Win-7 64bit: moving iTunes media folder from default location to D drive

Dear all,
I cannot move iTunes media folder from default location on C drive to D drive on win-7 64 bit.
What I did was:
- Under iTunes> Edit > Preferences > Advanced I choosed new location for iTunes media folder on D drive
- Under iTunes > Library > Organize library > I choose consolidate fiels and then ok ( this should create a new library on new location )
Next I delete iTunes media folder on C drive and hope that on re-start iTunes goes to new location on D drive and picks new file arrangement.
But it does not happen - no matter what I do iTunes goes to its default location on C drive ....
I called apple senior advisor - and she told me that it's kind of "my fault" I have windows7 installed on PC and because iTunes is Mac oriented they will not give me support... And referred me to Microsoft ... What a lousy support!. I paid for it $25!! What for?

By the way, I followed instructions as per link http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1364 - it did not work either. Can anyone share their success stories ? My C drive is not big and my music library ~ 100gB - I really need to keep iTunes media files in another location ... not a default place under User Login

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Thank you for your prompt response - I did as you said and did a drag and drop into the iTunes window - it imported and got my album art from the net. When I started Itunes with the shift key down I was prompted to choose a library but since I copied over the media folder and not the library folder I was unable to select that so I guess I will have to create a new library and add in all the music, videos, etc. unless I wait for my laptop and export the library or at least that seems to be the case? In short, all my data (iTunes media folder) is on my external drive and can be added to the blank iTunes screen but I can not choose a library folder. Is there anyway around completely making all those playlists again? I am not sure my laptop will survive the shop with data intact and really hate to start over on those.
In an unrelated question - I collect old TV shows from the 1950's. Can I make playlists within the home video folder somehow? In other words like one for Quiz shows, one for comedies, one for police and detective shows, etc. while I am remaking all my playlists for my music if I end up having to go that route?
Once again thank you for helping me out. I am not too Itunes savvy and really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

HT1364 If I already moved Itunes media folder to external drive and now music is not matching up in iTunes?

Dear Itunes Community~
This is my first time using glad you are here, but all the passwords!!
Question/Quandry:
If I already moved Itunes media folder to my external drive and now my music is not matching up in iTunes, what should I do? I have tried my solution !?, and now I have 17,000 songs, instead of 9,000!
Should I just uninstall Itunes, and then reinstall Itunes, and let it do it's thing, and then figure out how to move to the external hard drive later?
Help, I screwed it up all on my own!
Any/all help and Itunes educated suggestions appreciated!
Thank you very much,
Doris =:o
PS ~~ Is there anyway to easily delete duplicates?? Seems not?

I have a very similar problem. Hope I don't confuse people trying to help us since the solutions may be different.
I had my iTunes path directed to a 2nd internal hard drive. Everything was working fine - except I found that purchased Apps were still being downloaded to the Mobile Applications folder on my main hard drive instead of the 2nd internal drive. I decided to retry directing the iTunes path to my 2nd internal drive, hoping that might get iTunes to save my Apps there. Big Mistake. Suddenly, there were no Apps showing in my iTunes Library Apps window at all. I verified the downloaded apps are still in my main hard drive's Mobile Applications folder, but I cannot get iTunes to display them in my Apps Library window anymore.
I decided to try downloading a new app and, sure enough, iTunes once again downloaded it into the very same Mobile Applications folder on my main hard drive, where all my (now orphaned) original apps are, but the only one iTunes will only display in my Apps window is the new one. I read you can redownload purchased apps, but my apps are not missing. iTunes just won't display them in the Apps window anymore.

Problems transfering iTunes Media folder from one external HDD to another.

