How to use itune library from an external drive ?

I have an old old computer that works perfectly fine on window xp and I will like to keep it. However, the disc space on the pc is LESS than my IPOD. I will like to move my library to my external hard disk and wondering if it is possible and if itune could operate with the library from an external hard disk.
I have a 80GB video ipod and a 4GB ipod shuffle, 500GB external hard disk and 30GB PC.
thanks for your help.

Hello,
I have read several posts which ask questions about the same problem that I am having however the answers do not quite cover the exact problem and I am hoping that someone can help me.
I have successfully moved my itunes music folder to my external hard drive and I know how to consolidate the itunes library so that it contains all of the music from the music folder on the hard drive however it then loads the music back onto my C drive as I play it from itunes. Also, when I try to consolidate the music from the external hard drive it tells me that I need to have that much space on my computer or it cannot transfer. There is not enough space and that is why I want to move everything, including the library to my external hard drive. When I tried to move the itunes library I could not move it from my C drive to the external hard drive.
I really want to move the itunes library onto the external hard drive with the itunes music folder and operate both from the external hard drive. Is there a way that this can be done?
Many thanks,
Sarah

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Using iTunes library from an external drive over wifi

Hello Community Peeps!
I'm looking for some advice and hope someone has the same setup that I'm hoping to make.
I currently have an iMac and recently had to replace the screen. As the machine is now out of warranty I'm thinking to sell it on before I get any further problems. I Currently have all my work and entire iTunes library stored on an external drive connected via usb to the iMac.
As a graphic designer i need to be fairly mobile and am thinking about changing my setup to this, so that when i'm in one location I can use a bigger screen and when I need to be out and mobile I can just take my MBP out with me and get by designing on that screen.
I am thinking of getting purchasing;
• The most powerful 15" MBP latest I can afford (probably with 2GB graphics).
• Separate 27" display to connect the MBP to when I am in one location.
• Airport base station (not time capsule) to connect my external drive to via USB to make it a wifi drive.
I already have Apple TV but have been told that in order to have my Apple TV access my iTunes library (on the external hard drive connected to the base station) over wifi I will need the MBP switched on and iTunes open. Thats no problem as long as I can do it over wifi.
I will be using the latest OSX and latest iTunes.
I have no since been told by a friend that iTunes has glitches in it and will be unreiable inaccessing my library on the hard drive over wifi.
So my question is, does anyone else have this kind of setup and what is their experience on itunes accessing it's library stored on what is effectively a wifi drive.
And advice gratefully received!
Thanks

That won't get your your "library". Your library, in essence, is (was?) a file called library.itl in your iTunes folder. This is a database with a listing of which media files you have and where they are, long with playlists, ratings, and a bunch of other things (which artwork goes with which album). If all you have on the external drive are the media files then when your old computer died it took the library.itl file with it.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847
Image of iTunes folder structure Dec. 2011 - https://discussions.apple.com/message/16923545
see also:
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/message/13025536 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/17457605
If you want your full library listing back then you will have to recover it from your bakup drive (which is why you have it). Alternatively you can create a brand new library file, add the media to it, and start new.

How do I move an iTunes library from one external drive to another?

I need to move my iTunes library from one external disk to another, because the original disk is about to fail. So, I went into iTunes Perferences --> Advanced, and set the library to a new, empty folder on the new drive.
Nothing changed. I expected all my music to vanish from iTunes, so that I would have to re-import it. However, all the music remained, still on the old disk. At this point, if I were to recreate the library on the new disk, I would have all of my music twice.
Is it possible to move an iTunes library from one external drive to another, or am I stuck with my original choice until I buy a new machine? If I can move it, can one of you clever folks explain how it could be done?

Paul Seymour1 wrote:
However, those are all dealing with old versions of iTunes that still contained the Advanced --> Consolidate Library command which is no longer part of the app. (I'm on iTunes 10.6.1.)
Consolidate is still part of iTunes.
It is in iTunes menu File > Library > Manage library > Consolidate.
The article you linked to is old and it is (and was) a hacky way of doing it.
Just copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to new location, hold Option (Mac) or Shift (Windows) when launching iTunes.

How do run my library from an external drive?

How do run my library from an external drive? I've tried changing destination locations but nothing seems to work. help please

You might find this article useful, there's a section in it on moving to an external drive:
iLounge - Transferring your iTunes Library to Another Drive

HT1751 Hi, I tried to restore my itunes library from an external drive and did everything that's written here step by step.when I chose the itunes library to import itunes just said that its accessing the itunes store but nothung happened. I'm working on

Hi, I tried to restore my itunes library from an external drive and did everything that's written here step by step. when I chose the itunes library to import itunes just said that its accessing the itunes store but nothing happened. Does anyone know how to do this so that all my playlists are also imported and not just the music itself?

When I have done this, all I did was network the two machines and copy the contents of the iTunes folder to the other machine, and that's it.
My understanding (which may not be 100% correct) is that the one file that is absolutely necessary is iTunes Library, and that the XML file is actually a copy auto-generated from the iTunes Library, appearing in a different format only for non-iTunes apps that take advantage of the iTunes Library data.
As far as I know, if you simply have the Library (database) file and all your original music files, iTunes on that computer should operate as it did on your old computer. I believe that the Album Artwork, Genius Data, and XML files can be regenerated from the Library file. Not sure about the Extras file.

