Songs on an External Hard Drive

I have a database of songs on an external hard drive. The songs are organized in an artist folder with album folders within that folder and then with songs under each album folder. In some cases, I just have an artist folder and then songs in the next folder because there is only one album or for whatever reason. When I set that drive as my iTunes library and request that iTunes organize the library, iTunes picks up the songs don't have albums folders under the artist, but does not recognize the songs that are under the separate albums. I started to move all the album folders out from under the artists, but that is creating crappy filing system and I am sure there is a better alternative. Does anyone have any suggestions? It is a very large data base of music that I have collected over the years so working with it manually is a problem to begin with.

I haven't got any response, so I'll try again. I goofed up once more, but used Norton Go Back to restore back right before I opened iTunes w/o plugging in the external hard drive. So - I guess I have a workaround, but would still like to know if there is a better way.

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I have an old iPod Classic with 80 GB (I think) of space. I saved all my songs in an external hard drive, but the iTunes library resided in an old computer (no longer working). Can I get the libray from my iPod and use it in my new computer (Windows)?

I have an old iPod Classic with 80 GB (I think) of space. I saved all my songs in an external hard drive, but the iTunes library resided in an old computer (no longer working). Can I get the library from my iPod and use it in my new computer (Windows)?

You might want to check your process for moving your iTunes music against this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527.

Saving itunes songs to a external hard drive

I currently have about 17,000 and I want to transfer my songs to an external hard drive. My problem though is that there are some songs that have scripts on them and will not transfer. My question is.... are there any good sites that I can use to change the format of all my songs in itunes to mp3 format?

I guess what i am looking for is soundtaxi equivalent for the mac.

Can you save your itunes and songs onto an external hard drive so that incase your computer crashes you will still have all your music?

Can you save your itunes and songs onto an external hard drive so that incase your computer crashes you will still have all your music?

The procedures below are for "moving" your library but as long as you don't delete it from your internal drive you are basically backing up.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Simple answer: Copy your whole iTunes folder to the external drive. For subsequent backups you might want to learn about cloning and using a tool that only does incremental backups of recently changed items rather than copying all your files each time.

How do I input songs from my external hard drive (taken from a PC) and transfer them to my Mac?

How do I input songs from my external hard drive, taken from a PC, to a Mac?

Just a few song tracks, or your whole library? If just a few tracks, drag them from the drive to the open iTunes library window or playlist window. If your whole library drag the whole iTunes folder to your computer. Hold down the option key while starting and guide it to the library.itl file in that folder. If you need to merge libraries post back because that's a much longer post.

Is there a way we can change the path of the songs to an external hard drive when we move the songs over? also, is there a way to delete multiple songs easily?

is there a way we can change the path of the songs to an external hard drive when we move the songs over? also, is there a way to delete multiple songs easily?
I recently moved my songs over for hard drive space. Really don't want to have to go back through each album, etc... to get that to work.
Last time I tried making a "library" that didn't work either.
On the topic of deleting multiple songs that are the same, is there an easier way then to select each one?
Seems to me apple isn't user friendly

Welcome to the world of digital media. Your can't really transfer it. I don't know what the rules are about transferring to your spouse but I do know that in some cases when you die, your heirs cannot inherit your digital media. This is why there is still an advantage to buying the CD since the usage rights belong to whomever holds the physical media.
A possible workaround is to burn the songs to a music CD with yout account (tracks only without song titles) and then having your wife upload it as a regular music CD onto her account. It's been a while since i've done this so I'm not sure if it would work now.
Please note that I'm not advocating copyright and/or TOS violations. I'm only suggesting ways to copy music for your own personal use which has traditonally been permitted. I only did this because I wanted to convert iTunes songs to mp3 files so I could burn them onto a data CD for use in my car. It would make sense that since married couples are a joint entity, this would be personal use.
Also, I'm not a lawyer so don't take this as legal advice.

