Combining iTunes Libraries from laptop and desktop--duplicates?

Question

I have been through an iTunes search, but can't seem to find an answer to this question. I want to combine all of the music on my laptop, with my mac-mini iTunes music file (on an external drive). I know I can hook the two together and do an "add to library," but I am running 30 gigs or so on the laptop, and more than 70 on the main computer. Will doing this add two copies of duplicates (which would create a "clean-up" nightmare), or will iTunes recognize and skip the duplicates? There is simply too much time involved not to know in advance. Any help appreciated.
Also, I wrote a year or so ago that I have ITunes start up immediately every tme I reboot and want to know how to turn it off. Other folks said they had the same problem, but no solution was ever offered. Anything new on this?
Thanks--

Answer 1

I found your post because im doing the exact same thing..sort of. I had a mac pro that was ahem taken from me about a year ago. Since then ive been using my macbook laptop for my itunes and my iphone syncing. Now that I have my Mac Pro back, im in the process of merging both to my mac pro and using the mac pro as my "primary" itunes library.
Here is my solution..
1) Make sure both versions of itunes are the same on each computer! Start Itunes, click Itunes>Check for Updates.
2) In Itunes, click File>Display duplicates. Clean up anything that needs it.
3) In Itunes, click File>Library>Organize Library then check the box that says "Upgrade to Itunes media organization." If you have already done this previously, you will only see a grayed out box and a message stating that your media is already organized as a itunes media folder. DO NOT CHECK THE BOX THAT SAYS CONSOLIDATE FILES.
(step 4 is optional, I've been using Itunes for many years and it seems every version they change their folder structure (eg, Audiobooks is now books, etc. also, in the past, the folder was Itunes Music, now with version 9 its Itunes Media) I decided I would start clean with the latest Itunes 9 folder structure so I did exactly that!)
4) In Itunes, click Itunes>Preferences>Advanced. Under Itunes Media Folder Location, change to your new path. for example, mine originally said /users/Geoff/Music/Itunes/Itunes Music. I created a new folder called Itunes Media in the Itunes folder so now mine says: /users/Geoff/Music/Itunes/Itunes Media. Like I mentioned before , the main advantage to this is to have the latest folder structure in itunes 9 and not have a bunch of old folders from previous itunes versions.
5) In Itunes do a File>Library>Organize Library then click the checkbox next to "Consolidate Files". When you hit ok what this does is copies all your music, etc to your new folder that you made in step 4. If you didnt make a new folder in step 4, it will simply just reorganize to the latest itunes 9 folder structure and leave the older itunes folders on your computer. (Im a neat freak so thats why I went with step 4 and made a whole new folder for my Itunes Music) If you did create a new folder called Itunes Media (or whatever you chose to call it) make sure you DELETE the old folder (itunes music or whatever you had originally) or you will have 2 folders with the same things in them, wasting alot of hard drive space.
6) Now you have to make a decision which library you would like to keep. yes, we will be merging, but we need to use ONE of the libraries in itunes. In my case, 75% of my stuff was on my laptop, so I decided to keep its library and use it on my Mac Pro (also, my Iphone is synced to my laptop as well so that was another reason I used that one. If one of the itunes libraries your merging is also used to sync your iphone I recommend using that library. ((just how I did it, YMMV)) For simplicity, lets call the library your going to KEEP the source, and the other copy the destination. Once you have decided which library is going to be the source, create a folder on the OTHER computer's desktop (the destination) and call it "itunes backup".
7) Start up Itunes one last time on the Destination computer and export any playlists you want with the new library. To do this, click the playlist, then File>Library>Export Playlist. When you export, it will ask you what format you would like. I just picked Plain Text. I exported my playlists to my desktop, but you can export them wherever you like.
Also, you need to check the movies, tv shows, podcasts, books and ringtones on each computer and write down a list of things you will need to merge from the destination computer to the new library. (eg, i had a few audiobooks on my destination machine that I didnt have on my laptop. I also had a few tv shows and podcasts on my destination machine I didnt have on my laptop. Since i will be using the library from my laptop on the destination machine, I wrote them down so that I could import them later and not worry about duplicates. (If you dont care about duplicates then I guess you dont need to write anything down and you can sort the dupes later in itunes when your done.)
8) on the destination computer (the one we created the folder on the desktop in the previous step), make sure itunes is NOT running, then open finder and go to the music folder, and then go to the folder Itunes. In this folder you will see a file called iTunes Library. Drag it to the folder you created on the desktop called Itunes backup. Next you will see a file called iTunes Music Library.xml
Drag this file as well to the folder on the desktop called iTunes Backup.
9) Now while still looking in the iTunes folder, you will see either a folder called iTunes Music or a folder called iTunes Media. (depending if you did step 4 or not above). Whichever folder you have, drag it as well to the folder on the desktop called iTunes Backup.
10) now, on the SOURCE machine (the one your going to use the iTunes library from) open finder and go to the Music folder, and then to the iTunes folder. Copy the iTunes folder and everything in it to the destination computer. In my case, since both my computers are on a network, I just copied it to the public folder on the destination computer. You can do this, or use a external harddrive, etc. Just make sure when you copy it to the destination computer, you DONT copy it to the Music folder.
11) After the copy is done, You should now go to the destination computer and go to the iTunes folder you just copied from the Source computer. We now need to copy 2 things (one file and one folder). Inside the iTunes folder drag the file "iTunes Library" to the /music/iTunes folder on the destination machine.
12) Lastly, now drag the folder "iTunes Media" (or iTunes Music) to the /music/iTunes folder on the destination computer.
13) start up itunes and go to iTunes>Preferences>Advanced and make sure the proper path is displayed in the iTunes Folder Media Location (it should be the path we copied the 2 files to, (eg, /music/iTunes.)
At this point, you should have a working copy of iTunes from your SOURCE machine running on the destination machine. next we need to merge the last few things to finish.
14) In iTunes, click File>Add to Library and browse to the folder on your desktop called "iTunes Backup". Inside the iTunes Music folder (or iTunes Media folder) click the music folder and then click choose to import the music.
15) next, if needed, in Itunes, click File>Add to Library and pick any Movies, Tv Shows, Books, etc that you didnt have and import them into your itunes library. If everything was the same on both machines, you dont have to do anything and you can skip this step. But if your like me, and had some things in your destination iTunes library you didnt have in your source, you will need to import them. This is where the list in step 7 comes in handy.
16) lastly, in iTunes, click File>Library>Import Playlist and import any playlists you exported in step 7
17) re download your album art and then the last thing you have to do is delete your music dupes and then your finished. To see a list of dupes, in iTunes, click File>Display Duplicates. You can either manually delete the duplicates (make sure you pick KEEP FILES when it asks if you would like to keep the file or delete it from the hard drive.) or use a 3rd party program like tidy songs or something.
Hope this tutorial was helpful, I spent way too long making it..lol..
And the answer to your second question... to stop auto start of itunes. Try clicking the apple logo in the top left corner, then click System Preferences, then click Accounts, then you will see a "Login Items" tab that shows whats starting up at login. Hope this helps.
If you have any questions or comments let me know, ill follow this thread for awhile to help if you need it.
Message was edited by: What2be1
Message was edited by: What2be1
Message was edited by: What2be1