Hey Yinz.
I'm running a MBP 13" 2.7Ghz Intel Core i7...OS X 10.6.8. Recently the NAS that hosted my iTunes Media folder and library failed. I recovered the drive from the NAS...a WD Caviar (WD2500JS), which was originally written in XFS. After substantial effort, I found a process that would enable me to access this drive, and have my Mac read it. This involved a Newer Technologies Voyager Q, coupled with a recent version of (whatever they're calling) MacFuse. It did so sucessfully. Now what i want is to take my iTunes Media folder and library off of the WD, ex-NAS HDD (its original location), and transfer it to a new HDD.
I bought a Toshiba Canvio basics usb 3.0/2.0.
Most online tutorials describe dragging and dropping the folder in the new location. I can connect both HDDs to my MBP, and the transfer will begin...
But.
After the first few minutes...The Finder will not allow me to complete the transfer. I keep getting an error code -8084.
I'm almost certain that the new HDD (which i formatted as Mac OS X Journaled in Disk Utility) is not recognizing special characters in certain file names in my iTunes Library. I have some artists in my folder that require special characters to display their names properly. I realize these were originally written in a Linux format.
So, is there a way around this...other than changing the filenames? I really don't want to destroy the integrity of my library by changing a bunch of characters that accurately identify artists. I guess if all i had was Billy Joel and the Beatles in my library, i'd be Okay...but i don't.
I also read a thread somewhere that suggested that error code -8084 relates to inadequate power distribution of an attached HDD. This also complicates my problem...as the new external HDD (Toshiba) is bus powered, and lacks an option for a dedicated AC power supply.
While i am able to access and use my iTunes as normal...i'm tied to that WD HDD, which is like, over 5yrs old, and i'm really hoping to get my media off that old HDD, and onto a new HDD with the files intact and accurate.
Any help would be much appreciated and welcome.
--j.m.
P.S. I'm running iTunes 10.7

No solid data here but it just seems to me that when I see issues arise about copying data and strange error messages that it has to do when people are using non Mac-formatted drives. I think they kind of work but once you put them under real pressure you just get problems. Maybe I'm just thinking of all those vague error -50 "communications difficulties" messages from people trying to copy their libraries to FAT drives. I wonder if using Terminal to do the copying would help.
Now, there is a difference between placing your media on a drive and your library on a drive. Your library is your whole iTunes folder along with files such as the critical library.itl file and artwork files, etc. Media are just what's in your media folder - music, movies, etc. If you are moving your whole library you can drag and drop copy. If you are moving your media you can drag and drop but then the new drive has to have the identical drive name as the old one (the old and new pathnames have to remain unchanged). Usually the best way to move media is to use iTunes' preferences setting to consolidate your media to the new location. iTunes very easily loses track of files unless you let it do the moving (exception: moving the whole iTunes library folder).
iTunes 10 for Mac: Consolidate your iTunes library - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH990
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
vs.
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music [library] to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 - a somewhat bewildering and not always easily understandable set of options.
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 library.itl file in the moved iTunes folder.
Windows users see tip at: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18879381

Question about moving iTunes Media folder/library

Hello,
I'm responding to the article listed here: iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder - Apple Support that describes moving your iTunes media folder. I have a massive music library/playlists (over 350 gigs and growing). I'm planning to relocate my media folder to Dropbox because I have ample space there and it will allow me to run my library off of multiple computers (though not at the same time). My question is this: if I follow the steps and consolidate and relocate my library to the new Dropbox folder, will all my new uploads and downloads/purchases/imports also start automatically going to this newly specified location? I want to make sure that it would.
Thanks

Well the way that Dropbox works for me (just documents and data, not iTunes) is that I have a complete copy of the files in my Dropbox folder on my computer at home, and at work, and in the cloud on Dropbox's servers. Each time I update one of the files it is uploaded to Dropbox and then downloaded to the other client machine. When using another computer I can access my files from the Dropbox web interface, or use the Dropbox app on my iPad. It sounds like you are hoping that you can have all of your files in the cloud, and only in the cloud. I don't think it works that way.
For 350Gb and growing I think that realistically you need to stick with local storage. I clone my library to a 1Tb portable drive which I physically take to and from work, At each location I use SyncToy to synchronize the local and portable copies of the libraries effectively giving me three parallel clones of the library at all times.
tt2

HT1449 Moving iTunes media folder

I've copied my media folder from one NAS drive to another. I've moved my library file. I've set the new location of the media file in Preferences. I've consolidated the library. iTunes still insists in looking at the old location, though. Any ideas?

