*This assumes your iPhone is no more than six years old... lemme know if it isn't.*
So, Evolving, my Luxembourgian friend... Mostly VLC app, but there are also some details about organizing, which I find useful. Ignore whatever seems irrelevant. Under each header, I describe what it's about, to make it easier to skip if it's irrelevant.
I use Windows, you use Mac, but the basic strategy should be the same...
iTunes library settingsWhen you ripped a bunch of CD's, whatever program you used (iTunes on Mac?) probably organized all the music files automatically, by artist, album, etc. This section makes sure if you ever add/edit music in iTunes (on your computer) in the future, 1) it organizes the files properly whenever you edit them; and 2) it actually copies the music to your library.
In 'Edit' --> 'Preferences...' --> 'Advanced' tab, check the first 2 boxes. This makes sure your iTunes computer program isn't saving music in AAC instead of MP3 format. AAC is fine, as VLC can handle AAC files, but to avoid future confusion, you might want to change the setting to MP3. Click spoiler tag to see how. Otherwise ignore.
Click 'Edit'...Click 'Preferences...'
In the 'General' tab, click 'Import Settings...'If you see 'AAC Encoder' at the top, change to 'MP3 encoder' Iirc, that's all the useful settings in iTunes. iTunes (on Mac/PC) is a decent program for organizing music & I still sometimes use it for batches of files. If you didn't use/ won't be using iTunes (on Mac) for anything, then ignore the above, of course.
Once you've installed VLC app on iPhone...There's a variety of ways to copy files from your Mac to the VLC app. Most straightforward is over WiFi. As Fallible mentioned, you can probably use AirDrop to dump songs directly into your iPhone's File app, and from there move the songs to the VLC folder (VLC will automatically create a folder in the Files app)... but this way is more direct... unless AirDrop also shows you all the folders in your iPhone's Files app, in which case it's just as direct. Anyway, in the VLC app, in the 'Network' tab, the 'Sharing via WiFi' button is greyed out if you're not on WiFi:
Once you're on WiFi, click it to turn sharing on:
[Reveal] Spoiler:
VLC app is ready to share... You'll see the address of your device now, maybe something like 10.0.0.xx (see image above). Open a browser on your computer, and type that address, press Enter. If you're on the same WiFi network, your iPhone's VLC app is now a container ready to receive files through your computer's browser:
[Reveal] Spoiler:
computer is ready to share The top half is where you dump files from your computer to the VLC app. You can drag files from any folder, or even
from iTunes on your Mac. The bottom half is where you download files from the VLC app to your computer. (You can dump any file type to the app, not just audio & video... This is one way to quickly add subtitles for a movie that's missing them... ask me sometime if that interests you.)
I dragged an album into VLC app on iPhone, and then a random song...Tags help with organization. The random song ("13th century metal") didn't have properly edited tags - the album did. This is what happened:
(Ignore the first item... that's my alarm music. It was already there.)
The second item is the random song I added, without editing its tags. VLC doesn't know how to categorize it.
The third item is the album, with properly edited tags. In 'Album' view, the random song doesn't even show up, because VLC doesn't detect album or artist info. Everything shows up in 'Song' view, because at least VLC has the file name itself. Songs you ripped from CD's should already be organized pretty well. These next couple sections are for new downloads (not from CD's). Mac and Windows windows look slightly different, but not much. Here's me editing tags in Windows. All the files are together in a folder, and then...
Highlight all the files in the would-be album...Right-click or Command-click, then choose 'Get Info' (on Windows it's 'Properties')...
In a certain tab, you should see various fields, such as 'Album', 'Album Artist', etc.
When editing multiple files at once, DO NOT edit the 'Title' field, or it will make all song titles identical.
(Do this process individually with each file to check/edit song titles.)
As long as every file has the same album name and same album-artist name, your media player will organize the songs correctly when you've dumped them in.I like to ignore album names, and just put artist name for both. I deliberately omit/remove Track#. So all my albums consist of every song by that artist, in alphabetical order. It's unorthodox, but it keeps things simple. When I want to add album detail to a particular track (e.g. Live in Madison Square Garden) I prefer to add it to the individual track title.
This system lets me remove all the songs I don't particularly like, and my 'albums' don't end up looking hodgepodge. You would do all the necessary editing
before dumping the files into VLC app, to avoid the potential chaos implied in the previous section. If you can't directly edit this stuff in your Mac's file system, use a media player (next section)...
Any (computer) media player can edit tags, and it'll look similar...For example
VLC for Mac <--(click link). But to use iTunes (on Mac) instead, first check the beginning two sections above (library settings & MP3 setting). To edit multiple tags, highlight the tracks in iTunes (Ctrl-click if they're listed non-sequentially), and then...
Right-click or Command-click, then click 'Get Info'...
You'll see fields. It's pretty intuitive. Again, my own preference is to keep album/artist/album-artist fields the same for simplicity, and to avoid/delete Track#.In the 'Artwork' tab, you can drag whatever image you like...To replace an image, I would first delete whatever images are there (click image, hit Delete button), before adding a new one. Whatever player you use should rely on 'Album Artist' to organize by "artist". You can still decide afterwards to change 'Artist' for each track where you think it needs changing, for example if some tracks feature a collaboration with other artists. So the "album" will reflect 'Album Artist', and each song will still show whatever other artist(s) you added to the track. Keeps things neat. Also, iTunes still has some trouble applying album art, so it may not show up properly in VLC. Such is life.
Official demo if you prefer to use VLC (on computer) for this:
How to View and Edit ID3 Audio Tags Using VLCRe: videos...Drag-n-drop works the same for videos. Organizing videos in the VLC app is much like the folder system on the computer. You can long-press a video thumbnail and then specify what folder to put it in, or create a new folder to put it in. In the latest version of the app, VLC calls folders "media groups". That's distinct from "playlists", which is just playlists. You can add individual
songs to playlists too, but you can't regroup them (i.e., "move" them) like with video files - though you can certainly delete songs, of course, or move them out of VLC from within the Files app. More on video files & subtitles if you're curious, anytime.
Hopefully this didn't make your eyes swim.
by 
