Iriver IHP140 and IHP120 have a filename limit of 52 characters. Tag Database Tool can easily identify any files that are too long and rename them if you wish.

http://tdt.sourceforge.net/