How to use external hard drive as itunes library

Just bought a new external hard drive (passport) for mac and would like to know how to use it as my itunes library? thanks

Drag it there from the Music item of the Finder's sidebar, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and navigate to that instance of the library.
(81903)

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How to use external hard drive and iTunes together?

how to use external hard drive and iTunes together?

Yes I did get to that part.... I went trough external to retrive itunes folder... When I selected the folder, it said that it was locked, choose another folder... I then went to my external again to my itunes folder and and used command I to see if folder was locked and it wasn't.... it was suggested on another forum to reboot.. which I did and still same problem... All I want to do is link my external hard drive that has my itunes playlist from another Mac to my new one.. and to also use the external as the main source for adding new songs to my playlist...

How do i get itunes 11 to stop adding music played from external hard drive to itunes library

I use itunes 11 to play music from my external hard drive and when i am finished using the hard drive and disconnect it the artist and songs appear in the itunes libary and when i click on it to play them it cannot locate the file and i assume this is becuse under the advanced prefrences tab i unchecked the auomaticly add played music to itunes library. I do not want my external hard drive music to be added to itunes library which at this point it does not but it is still showing the music in the library even though it cannot be played this is very fustrating please help. how do i get the artist and songs played from the external hardrive from appering in the itunes library.

Do you have a working copy of the library anywhere? The key file is called iTunes Library.itl and normally exists inside <User's Music>\iTunes. This is the file that knows what is in your library and each of the playlists, and holds ratings, play counts etc. Changing the media folder path in preferences tells iTunes where you'd like it to store media in future. It doesn't magically connect iTunes to any media that might already be there, or fix links to media that has been moved, or make it pick up a non-existent library file. If the worst comes to it you will need to import the media into the new empty library.
See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device if you have any of these to recover ratings, play stats and playlists, and to associate your device with the new library.
tt2

Using old external hard drive as iTunes library on new macbook pro

Recently purchased new macbook pro with 256 GB of memory. I have an older external Passport for Mac hardrive with close to 1 TB of music. I would like to use this external hard drive as my itunes folder. I opened itunes on new computer, went to preferences - advanced and chose new location /Volumes/JP KAF/Itunes Media/Music and select OK but no music is available. How do I connect my external hard drive and direct my new computer to use it as my music library. I tried the starting itunes and holding Left shift key but that does not open an option of creating a library - Again, this is the newest macbook pro with retina screen. Please help.

No not do it changing preferences. That does as it says; it just relocates media, not the whole library which is more than media.
Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the new location of the iTunes Library.itl file in the moved iTunes folder.

Using external hard drive for itunes from mac to windows

Hello, I have an external hard drive for my itunes music connected to a G4. I just bought a laptop (windows) and would like to connect the external drive to it so it will read my music from the external hard drive. How can i do that?
Thanks,
M

You will lose all data when you reformat so you must copy it elsewhere temporarily, as for the format go to: Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility>Erase, in the format dropdown select MSDOS (FAT) and in the name dropdown, type a name.
Copy your data back to it and it will be accessible to windows and osx

How do I transfer my music from external hard drive to itunes library?

Hello everyone!
How do I transfer my .mp3 files from my external hard drive to my itunes library?

Drag them into the open iTunes application window. You may need to copy them to the internal drive first or organize the iTunes library afterwards.
(65802)

How to use external hard drive

I purchsed my mac mini four years ago. It came with an external hard drive. I have never used it and don't know how or what i am doing! But now that i have movies and pictures on my computer i want to make sure i have them backed up. How do i work this thing?

Hi, Alan.
The Ext drive should have either a firewire or usb cable,and a power supply.
The sockets on the mac mini for these 2 interfaces are different, so the cable will only fit into one.
Make sure the plug is right way round and don't try and force it into a socket.
Do this before you turn on the mac mini and power up the ext drive.
Boot your mac, open applications, select utilities and then Disk Utility.
If everything's working and connected you should see the ext drive listed on the left as the second entry.
Click on it and DU will give you size, file system type, etc. If it came with your mac I suspect it will already be formatted.
It should also appear on your desktop as the next icon under th Mac HD one.
You can either use time machine to backup everything on the Mac Hd drive automatically, or simply drag and drop the folders you want to keep onto the new drive. It's easier if you open the drive's folder to do this.
Hope this helps,
regards,
Scorpii

How to use external hard drive on my old mac?

I am preparing my old mac (G5) for recycling and want to back up and erase my files on an external hard drive. I have used the external hard drive once on my macbook pro and when I connected it on the old mac, it's telling me it cannot read all the files. It also isn't showing on the desktop so I'm unable to back up the files. What do I do? How do I get the external hard drive working?

