Attempting to move iTunes to external HD...

Hi,
I just watched several videos on youtube detailing how to move my library to an external HD. I dragged my entire library (80+ GBs) to the external HD. Worked. However, the next step was to 'choose library' and the library files are faded and unclickable. Stupidly, I chose the 'create library' feature out of frustration so now I have a blank iTunes. My music is safe both on my macbook's HD and external HD so I didn't delete content. What do I do? I've attached a screenshot of how my itunes folder in the external HD looks like... iTunes 10.5.2

If your movie files are all in the same folder, you can click on one of the missing files in itunes,
then locate, then select the external drive's folder, locate your file and select it.
Itunes will then ask if you want to use this folder to locate other missing file.
Another method that I would suggest.
Recreate the video library (Music stays intact)
In iTunes, select movies (under Library Column),
then select all the video files (Command-A), then delete them all.
Then in iTunes, click on File & Add to Library, select the folder
on the external drive and your files will be reimported.
Most of your tags will be preserved.
If you are uncertain of this method, do this.
Delete one movie and reimport it from the new folder.
How does it look.... If you are happy, then use this method.

Similar Messages

Attempting to move iTunes onto external HDD

The problem i am having is when i attempt to consolidate files a window appears "You do not have the priviledge to make chang
How can I go about fixing this?
Thanks

Select the volume icon in the Finder and open the Info window. Click the padlock icon in the lower right corner of the window and enter your administrator password when prompted. Check the box at the bottom marked
Ignore ownership on this volume
Close the Info window.

If i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?

if i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?
I just moved my itunes off my macbook pro because it was taking up too much space and put it on an external hard drive. i have a second external hard drive that i use for time machine. when i update time machine next will my itunes files be removed from the backup since they are no longer on my internal hard drive (what time machine backs up?) basically, i want to make sure i have a second copy of my itunes besides the one on my first external hard drive and i was wondering if time machine will still have all of that data (on the second external hard drive).
i cant find this answer anywhere!!! thanks so much!!!

Check to see whether or not it's excluded in the Time Machine pane of System Preferences.
Items deleted from the hard drive won't be deleted from the backup until the backup location runs out of space.
(63157)

How do i move itunes to external hard drive to free up space on my imac

I keep running out of space on my imac (320mb)
I have my movies on a Lacie hard drive.
How do I put itunes on the hard drive?
Thanks

iTunes has many components. The two main ones are the application itself (which is what ones means when ones says "iTunes") and the library which is a set of files and folders. I take it you want to move the iTunes library (you cannot run iTunes the application off a non-boot drive).
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
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.
My one hesitation regarding the above is it sounds like you already have some things on the external drive and you have not shared with us the details of your setup. You have already modified itunes from its standard behavior and this can sometimes introduce problems.

Can't move iTunes to External Drive

Hi there,
Weird one...
Using a MacBook Pro 2.5Ghz Intel Core i5, running 10.8.5 copying on to a brand new Lacie external drive connected via lightning. Whenever I try to copy the itunes folder it stalls at different points, sometimes with (error code -36).
The iTunes folder is <150GB and the external drive is 1TB. I have repaired permissions, re-formatted the external drive, but simply cannot get this function happening.
Any tips would be most welcome!

Error -36 is an I/O error. Does your LaCie have mutliple connections available? I used to have one that was USB, FW400 and FW800. I usually ran it on FW400 but occasionally I'd have to switch it to USB to move large groups of files, for this same reason. It wasn't the drive but the FW400 bus on my MacBook.

Trying To Move iTunes To External HD But Only Picking Up 9.7 GB of 186.62 GB Of Music

I'm trying to help my daughter clean up her iTunes. She has an old MacBook with an internal HD too small for all her music.
I have an external HD and copied her music there. Then, as best as I can figure I also moved the rest of the iTunes folder from her internal to the external. I deleted the folder from the internal except the system required me to leave a folder -- now empty -- called iTunes. It is at Users / her name / Music / iTunes.
On the external "Get Info" tells me I have 186.62 GB of stuff organized as such:
I launched iTunes and held down the option key. It asks me to "Choose iTune Library" and I click on the iTunes folder. Then when iTunes opens, at the bottom I read there are "1,641 items, 4:09:21:54 total time, 9.70 GB"
So what have I done? Why is it only reading 9.7 GB instead of the 186.62 GB?
In finder when I click to expand the iTunes Media / Music folder it says there are 1,774 sub folders -- typically with the name of the artist. And when I click on them I get an album folder (or folders) and then clicking on that the individual songs.
I see there are two iTunes Library.XML files -- one a subfolder of the big iTunes folder and one burried in the iTunes Media subfolder. Could that be an issue?
And that "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder also exists in the iTunes Media subfolder and at the same level as the iTunes folder -- nothing shows in either. Even when I delete the new one it reappears every time I launch iTunes.
I know I'm close but damned if I know what I'm missing.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
I'm running iTunes 10.7 on OS X 10.6.8

What would happen if I deleted everything except the music folder and then launched iTunes?
Even if we lose playlists and play count (those might already be gone) would it give us a clean start with all the music?