Setting the preference in the Advanced preferences only sets where iTunes will put new content. That does not change where it looks for existing content. You should never manually move folders unless you intend to rebuild your library. Otherwise you break the connections iTunes has to the files. The way you should move tracks is to avoid moving things yourself, set the location for the iTunes Media/Music folder in the Advanced preferences, and then use the Consolidate command. iTunes will move the tracks to the new location itself and update the path names in its database file.
As it is now, you may be able to recover by moving the media folder back to its original location. If that restores the connections, then confirm that the location in the Advanced preferences is where you want it to be now, then use the Consolidate command again.
Regards.

How can I move my iTunes media folder from users/shared back to one user account?

I shared my music with multiple users on one macbook pro.
Like on the Apple support discussions described I changed the iTunes media folder to users/shared. My question is how to reverse that action? Once I reset the media folder location it tells me /users/name/music/itunes/itunes media, that would be right but the files remain in users/shared?

Tell us what the underlying objective is in all this. You came here asking how to move a media folder but now we're getting into user libraries and moving things back and forth to their original locations. Why move it in the first place if you are just putting it back? Maybe you don't need to move things.
Read these to learn more about how iTunes works. If you move the wrong things you can end up breaking links. This goes double for moving things to other drives.
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
It is almost certain that nothing you are doing will require removing the iTunes application itself. Asking that tells me you are doing something relatively complicated with insufficient background -- kind of like somebody asking me how to use a power saw. I can tell them, but when it sounds like their project is painting a room one begins to wonder if they are going about things correctly. That said, organizing/consolidating copies files. Open iTunes, get info on a track, look at summary and see where the file is now located iTunes uses to play the track. It should be in the moved location and it is okay to delete the others.

Moved iTunes Media folder, now iMovie can't find it

I moved my iTunes media folder in order to share it between two users on the same iMac, following these instructions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
That worked fine, but now iMovie can't find the iTunes media library. I don't see a way to change this setting in iMovie, the way that you can in iTunes. There must be a simple solution to point iMovie to the new location, but if so I am missing it. Can anyone advise?
OSX 10.6.8, iMovie 09, iTunes 11.1

anyone?

Moving iTunes Media folder to second internal drive fails

The whole story is:
I never really used the iTunes media folder system. All my music is on extrenal drive and I was only importing it into iTunes manually to keep my own folder system, for example once a week Ive created a folder with a date of creating and there I had all the releases from that week (some in their own folder or separately but all in this one folder named by a dat eof creation). So on my ext. drive I have lots of these folders by date. And the names of folder always correspond with the date added to iTunes as well
My ext. drive is full now. so Ive decided to take a next step and put out the dvd-rom and put another internal drive (1TB) into my macbook pro which will be used for music and movie data only (the system stays on the old one).
What I want to do now is somehow move all these music folder to my new internal drive, so they can be accessed from iTunes without reseting all its features.
Ive read that one solution can be creating the new iTunes Media folder on that new drive and Consolidate all music from iTunes to this location. Problem is I cant even try it, because when go to iTunes Preferences to change the location of Media folder a hit Create after selectin the new location (new internal drive) after fee seconds the progress freezes and Activity Monitor says that iTunes are not responding. Ive tried to leave it for about half an hour and no changes, even tho theres not much to copy/move cause the Media folder has no music in it, only playlists etc.
So question number one is - why its freezing?
Question number two - any other way to trasfer all my collection and keep its organiation as it is without loosing the iTunes list and be able to use it after transfer?
Thanks in advance for your help and tips