Backing up songs on an external hard drive

I bought an external hard drive and I have backed up all my system on it. Since then, I have added a few songs to my itunes library an I would like to back them up on the external hard drive. Can I just drag and drop the songs into the external hard drive icon or is there something more complicated I have to do? Any help would be much appreciated.

"Can I just drag and drop the songs into the external hard drive icon"
Yes. Is this a secondary back up or the only place you keep all your songs?
You know you can change the location where new songs are stored by using the iTunes/preferences/advanced/general tabs and changing the location of the iTunes music folder?
That way all your newly added songs will go directly to your ext hd.

I cannot access iTunes songs showing in external hard drive

I recently closed my dropbox account and moved its content to an external hard drive. This included iTunes songs and now the songs and related albums no longer show in iTunes when I open it up, although I can see the individual songs (but not in albums) in the external hard drive. There are a limited number of albums still showing when I open up iTunes but they are albums I have recently added to iTunes.
However I can see the albums and tracks in the iTunes media folder on my Mac internal hard drive, but they do not show up when I actually open up Itunes.I have followed advice found on this website and have tried to move my iTunes folder to the external drive so all the music is in one place, but i keep getting an 'error code 50' message appearing. I have also tried to select the individual songs on the hard drive and move them to the media folder but there are no 'albums' to move them into and they just sit there as individual songs. I have a macbook air which is one year old and a WD My Passport ultra 1TB external hard drive. I am using OSX version 10.9.5 with 8GB of memory. As you can tell from my endeavours, I do not really understand the way iTunes works and it may be that the various songs and albums in the media folder need to be organised in a different way perhaps, so that they are visible when I open up iTunes?
As I have lots of space on my external hard drive and am running out of space on my Mac hard drive, ideally I would like all my iTunes folders to be held on my external drive, as it is always plugged in to my Mac, and for iTunes to be 'pointed' to the hard drive. Any advice please?
Thanks
Elizabeth

All kinds of things going on.
About the error code. Do you men "50" or do you mean "-50"? It is critical things get reported exactly here. Error -50 is a very unhelpful generic communications error with a number of possible causes. Something between the drive to which you are downloading and the drive from which it is all coming is not working correctly, with probably dozens of possibilities. I guess one simple possibility is if this is a brand new drive it likely came formatted for Windows use and needs reformatting for Mac.
Kappy's brief drive formatting instructions (12/2012) - https://discussions.apple.com/message/20571091#20571091
Pondini: Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks... - http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html, specifically http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Basic workings of iTunes. When you add a file to iTunes it puts the file in a specific location designated in you Media Folder preferences setting and makes a note in a database file (library.itl) of where it put it. When you want to play the track iTunes looks up where the file should be, goes there and plays that file. iTunes does not inventory its media folder for new additions. For iTunes to recognize tracks they have to be added to iTunes either by importing, dragging to iTunes, or dragging to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. If files added to iTunes are later moved by you in Finder, particularly to another drive, iTunes loses track of them completely and give you a broken link indicator " ! ".
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.
I don't know exactly how Dropbox works but basically by moving all your files instead of letting iTunes do the relocating you have broken all the links to your older files in iTunes. You can either repair them one by one, by one, by one.... or you can rebuild your library, or essentially create a new library and start over again (you did read those links I provided didn't you?). If you are prepared to start over, hold down the option key while starting iTunes. Create a new library on the external drive. Drag all your media files to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder in the iTunes folder on that drive.

Why can't I download songs from an external hard drive onto iTunes?