Move itunes from external HD to new laptop

I would like to copy my iTunes and iPhoto from my eMac to my new MBP. I have both on an external HD. Is it better to start with fresh install on the laptop and then to copy my iTunes -or -to transfer them using the migration assistant when I set up the laptop for the first time? I've never moved files from one computer to another so it's a bit daunting for me. Thanks to anyone if you can help.

If you value the meta data that you have accumulated- like playcounts- simply use the migration assistant. It works great.
You can also start the emac in target mode if you want, but then you have to know which files to drag over.
I assume that iTunes, and iPhoto, on the eMac, know about the files that are on the external drive. If this is the case, you won't have any problems.
Michael
too many to mention, really Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Tried to move itunes to external hard drive, now can't find my library...any others have this problem?

I read instructions to copy over my iTunes library and link it through....edit/preferences/advanced by changing the location and this did not happen. All my songs did not get pulled into iTunes when I opened it back up again... it was empty. I tried to change it back and forth with no luck. I read more about it and moved the iTunes Media and other folders to new locations,,,still no luck. I even moved all the folders back to original location and could not establish the link from the advanced section. Any one know how to repair this issue and re-establish my library to iTunes again? Thanks

If the "new PC" is not an Apple, then your Apple Apps will not be compatible with the PC. So you are NOT able to transfer them.
Hope this helps

Attempting to move iPhoto to external HD.

I get an error stating 'file already exists with that name' Threre are no other files on the HD? Help!

Yes, my EHD is formatted for MacOS Extended.
The triggering of the message is after I have pasted the folder into the EHD and the copy process begins. About 56 MB into the process the message appears that states the folder already exists. The foldedr that exists is the iPhoto Library folder.
Same issue when I created the folder on the EHD.
I ended up making an appointment with the local Genius Bar. The encountered the same issue, so the fix was to copy only the Original and the Modified folders. That seemed to work fine. The only issue was I think we should have also copied the Recovered file. There was a lot of discussion around the definition the the Recovered file and what actually is deposited within. Original and Modified make perfect sense and are self-explanatory. Recovered is not intuitive, at least I have back-ups (just in case I need one).
Thanks for your input.

HT4946 cannot find itunes backup on my PC (win xp). want to move over to external hard drive to restore from backup bc PC not enough space

i just restored my ipad2 to iOS 6.1.3 yesterday. i have been trying to restore from backup, but i keep getting error messages from itunes (running latest version of itunes) that says there is not enough space to save the backup on the computer. i have tried clearing up as much space on my PC (windows xp), but there is still not enough room. and ive tried disk cleanup on my computer and resetting the ipad and running it through recovery mode (as some articles sugggested it would help with restoring after failed attempts). i read on another question in the apple support discussions that someone just moved his whole backup folder into his external harddrive and then he was able to restore from backup.
the backup is definitely saved on my computer (itunes confirms that), and the backup folder is supposed to be here \Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\, but im still not finding it with that file path. i get as far as "username" and then i dont see "application data" and so on. but when i try searching that file path in google chrome, i find it and i see it, but its strange that i cant find it in the "docs and settings" folder in my C drive.
please help! i just want to be able to move the backup folder to my external to restore from backup. thank you in advance!!

Thank you! I was able to find it. Im sorry, i have a few follow up questions. Does the iTunes have to be running from my external as well to do the restore from backup? And if so, how do I move iTunes to external and run it from there? Also, I just copied over the "backup" folder (last part of that file path to my external, is that enough, or did I have to copy it starting from the beginning (docs and settings and so forth)? Lastly, when I select restore from backup in iTunes, would it automatically know that it's the copy on my external to restore backup from? Or do I have to delete or do something with the original file path in my computer?
Thank you!

So, I have just about had it. For nine days now, I have valiantly tried to move my library to an external drive. At first, I attempted to move it to my 2TB Time capsule, iTunes didn't like its new home though and moved home without telling me.