Not sure about question 1...
What I think you should do is try to copy the existing iTunes library folder from <User's Music>/iTunes to <1Tb Drive>/iTunes then hold down option as you start iTunes. You should be asked to choose or create a library. Click choose and browse to the library file at <1Tb Drive>/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl (BTW if the the .itl extension is missing you should probably add it match the current format, but it will work either way).
The new copy of the library should work just as before, but check a few random things first, you can always revert to the previous library with option-start-iTunes if it doesn't work.
Under iTunes > Library > Orgainze Library if the option is available tick Reorganize files in the folder <Media Folder>. This will make sure the new version of your library is as portable as possible. Next under preferences > Advanced make sure that the media folder is given as <1Tb Drive>/iTunes/iTunes Media. If needed you can change this value. If you change the folder at this point iTunes should offer to copy your existing media into this new location. That ought to work, thought it will take some time. Alternatively you decline the offer and then selectively consolidate the library in batches, e.g. by selecting the tracks of all Artists beginning with A, and consolidating just those tracks, then repeasting with, B, C etc. followed by other types of media. If iTunes didn't prompt, or the folder was already correct, you can decide whether to try in batches or use iTunes > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate files.
tt2

Can an iTunes Media folder be on a LAN network drive?

That is, remote from the Mac on which the library is managed, but (obviously) on the same LAN.
When "Copy files to iTunes Media folder" is set, and I import a CD via the managing mac, will the files land up on the network drive or into the iTunes folder on the managing Mac?

By organizing it should both relocate all current media as well as start using the new location from that point on. You're mostly okay there. Where you are not okay is iTunes doesn't look at your files directly. It only really looks at one single file, the iTunes Library.itl file which tells it where everything is located. You need to get both copies of iTunes using the same complete library (media + library file). The way you do that is using the option start method. You should only need to do that once unless for some reason the library storage drive is disconnected when starting iTunes, in which case iTunes will use the default location and you will need to option start again.
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
By the way, both copies of iTunes will have to be the same version or the library will become unreadable to the older iTunes.
There are variants to the above but I am not going to type in all the possibilities unless you say something that tells me you need a different structure.

Ooops...I manually moved iTunes music folder to my new external hard drive

So I thought I was smart and manually moved my iTunes music folder to my new external hard drive. I've changed the location in Preferences but can't locate my music through iTunes. What do I do now? My library is on my external hard drive, but I read I should have done this through iTunes. Any advice?

Is it still possible for you to temporarily return the iTunes Music folder to its original location?
If so you should be able to see your music in iTunes again and then follow the instructions in this article in the Apple Knowledge Base.

Moving iTunes Media folder

I have iTunes (and all my other programs) installed on an SSD drive and I am trying to make it store my media on my internal storage HDD where there is more room. However whenever I tell it to store my media in the new location, and move all my music there, once I restart iTunes it reverts back to the default my music folder in my directory on the SSD and shows no media. How can i solve this? I know this can be done as i managed to do it before on another computer which takes all its media from an external drive on my houses network. Ideally i would like to restore my previous library so i dont need to totally resync all of my devices.

Move the entire iTunes folder to the new location, then hold down shift as you start iTunes to choose the library at its new path.
Or, if you are going to import the previous library, you may need to do some preparatory work to make it easier to move. See make a split library portable.
tt2

HT1364 after moving itunes media folder to different disk drive i think i have lost most of my library how can i get it back?

due to lack of memory space i moved my itunes media library,only now i think i have lost most of my library as the i tunes page comes up empty,no playlists,no music, no music videos,no tv shows. can anyone help?

Hong Kong,
I don't think it is lost. I think it is on the other hard drive where you put it.
There are better and worse ways to move a library. If possible, put it back the way it was, and then move it by following this guide: iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder

HT1364 when I moved the iTunes media folder from my PC to my external hard drive, upon iTunes start up with the harddrive connected beforehand, my music and all the files transferred to my harddrive but now all my playlists music& ratings are gone. what d

I transferred my itunes library using all the guided steps promepted on this topic, when I restarted iTunes in its new location on my xternal hard drive, iTunes did not have any of my ratings or playlists. I did have the hard drive running before i started up itunes as well. what can I do?

I got it to work!!!!!!!
what I did was after doing this( http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364) moving my library and iTunes folders using that link, I held shift while double cicking and opening iTunes, It promted me to select a library, I went to my external hard drive and opened iTunes library.itl folder and selected the iTunes library.itl file. In the picture below I just selected the highlighted file and it opened itunes, THIS time with all my music and with all my music ratings and playlists, all still intact thank you so much!!!!

Win-7 64bit: moving iTunes media folder from default location to D drive

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