So I have an external hard drive with some songs on it that I wanted to get on iTunes so they can be synced to my iPod. I plugged my hard drive in and then went to iTunes where I clicked on "File" (in the top left corner) and scrolled down to "Add folder to Library". I then found my external hard drive and selected the albums/songs that I wanted.
They loaded onto iTunes just fine. Everything looked right and the songs were all on the list. I even managed to get album artwork on most of them.
Then I went to "sync iPod" and an alert message popped up saying "Some of your songs were not synced to your iPod because they could not be found." (Or something very similar to that)
So none of the songs made it onto my iPod and when I checked the Library list again, all of the songs I had just put on iTunes had exclamation points in front of them.
What am I doing wrong and how can I fix this? Any answers would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Sounds like you
1) added the songs to the itunes database, but did not copy the acutal files to the PC's internal HD
2) unplugged the exHD and now itunes doesn't know now to find them anymore
If you plug the exHD back in, and it has the same drive letter as it did when you added the songs to itunes, it should work.

On my mac I have my downloads from i tunes. I have previously transferred thousands of songs onto an external hard drive. How do I show these songs and albums in my i tunes on my mac without adding them to the computer as there is insufficient space ?

PLEASE HELP ME. I transferred my music library onto an external hard drive as it contains about 30 000 songs. I got a second hard drive as extra security and loaded the songs onto that as well. Both hard drives now contain my music library however when I click onto my i tunes on my mac I am only seeing the music that I have downloaded from the i tunes store that has been kept in the cloud. How do I get my music from the hard drive to be recognized on my mac? Please, please, please help!!!

To import music into your iTunes library on the computer go to iTunes>Help>iTunes Help>Add items to iTunes and follow the instructions
Delete the "songs" that do not play in your iTunes library and reimport them.

My newly transferred songs from my external hard drive to my ipod read as "Other" instead of "Audio" files

Okay, i need help bad.
Here's the issue. This is my 2nd iPod classic. My first one, which worked beautifully for several years, died. the drive went bad. A sales associate at the Apple Store said it just crapped out (she didn't use those exact words) and my options were to send it out for a new 80G to replace the bad one at $120, or buy a new one, which yielded only one size and one choice for the classic ipod, the 160G. So i sucked it up and bought the 160G. I wanted the extra storage space anyway.
Came home, hooked it up, and new ipod required a newer version of itunes to mount and manage mp3's. it's not iTunes 10, required for sync with iPhone, but newer than what i currently had at hook up, which was some version of 8 or 9. it's now version 9.2.1, to be exact. After installation was complete, iPod mounted and worked with new version of iTunes just fine. Just recently, I connected my external hard drive to my laptop to transfer music i had backed up from my old classic and iTunes. The transfer seemed to work fine, but now with my pod still connected, the newly transfered audio mp3 files are not in my library. The are stored as "Other" under the iPod Summary tab, NOT AUDIO. so i cannot listen to those 14,000 or so songs and albums i just transfered. This is completely frustrating. Can anyone help?? Thanks. How do i convert these to Audio Mp3 files instead of "other" so i can listen and manage in my library, and so they show in the artists menu?? I have "Manually manage songs" checked in the Summary tab. I think it's storing or acting as an external hard drive. Someone help, i'm really ****** off right now. I spent a lot of time d*cking around transferring songs i can't even listen to or make playlists from now. Thanks a lot!
< Edited By Host >

You maybe right, you transfer your 14k songs to your iPod under disk mode, so it don't appear as Audio.
To load your songs into Ipod Audio section, your must load them via iTunes, either Sync or Manually Manage your library, any other way, it just uses up space in the iPod Harddisk, and wont be on your iPod music menu.
So
1. Import your 14K songs into the iTunes library first. (read the iTunes help if you need instructions)
2. You can either Manually manage selected songs from the library or Sync all.
You can delete the songs in the Other section, by going into diskmode, use Finder and delete the 14K songs.
Good luck!