So, I have just about had it. For nine days now, I have valiantly tried to move my library to an external drive. At first, I attempted to move it to my 2TB Time capsule. iTunes didn't like its new home though and moved home without telling me. So then there were two libraries. I meshed them back together reluctantly and iTunes in a silent revolt, absolutely refused to use its own 'Keep Library Organized' criteria and may as well have thrown my music against the wall. Seriously, my 5 year old nephew has his computer files better managed. Then I bought a 3TB Time Capsule and you may ask yourself why??? Well, iTunes doubled in size- although when I ran apps that are designed to find duplicate iTunes files, it deleted the music I actually bought from iTunes. So then I watched as iTunes got it back. How you ask; I run a MacBook Air, iMac and Mac mini in my house - as soon as one powered up it hit the net like a sailor on leave and re-downloaded it all without abandon. I tried to keep the libraries separate, no success there. I tried to keep them unified; iTunes response was to ask me if I wanted to join iTunes Match every time I logged on to my computer and on any computer - my iTunes match song number has been as high as 24,367 and as low as 11,112. And I can't simply refuse iTunes. No one refuses iTunes. Refusal to allow iTunes Match to run through all 24000 songs again was to revoke my rights to the songs that were once part of my library. If I took a long time to decide or was visibly impatient while iTunes did its little 3 hour scan it would arbitrarily decide that music I bought from iTunes was ineligible for iTunes Match. How could that possibly be??? I am missing music, or at least iTunes tells me so by showing me that lovely exclamation point. I have tried backing up my computer to do a full system restore and start all over. Time Capsule claims I have 979 GB of data and takes its sweet time to even back up one gig (about 18 minutes) even though I can transfer files to my Time Capsule at about 1 GB every 40 seconds. I guess though performing back-ups are somewhat like government jobs; it will get done, when it gets done. The back up requirement of 979 GB is surprising though, my Mac claims that I currently occupy just about 25% of my 2TB drive. The discrepancy, who knows, but I think the solution lies somewhere in iTunes. But maybe iPhoto. But that is for another time.

After admittedly only a quick read the one thing you don't say is how you are trying to make this move. Most people with moving library issues do it the wrong way. Plenty of web sites tell you how to do it the wrong way.
If the iTunes application is started before the drive with the library is fully mounted and awake iTunes will revert back to the internal drive.

Help needed - half successful move of iTunes to external drive

I have just purchased a WD external drive and have attempted to move the contents of iTunes (but not the programme) to it from my Mac's hard drive. It seems that podcasts etc have been moved, but not the music files (they all appear in iTunes, but with ! in front of some of them and when you select a track to play you get an error message that says the track can't be found.
How can I resolve this?
Many thanks.

What format is the extrenal drive? How are you moving the iPhoto library?
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
LN

Create a link to movies stores on external hard drive for itunes

I seem to have an issue with creating a link to movies stored on my external top be played on itunes. Im NOT trying to move my itunes music library. I had to resetablish my links. Previously I had all of my movies stored on an external, would just highlight and drag to Itunes movies, an icon and a shortcut would quickly copy ans all was good. Now when I drag the movie icon to itunes it begins a "copying" process that takes a very long time.
??

What I do is this:
I keep the 'Keep iTunes folder Organised' option check (on). So that When I buy music or rip a CD, the music goes into my iTunes folder on my iMac's internal drive (in my home folder - default location).
However, I have elected to keep all my movies on an external drive, effectively meaning that I only want iTunes to partially organise my folder.
How do I get around this?
Simple. To add a movie to iTunes from my external drive, I simply OPTION-DRAG the file into iTunes. ie. select the file in the Finder, hold down the option key and drag it onto iTunes' open window. It will add the movie to the library, but WILL NOT copy it to the iTunes folder - the file will be referenced from its original location.
Simples.

How to move itunes media to external drive

I'm running iTunes for Windows 10.6.3.25 and have 3000+ songs in the library. I'd like to move the music files to an external hard drive, without losing the dates added, plays, genres or the directory structure. I've already made a copy of all the folders and music files to my external drive (I've called it M: for Music), but now I need to tell iTunes to look there for the music and not at my laptop's D-drive. Changing the iTunes media folder in the Edit-Preferences-Advanced tab doesn't seem to have any effect on the existing songs.
Anyone out there with tips or advice?
Thanks
H-tac

Type "move itunes library" into the search bar at the top of this page or your favorite search engine and follow the instructions.

I have all my movies on an external hard drive. I want to be able to access them without copying everything to my iTunes. How can I do this?

I have all my movies on an external hard drive. I want to be able to access them without copying everything to my iTunes. How can I do this?

I think DebinSC might mean using the movies without copying to the iTunes library?
Maybe the solution is to uncheck this box?
Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Attempting to move iTunes to external HD...

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for