How to transfer voice memo with their titles?

iTunes doesn't keep title of voice memo which make them quite useless. They look like DATE######.m4a.

I'm working with these memos, any solution would fit, even jailbreak I really need to find a way.

iTunes 12.2.1.16, Windows 7, iPhone 3Gs, iOS 6

Solution 1:

I had over 700 voice memos in my iPhone, many of which I renamed to make it easier to find the ones I need in the records.

To solve the problem of moving records to my file system keeping file names, I found this workaround for myself. I describe it step by step.

1. Synchronize with iTunes and get a playlist with records.
2. Go to the playlist and go File → Library → Export playlist and save txt file.
3. Open the file in the Notepad++ and press Ctrl+A to select all text, press Tab once to get spaces in the beginning of each line.
4. Delete first line, containing column names.
5. Go to Edit → Columns Editor, in the opened window select the "numbers to insert" starting from 0 with increasing by 1 and the decimal system, press ok - it will include numbering of lines.

6. Press Ctrl+F and go to the replacement tab, then turn on the use of regular expressions Change

   ^(\d*)\s*([^\t]*)\t([^\t]*\t){29}[^\t\n]*\\([^\t\n\\]*).*$
   

   to

   set memoNames[$1]="$2.m4a"\nset memoLocations[$1]="$4"
   

   (maybe the regex to replace depends on the version of iTunes because it is made according to the columns in export file)

   The result should be something like this

   set memoNames[0]="my custom name.m4a"
   set memoLocations[0]="20130327 172842.m4a"
   set memoNames[1]="some other custom name.m4a"
   set memoLocations[1]="20130327 172954.m4a"
   

   and so on (total number of lines is count of your voice memos × 2)

7. Next, create a batch file (for example rename_records.bat) with content with this code

   @echo off
   setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
   #INSERT_HERE_YOUR_REPLACED_DATA#
   set "x=0"
   echo starting renaming loop
   timeout 2
   :RenameLoop
   if defined memoNames[%x%] (
       set nameFrom=!memoLocations[%x%]!
       set nameTo=!memoNames[%x%]!
       call echo renaming #%x% %nameFrom% in %nameTo%
       REM ren %%memoLocations[%x%]%% %%memoNames[%x%]%%
       set /a "x+=1"
       GOTO :RenameLoop
   )
   echo Total length of files is %x%
   pause
   

8. Replace #INSERT_HERE_YOUR_REPLACED_DATA# in your bat file with the result of 6 step

9. If you have cyrillic symbols add this line at the beginning of your bat file

   chcp 1251 >nul
   

10. Note: Before running your bat file copy your records from iTunes library to some other folder to be sure that you won't lose your records.

11. Place your bat file in the folder that you made in 10 step and run it.

Solution 2:

It appears that this could be a long-standing bug in iTunes. I noticed that if you edit the Voice Memo's metadata via "Get Info" before exporting it out of iTunes, that ONLY edited metadata fields remain in-tact when you export and open the file elsewhere or in iTunes again. I filed a bug report with Apple, but until then we have some options.

Here's 2 workarounds:

1.) EASIEST - If you don't care about retaining the Voice Memo's timestamp:

1. Select all the voice memos you want to export.
2. Open Get Info, go to the Options tab.
3. Change the 'Media Kind' from "Voice Memo" to "Music".
4. Export the voice memos.

This will rename the file as if it were a song, and the filename will be the "Name" metadata. The timestamp data will be lost, however if you convert the original non-exported item back to "Voice Memo" it will somehow restore the original filename with the timestamp.

2.) MOST accurate - To retain all metadata

1. Open the item in "Get Info"
2. Make a trivial edit to all metadata fields you want to retain. Personally, I just add a space to every "Name". For common fields which are the same for multiple voice notes (Artist, Album, Genre), you can do a batch edit.
3. Export the voice notes. The filename will be an ugly timestamp (with hexadecimal), but if you open the file elsewhere (or in iTunes again) the metadata you edited before will still be there.