Can't permanently delete song file from external hard drive

Hi Guys,
I want to be able to delete actual song files from my external hard drive as well as from my iTunes library in one easy, lazy step, via the iTunes window. I am not interested in finding and manually deleting the files through my external hard drive.
When I hit delete it only deletes the song from my iTunes library but not the actual destination music file aswell (from my external hard drive). I am aware this is because my external hard drive is not the original "Music\iTunes\iTunes Music" destination that the apple crew have designed and so I am not offered the option of sending the file to the recycle bin or "trashing it" when I hit the delete key (this permanently deletes the file).
I am also aware that I can find the music file destinations and delete them through the iTunes window by hitting "CTRL & R" or by the "show in windows explorer" command. I am not interested in these options either.
Basically, I have 20,000 songs to clean up and don't want to have to take my laptop with me to my grave...
I suspect there is some way of changing things around, possibly via some particular parameters to be set in the "Edit" > "Preferences" > "iTunes Music Folder Desintation" command area but still haven't been able to crack it.
Any help would be welcomed with open arms.
Cheers.
Labia.

Camoracer,
You are right. Pardon me. The majority of the music that I was trying to delete off my external hard drive was in a separate folder (on the external hard drive), not in the directory specified in my iTunes preference settings.
Problem solved!!!
This should also be a lesson to those who believe a one step delete function (from iTunes library and actual music file) is not possible when the music files are stored on an external hard drive (or other storage medium for that matter). I have read a host of other forums who say a one step delete function is not possible without additional software.. Perhaps these posts were from the authors of the software trying to make a $.
Cheers.

How do I copy my songs from an external hard drive backup to my new laptop

Because my old laptop was . . . well, old . . I had to store my iTunes songs and iTunes onto an external hard drive where I backed up all my documents. I now want to copy my library of songs on to my new Windows 8 laptop. But I'm not finding it easy to figure out how to do this. On another note (maybe related. . maybe not) I keep getting an error when I try to download the latest and greatest iTunes on to that external hard drive.
Thanks for any an all help before I'm tempted to climb out on the ledge (luckily I live on the first floor).

If the entire library (database & media) is already on the external drive (in the right layout) then you should be able to connect to it by holding down shift as you start iTunes and then choosing the library. If you only have the media folder on the drive then you need to do some preparation for the move first. See this migrate iTunes library post for details.
tt2

ITunes isn't saving songs to my external hard drive like I want.

Hello,
This might be a simple problem.
I have my iTunes set-up to download directly to my external hard-drive. However, when I inport a CD....it's not showing-up in my external hard-drive?! Since I am assuming the songs are being stored somewhere, I would liek to know how to get them on my external hard-drive and then make sure they're actually NOT on my PC.
Many thanks for anyone that can help this not-so-tech-savy individual though this!
THANKS!

If you go to Edit>>Preferences>>Advanced, you will see the location of the iTunes Media folder. The default location is My Music\iTunes.
This is where iTunes will store imported CD and purchases from the iTunes store.
You can change the location to your external drive, but this only produces an effect in the future. Anything already added, stays where it is.
If you want to move stuff, you have to consolidate your library. File>>Library>>organise.
But be aware that this copies things into the iTunes Media folder,leaving the original intact.
If you use an external drive you must have it working when you start iTunes or iTunes will go back to the default location for the iTunes media and then you will have to reset preferences again.

Restoring itunes songs kep on external hard drive

hi all - some time ago on my power pc mac I put my entire itunes songs on an external drive, whilst keeping the song details on the computer. My power pc gave up the ghost and I transferred the contents of the old power pc mac to my new intel imac. The problem is that the intel mac cannot read the external hard drive and therefore cannot play the songs. Thankfully all the songs were backed up onto my time capsule and I have them all on the next intel mac - it is just that the computer cannot read the correct path to match the songs to the titles. Any advice? No data has been lost - I just want to avoid spending hours recreating my playlists etc.

Lewis,
I truly hope you have your current working iTunes Library and music files still on the original PC. From what I read of your process, you did not backup the music files at all.
There is little need to backup the iTunes Program Files as long as you have the installer file available (or can download the most current one from Apple).
Here is a link for my method to Completely Backup iTunes.
This is somewhat similar, but helps with moving (cloning) iTunes to another PC: Move (Clone) Your iTunes
Give them a read over and post back here with any questions.

Songs on an External Hard Drive

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