What is the make & model number of the external HD?
Try plugging in the external into a different port on your computer.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility
Start up disk utility & see what this application says about the external hd.
You should have a backup of your data … even on a new machine.
You need an external Firewire drive to boot a PowerPC Mac computer.
I recommend you do a google search on any external harddrive you are looking at.
I bought a low cost external drive enclosure. When I started having trouble with it, I did a google search and found a lot of complaints about the drive enclosure. I ended up buying a new drive enclosure. On my second go around, I decided to buy a drive enclosure with a good history of working with Macs. The chip set seems to be the key ingredient. The Oxford line of chips seems to be good. I got the Oxford 911.
Has everything interface:
FireWire 800/400 + USB2, + eSATA 'Quad Interface'
save a little money interface:
FireWire 400 + USB 2.0
This web page lists both external harddrive types. You may need to scroll to the right to see both.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

Time Capsule or AirPort Extreme + External Hard Drive for iTunes Library

Hi, I currently have an Airport Extreme (Gigabit) and am planning on getting a MacBook Pro. What I want to do is keep my iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive and attach it to my AirPort so I can access it anywhere in the house (and world). Now I have been reading various reviews that perhaps a Time Capsule would be better for my needs. I don't plan on using it for Time Machine backups right now, just as a NAS Drive. If anyone has any experience with this I would appreciate the advice.
Thanks!
Message was edited by: Mr. Macintosh693

Hi,
I have something like that working at the moment. My setup is based on a Mac Mini Core Duo [ OS 10.5.6 ] connected to a Time Capsule. I have configured iTunes to store all archived music on the Time Capsule. I use the Apple Lossless format for my CDs and approx 420 titles have taken approx 130Gb from my 1Tb Capsule. In general this setup works well [ especially the optical out of the Mac ] but be aware of the following potential pitfalls:-
1. The Time Capsule is a little on the noisy side and depending on the quality of your playback equipment, your choice of music, ambient noise and your values of "satisfactory" you may want to put your Capsule or HDD in another room. This seems OK for generic playback, but in my experience wireless is not a good way to go for streaming content.
2. iTunes v8.0.2 has a preferences capability to allow you to redirect it's archive to the Time Capsule. However, even if you leave the Capsule switched on it goes into a "sleep" mode. Rip a new CD and iTunes won't tell you this; instead it will silently reconfigure itself to store on your local hard drive and then you're left with the challenge of moving your collection piecemeal if you want it in one location, followed by manually updating iTunes to "point" it to the new location of the music.
One nice thing about the Capsule is that it does allow other connection types. I have mine networked to a PC running Ubuntu Linux and a music player called Amarok and I am able to stream the Mac-Ripped lossless files and play them over Linux perfectly... Works very well. Apparently you can do this with a Windows client and iTunes for Windows, but I don't run Windows as a matter of principle and can't validate that.
My 1Tb Time Capsule runs hot, too. Not dangerously so, but hot to the touch. There are no cooling fans, but you might want to think about placement; it needs plenty of fresh air circulating around it.
For what it's worth [ and I appreciate this is going beyond your question ] I also wanted my setup to be able to store and retrieve recorded TV. I have Elgato EyeTV and a USB Freeview decoder. I quickly learned that despite claims to the contrary the performance of the wireless connection just isn't up to streaming video content. So I went out and purchased a pair of Ethernet-over-mains adapters from Zyxel that are absolutely perfect for the job.
Yes, the Capsule is a little pricey for what is little more than a Hard Drive in a box, but it does work very well.
Beware the timeout disconnections and the silently re-configuring iTunes thought...

Reconnect music folder/files on external hard drive to iTunes library?

Recently reinstalled iTunes. All music files previously recognized by iTunes on my external hard drive are now unrecognized by iTunes when I try to play a song within iTunes. How do I get iTunes to re-recognize all files without doing search to external hard drive and reconnecting every individual song (thousands of them!)?
An error that comes up when I first open iTunes is:
iTunes cannot locate CD Configeration Folder so you cannot import or burn a CD. This folder must be in same directory as iTunes.

Why not change Compatibility mode back, then?