How to transfer iTunes library to an external drive (thats easy!) but keeping the playlists musics on the computer?

How to transfer iTunes library to an external drive (thats easy!) but keeping the playlists musics on the computer?
Many thanks!

Select a single song with a broken link, press CTRL+I to Get Info, cancel when asked to locate the track and take a look at the Summary tab. Post back where iTunes is looking for the file. It begins file://localhost
Where is it really?
Please post back both paths so that I can make suggestions. Full paths please, exact spellings, you can replace your user name with <User> if needed.
tt2

How to restore ITunes Library from Backup hard drive?

My computer crashed. I restored it -- but ITunes was wiped clean. I have all my music files and ITunes Library backed up on an external hard drive. How do I get the library from the external drive back to the computer with playlists, artwork and all intact? I guess it is more complex than just dragging the file labled library into ITunes becuase the computer won't let me do that. When I go to the original songs they are all individually in folders accorging to the artist and album -- that will take days to copy each album 1 by 1 -- I have 3,700 songs.

What you first need to do is Place the music it the Location they was in before you restored. If you had songs on the C drive in My Music folder, place them there. If iTunes was reading the music from the external, not much you have to do sincve there already there.
Now with the Library file you have to make iTUnes take the file and recreate it, this is explained here http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313

Rescued iTunes library on external HD. Loaner comp has inadequate HD space to transfer back in. Can I use my library from the external drive? How?

My 5 year old Windows Desktop died but I rescued my iTunes library from the internal to an external drive. The loaner computer I have now is adequate to run iTunes but has a puny internal HD and I cannot transfer my library on to it. I've researched and tried many times solutions to use the external HD as my library location but cannot get it to work. Can anyone help or point me to a step by step guide?
Again the internal HD of the computer is too small to transfer over the library - even temporarily.

There is no reason to move the media to the computers harddrive. Simply point iTunes to the location of the media.
Edit > Preferences > Advanced and tell iTunes where the media is located.

How move my itunes library from old external harddrive to a new bigger external harddrive

i have my itunes library on an external hard drive but now i want to move the itunes library over to a new bigger external hard drive . i just got a new imac and I want to keep my music and movies content on off my imac. I finally just got my imac itunes to recognize the old external hard drive but now I want to move to the new 2tb harddrive. Any help would be appreciated

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

How to Move iTunes Library on an External Drive to Another Computer

How do you move your iTunes library (including all your playlists) if your iTunes media files—movies, TV shows, music, etc.—are housed on an external drive, rather than the local drive on your computer?
The usual advice concerns copying media files from one computer to the next, e.g.:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
But if your media is on an external device, you don’t want to copy it, just access it from a new device. You could plug the drive into your new computer and drag the media into iTunes, but then you would lose your playlists and other information.
Fortunately, you can transfer an entire iTunes Library using the Export/Import function. The essential information is found in an Apple support document, “iTunes: How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists”:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451
Using this information, we can create a procedure for transferring both the media files that are on an external drive and the iTunes Library that goes with it.
Here is the procedure:
1. On the old computer, Export the playlist, using File > Library > Export Library. Transfer the resulting file to the new computer.
2. You might want to note the number of music files, TV shows, etc. you have on the old system. Select View > Show Status Bar, then choose the “List” view, and this information will be shown at the bottom of the iTunes window. Also disable sharing, etc.; you may want to deauthorize the computer as well.
3. Close iTunes on the old computer, dismount and disconnect the external drive(s). (Yes, this will work with media on multiple drives).
4. On the new computer, close iTunes and delete “iTunes Library.itl” in the iTunes folder.
5. On the new computer, Connect and mount the external drive(s).
6. Open iTunes on the new computer. Choose Preferences > Advanced. Deselect (uncheck) both “Keep iTunes Media Organized” (because it’s already organized on your external drive, right?) and “Copy files to iTunes Media folder” (because the files are on the external drive). Then set your iTunes Media folder location to your media folder on the external drive and click on “OK”. (Note: don’t close iTunes after this step, because it will automatically reset your media folder to your local machine rather than the external drive).
7. Choose File > Library > Import Playlist and choose the file you exported from the old computer. This will import all the media you had on the old system into iTunes (no need to manually move anything from the external drive). The import will probably take some time. (If you see that iTunes is copying files, you probably messed up Step 6; you can stop it and go back to Step 4 without harm).
8. After the import, you can check the numbers you noted in Step 2; if there is a discrepancy that bothers you, check out the scripts “Music Folder Files Not Added” “List MIAs” and at http://dougscripts.com/itunes/.
9. When everything is satisfactory, you can recheck “Keep iTunes Media Organized” and “Copy files to iTunes Media folder” in Preferences.
10. You may now want to enable sharing, sync iOS devices, etc. Also be sure to set up your backup strategies on the new machine (you *do* have backups of your external drive(s), right?). If you already had some media on your new computer and you want to incorporate it into the external drive, choose File > Library > Consolidate.
11. Oddities:
* iTunes Extras must be manually imported.
* Some of my movies & TV shows imported as “Home Video”.
* Mobile applications did not import (presumably because no iOS device was synced).
* Books that were once handled by iTunes are now handled by iBooks and will not import (to let iTunes see them again, you’ll need to add them manually to iBooks, then choose File > Move Books from iTunes). Audiobooks import okay, but you may have to authorize your Audible account.

