How can i copy specific music files to an external hard drive?

I'm trying to copy selected artists from my itunes music library to an external hard drive. I don't want to relocate any of my files to the external hard drive for regular use with itunes, I simply want to back up my files.

Open Finder. Go to Music>iTunes>iTunes Music. The folders are organised by artists. You can copy and paste them to your external hard drive.

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How can I store my music files on an external hard drive and listen to them through iTunes that way?

How can I store my music files on an external hard drive and listen to them through iTunes that way? At the moment they're both on the external hard drive and also stored on the computer but I'm quickly running out of memory on my iBook G4 so I'd like to only keep them on the external hard drive and, if possible, delete them from my computer's hard drive. At the moment, when the hard drive isn't plugged in a lot of the files won't play and I get the exclamation mark next to the particular song in iTunes, but everything plays fine when the hard drive is plugged in.
Thank you.

Sounds like your files are playing from the external drive already. To check go to iTunes - Preferences - Advanced and check the Media Folder Location. Change it to the external drive if you need to.

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Thank you for great advice re SuperDuper.
You wasnt to know we didnt live in USA. We will try to get the full retail version of Leopard off the net. We will also phone round the apple resellers.
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How can I consolidate my music library with an external hard drive?

I have moved my entire music library onto an external hard drive. However, when I want to copy a new CD at work, I often copy the music onto my laptop then have to manually transfer it to the external hard drive at home.
I thought that "consolidate" library would do this automatically for me. The problem is when I disconnect the external, the next time I open iTunes it tells me "The folder containing the iTunes Library cannot be found and is required. Please choose or create a new iTunes Library." So I choose the iTunes library that resides on my laptop in the Music folder. When I go back to using my external music folder and try to consolidate my library nothing happens. I would like to use the "consolidate library" command to copy the music from my laptop to my external hard drive. Please help!

Drag it to the internal drive.
If it contains the iTunes database files, launch iTunes with the Shift key held down, click on Choose Library, and navigate to it.
If it doesn't, drag it from there into the open iTunes application window.
(108123)

Can i keep my music files on an external hard drive and somehow sync the songs from there?

I have just purchased a new mac book pro, but don't want to fill up all it's memory with music files that i have on my external hard drive. Is there a way that i can keep the files on the external hard drive without having to upload them onto my computers drive, and still play them in iTunes ?

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iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

I can't copy iTunes media files from one external hard drive to another.

Hi, I am running the latest iTunes and Mavericks software on my MacBook Pro. My iTunes library is stored on an external Seagate 2tb hard drive and it is almost full. I want to transfer the files to a WD Elements 3tb external hard drive and have made that new volume the destination folder for my iTunes library. However, even though I have enabled read/write on both volumes and made the iTunes media folders on both shared folders, I can't copy all the files from the Seagate drive to the WD drive. It comes up with an error message that says "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8058)". I can transfer files from my MacBook hard drive to the new volume, but can't copy files from the old Seagate volume to my MacBook hard drive; it makes the "boing" sound that indicates it is copying but nothing transfers. Files that won't copy include all music files, some video files and all podcast files. Some transferred with no problem. Any ideas out there?

Hi Limnos, thanks very much for your reply.
both external drives came preformatted for Windows but I erased each and reformatted them for Mac before using them.
i made the destination folder on the new WD drive the new iTunes folder using Advanced preferences in iTunes.
my original iTunes folder on the first drive contained all my iTunes files, as that, also, was the destination folder that was linked via Advanced preferences.
If I download new content now with the new drive attached, iTunes has no trouble finding where to place the files.
in Preferences I have both boxes checked (copy files" and "organize") that deal with copying iTunes files.
When I first attempted to copy all iTunes files from one media folder to the other on the external drives, I just did a drag and drop of the whole iTunes media folder from one to the other while both were mounted on my desktop. It started copying immediately with no problems, but as it progressed it started skipping files, each time displaying the error message I reported earlier. that included my entire Music folder. When I open, for example, a season folder that contains files that would not copy, eg, Modern Family Season 5, the episodes that won't copy are there and visible but any attempt to drag and drop them into the correct folder on the new drive results in the error message. There is no pattern to it; it will choose some episodes from some seasons but not others, and no music at all.
when I look at the "missing" files in iTunes they have the small exclamation mark that indicates the file is missing, but when I locate it through iTunes it doesn't copy the file on the old external drive to the new one. It just plays it having found the file on the old drive.
originally I had to make the iTunes folder on the old drive into a shared folder using the Get info window after either a software upgrade or an OS upgrade (I can't remember which, it was several years ago). For some reason the upgrade changed the preferences of that folder to a Read Only folder and after researching the problem found the only way to keep using the drive was to make the folder a shared one. I can't remember why and I apologise for that but it was a long time ago.; I can tell you that at the time it was necessary.
thanks again for your time; I have a good working knowledge of iTunes and Macs in general so I truly believe I have done everything according to how it should be done,, but clearly I've done something wrong!

I use Time Machine to back up my iMac. How can I copy some iPhoto events from my external hard drive to my MacBook?

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As captfred says, yes (as long as the drive is formatted for a Mac, not Windoze).
You might want to review the [Time Machine Tutorial|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics] and perhaps browse [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

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Before copying the library you have to make sure that all media is in the library. Media from iTunes, iPhoto and similar are by default linked to my iMovie and not copied to the library. To resolve this you may need to consolidate media before you copy the library. See for details:
http://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.0/#mov882dee351
Note that your colleague has to be using the same version of iMovie. Even different minor updates may cause problems.
I hope this helps.
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How can I copy my music files to my iPAD. The CDs are currently stored in folders on my PC. Note: Synching via iCLOUD won't work because I have VISTA OS and I need at least Windows 7 or 8.

How can I copy my music files to my iPAD. The CDs are currently stored in folders on my PC. Note: Synching via iCLOUD won't work because I have VISTA OS and I need at least Windows 7 or 8.

Hi ladextr,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. To sync your music to your iPad, first put your music in iTunes as described here:
Adding music and other content to iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1473
Adding content on your computer to iTunes
iTunes helps you add digital audio and video files on your computer directly to your iTunes library. You can add audio files that are in AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, or Audible.com (.aa) format. If you have unprotected WMA content, iTunes for Windows can convert these files to one of these formats. You can also add video content in QuickTime or MPEG-4 format to iTunes. To learn how to add these files to iTunes follow the steps below.
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MacAdd to Library
Windows
Add File to Library
Add Folder to Library
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Once that's done, you can sync the music to your iPad by following this article:
iTunes 11 for Windows: Set up syncing for iPod, iPhone, or iPad
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph12313
Cheers,
- Ari

How can i copy the music files from itunes in mp3 format to my PC

How can i copy the music files from itunes in mp3 format to my PC

Dr. P,
Song files are just files. You can copy them the way you copy any other files, like photos or documents.
If any of the files are not already in MP3 format, and you wish to create MP3 versions, then you can convert them using iTunes, by following this guide: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1550

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Hi,
See this Support Article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Restoring your iTunes Library backup
These Links may also be of Interest:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12803190#12803190
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12699828#12699828
Cheers,

How do I extract my music files from a evternal hard drive and put them on my itunes?

how do I extract my music files from a evternal hard drive and put them on my itunes?

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Either of these should help.
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
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How can i copy specific music files to an external hard drive?

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