Moving songs from external hard drive to Itunes library

I have a bunch of songs on an external hard drive, but my itunes library is on my pc.....I tried to add some of these songs to my library (i played the songs and they were automatically added to the library)....but when i inplugged the external hard drive from my pc and tried to play the songs from the library, it would not let me play them.....an error message came up that stated that the library could not find the device from which the songs came from....why is this?....is there another way to add these songs from the hard drive????

why is this?
The Windows version of iTunes doesn't copy content to the iTunes Music folder when importing from another hard disk by default. Connect the drive and choose Consolidate Library from th Library section of the File menu.
(36713)

Using external hard drive with itunes

so i am using a 250g lacie hard drive to store all of my music. i set my itunes preferences to have my itunes music folder on the lacie drive. since then i have been importing my whole cd collection into itunes and onto the lacie drive. i have noticed that it is a bit slower when i import onto the lacie drive versus straight onto the computer's drive and im not sure if there is an easy solution for this problem.
but the BIG problem is here, whenever i unplug the lacie drive the preferences automatically default my itunes music folder back onto my computer's hard drive. is there anyway to avoid this from happening? thanks.

is there anyway to avoid this from happening?
No. iTunes has to 'know' were to import the next CD. If it doesn't find the 'iTunes Music folder location' (as set in Preferences) it reverts to the default location.
Always attach your EHD before running iTunes.
You can also run a small script instead of iTunes.
It will not run iTunes if the EHD is not attached, thus avoiding resetting the 'iTunes Music folder location'
tell application "Finder" to set my_name to displayed name of (get info for file (path to me as string))
set EHD_name to text ((offset of "-" in my_name) + 1) thru -1 of my_name
if EHD_name ends with ".app" then set EHD_name to text 1 thru -5 of EHD_name
tell application "Finder"
set disknames to name of every disk
if disknames contains EHD_name then
tell application "iTunes" to activate
else
display dialog "Please mount (attach) the drive " & EHD_name giving up after 10
end if
end tell
Compile the script and name it: NameOfChoice-NameOfEHD
The first part of the name is unimportant. The second part of the name contains the exact name of your EHD. The two parts of the name are connected by a hyphen (no space left and right of the hyphen)
Run it instead of iTunes. If your EHD is attached, iTunes is launched.
If not, the script will tell you to attach your EHD.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

Hard drive filling up, can I use external hard drive for my library?

Hello all!
My hard drive on my Sony laptop only has 30G harddrive, and as I am downloading my Cd collection and buy it tunes videos etc., into my ipod, my computer is slowing down and overloading because of all the other programs I have in there. So far my solution is to delete the videos I have purchased and watched (Series "24") so as not to demand too much of my resourses. I just purchased a seperate 80G hard drive in order to place my photos and other space consuming files there, and wonder how and if I can MOVE my library from my itunes software and place it also onto this small seperate hard drive, so that I can get a few more years out of this laptop? So far I haven't seen if that's possible, just that it can be copied. I want to be able to sync regularly and I don't know if can without re-loading all the data back into the library in my itunes software ON the computer.
Solutions, anyone?
HELP!
Thanks, Flutist Renee

If you are using iTunes 7, this method is a little more up to date: How to move your iTunes library to an external drive

Itunes music stored on external hard drive -- and itunes library empty

Hi, I recently upgraded to a new external HD (Seagate Go for Mac) and I moved my 111 GB of music media (which was stored on my old ext. HD) onto the Seagate. Only problem then was that when I tried to play a song in the iTunes library, it couldn't locate the file.
So -- after trying various combos of things, I ended-up doing a new install of iTunes. Which of course shows up empty (the iTunes library). And all my music media is still on the Seagate.
So -- is there a way to have my iTunes library recognize what is in the Seagate? So I don't have to burn that 111GB of music again?
Thank you

update to the question above -- I went into Time Machine and restored my iTunes library, so it is showing what music I have again in there. FYI in advanced settings, I kept the setting that the music is stored in the Seagate HD.
BUT when I click on any music, it still cannot locate the file (all the music media files are still stored on the Seagate ext. HD)
So -- how can I get the iTunes library to re-connect with what is in the Seagate HD?
Thank you!

HT203167 Moved iTunes library from one computer to another using external hard drive. Cannot play many files. Says they are missing but locates them in an archive file but still won't play them. Are the files themselves part of the .itl files?

Moved iTunes library from old computer (PC Windows 7) to new (PC Window 8) using external hard drive. Library listing shows all music but can only play a fraction of it. On the ones it cannot play it asks to locate, then refers to an archived version (an .itl file), and still cannot play them. Do I just need to copy the archived .itl over, or is that not where the actual media are (do the actual media files even exist on the new computer?)? Any advice or information on this would be helpful.

*Also...is there any way I can filter out all the tracks with the ! so I can delete the unplaying copies as they're taking up room in my iTunes? I know how to find duplicates, but then I have to go and delete each one individually...*
*Thank you!*

How to use external hard drive as itunes library

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