Or:
Copy the iTunes folder from the old computer to the same location in your user area on the new one. Attach the external drive and start iTunes. If you have put it in your Home > Music folder the application will automatically know to look for it there and becausse you are using the same library it will be configured to look for media on the external drive.

How to restore iTunes library from TimeMachine external hard drive backup after clean install

I was not able to solve this problem, hence I decided to open this discussion.
1. Recently, I clean installed Yosemite so my new Mac is completely empty.
2. I have my time machine backup on my eternal hard drive and would like to restore only specific things - such as iTunes library.
3. I did not manually copy iTunes library to my drive, I did the TM backup only, but I also do have all the files in my own "music" folder I manually backed-up.
However, I cannot locate the library there, where is it?
How do I move the library to my new Mac and then establish a new source folder that would be on my drive?
PS: Previously, iTunes used my own music folder as a source = it contained all the music files. I had it on an external drive, later moved it to my Mac.
This leads me to the conclusion that my backup copy of iTunes library did not contain the files anyway.
Any advice?
Thank you in advance.

I am confused as to what you had or have where and when. The bottom line is, your library (for the standard user) is everything in the iTunes folder. As far as iTunes' organization and display is concerned, your library is a file called "iTunes Library.itl" which points to all the other host of files and folders normally in the iTunes folder which all work together.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.
If you kept everything together in one place then you need to put the whole iTunes folder on the drive where you want it, start iTunes while holding down the option key and guide it to that .itl file. If things were split up and you had media on the external and the rest of the library on the internal you need to get them back to exactly where they were before. If you can't find that iTunes folder holding the critical .itl file anywhere then you have a bunch of media tracks and no organization and will need to rebuild the organization from ground level.

How do I transfer my iTunes library from an external drive to my new macbook air?

I have an 8 year old MacBook Pro that has a small hard drive. So 8 years ago I put all my songs (35GB) on an external drive. I just bought a MacBook Air that has 256 GB of space and would like to transfer all my songs, movies, etc. to it and stop using the old hard drive. Can anyone help me with how to do this? Thanks.

Choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu, provide ~/Music/ as the folder's path, and drag the entire iTunes library, including the database files, to it.
Alternatively, you can drag the entire library to any location on the internal drive, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, and choose it.
If you only put the songs and not the database files on the external drive, drag it to the internal drive and from there to the library in the open iTunes application window.
(114452)

How do I import an iTunes library from an external drive if that drive has been simply removed from a dead computer, without prior measures being taken to ensure it is possible to transfer the library over?

Basically, my issue here is, I had a fully functioning iTunes on my previous Acer laptop which I used to store my music for my iPhone, I have over 2000 songs on this iTunes and as the laptop suddenly died due to motherboard failure, there was no way to follow out the instructions given by apple on how to properly transfer one iTunes library to another.
The only source of music I have comes from source files on the HDD, which, stupidly I chose to organise myself.
A large quantity of this music was deleted from the iTunes library but stayed on the HDD in the source folders (I do not know why)
By simply dragging my music folder from my HDD to a new iTunes, all the files do go over, however many of them are duplicated (due to 320>120 bit rate MP3 creations) and a number of them are simply not wanted.
Is there a way to transfer my old library straight into this new one? bearing in mind I have all the program files and everything that had iTunes running on my old computer stored onto this USB drive?
Thank you!

When I have done this, all I did was network the two machines and copy the contents of the iTunes folder to the other machine, and that's it.
My understanding (which may not be 100% correct) is that the one file that is absolutely necessary is iTunes Library, and that the XML file is actually a copy auto-generated from the iTunes Library, appearing in a different format only for non-iTunes apps that take advantage of the iTunes Library data.
As far as I know, if you simply have the Library (database) file and all your original music files, iTunes on that computer should operate as it did on your old computer. I believe that the Album Artwork, Genius Data, and XML files can be regenerated from the Library file. Not sure about the Extras file.

How to migrate iTunes Library from an external hard drive to a new Mac Book Pro?

How to migrate iTunes and iPhoto librarys from an external hard drive to a MacBook Pro?

With iTunes:
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the whole iTunes folder and all its subfolders and files intact to Home > Music on your computer. It will replace the one that may already be there and anything you have in it will be lost -- you could give the folder a different name just in case, and delete it yourself later. Unplug the external and start iTunes.

How to save iTunes library from failing internal drive?

How does one go about doing this? My internal drive is making noise (and I suspect about to fail), so I'm trying to save my itunes library...I have already switched default drive to my external, but as I understand it some info is still saved on my internal drive? So now what? I am more concerned about saving the music files themselves than the playlists, etc. I know just enough to be dangerous! Please help!

This may help: iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1751

How to use itune library from an external drive ?

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