Update: I have moved this over to my own site where I will post updates regarding whether or not this works.
I have an iTunes library that exceeds the 25,000 song limit for iTunes Match even when you subtract the purchased songs from the total. For argument’s sake, and because this isn’t a mine-is-bigger-than-yours contest, lets call it 30,000 ripped songs.
I would like to utilize iTunes Match, but I do not want to split my library into two separate libraries as suggested by many articles including @flargh’s recent “iTunes Match Limit: What to do when you hit 25,000 songs.”
Allow me to clarify that “I do not want to split my library into two separate libraries” comment…
I want to keep a “master” library that has all 30,000 songs in it for my daily use/listening and I do not want to have two iTunes libraries of say 20,000 and 10,000 songs and be required to switch between them depending on my current listening tastes.
My idea is to keep my 30,000+ songs in my “master” library which also uses the Keep iTunes Media folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library feature to keep them nicely organized in a single location (~/Music/iTunes Master/) on a single hard drive.
I would create a second iTunes library that would be used for iTunes Match (~/Music/iTunes Match/) and I would turn off both of the the organization options. I would then add the files from iTunes Master that I wish to “enroll” to the iTunes Match library and because it isn’t using the organization features it would not make additional copies of my files nor would it move or affect the files/metadata of the iTunes Master library.
Does anyone know if this would work as intended? If you have input please let me know in the comments or via Twitter.