Can I put iTunes library and iPhoto albums on external hard drive?

How can I, if there is a way put my iTunes library and iPhoto albums on my external hard drive to free up space on my internal hard drive? If this can be done what are possible issues and do I just access them through my external drive when I need them. Can I sync my iPod to the external drive in order to deal with daily pod casts etc?
thanks,
Bill

You might find these articles useful:
iLounge - Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive
iPhoto: How to move the iPhoto Library Folder to a new location

Similar Messages

  • HT1751 Can I consolidate my iTunes library and transfer to an external hard drive while my computer is in safe mode?

    Laptop died, only works in safe mode.  Am wanting to transfer everythign to an external hard drive and do a reset to if I can save it.

    See this migrate iTunes library post. Depending on the layout of the library you may simply need to copy the entire iTunes folder using Windows Explorer without ever firing up iTunes.
    tt2

  • How do you move a single album, and not the whole library, in iPhoto to an external hard drive?

    How do you move a single album, and not the whole library, in iPhoto to an external hard drive?

    File -> Export to a folder and copy it over.
    That will give you a folder with the images. There is no way to move an album outside of iPhoto. You would need to have a library containing it.
    Regards
    TD

  • HT1923 hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can i remove iTunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space and then just run it from the hard drive. instead of taking space on the mac? even if the mac no longer has enough to accommo

    Hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can I remove itunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space?...and then run it from the hard drive instead of the mac,even if the mac no longer has space to accomodate the size of the library?

    Yes.
    Copy your music iTunes Library folder to the external drive and change the Advanced settings in iTunes to point to this new location.
    Once you're happy with these changes you can delete the same Library from your User account to free up space on the internal drive.

  • Have copied my iTunes library back-up from my external hard drive (saved from my iTunes on my pc) onto my new Macbook and loads of the tracks have been duplicated, some four times some not at all?? any ideas guys?

    Have copied my iTunes library back-up from my external hard drive (saved from my iTunes on my pc) onto my new Macbook and loads of the tracks have been duplicated, some four times some not at all?? any ideas guys?

    Have copied my iTunes library back-up from my external hard drive (saved from my iTunes on my pc) onto my new Macbook and loads of the tracks have been duplicated, some four times some not at all?? any ideas guys?

  • How do i copy my itunes and iphoto to an external hard drive?

    How do i copy my itunes and iphoto to my external hard drive?

    Apple has instructions at:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1751
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1229?viewlocale=en_US
    and in case you are interested in iMovie....
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1097

  • How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive?

    How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive and keep the new iTunes library on the External Hard Drive. I have all the media and playlist and .xml .itl files, just want the iTunes to recognise the content.
    I backedup my iTunes content by dragging to External Hard Drive. Formatted and reinstalled OS. My iTunes content is so large, that I wish for the Library and content to remain on the External Hard Drive. I have all the music files and playlists, I just cannot get the iTunes application to display all the content. Hoping to Not have to drag and drop all the content to be recopied into new iTunes organised files.
    Troubleshooting this by researching other conversations on the web, I have come stuck for a solution. One Troubleshoot told me to hold down the Command key and then lauch iTunes and a dialogue box will appear to Choose a new library, however when I try this, no Dialogue box appear to give me the option!?

    It sometimes has that funny switch symbol on it too.  
    tt2

  • If i previously had my iTunes library set up on an external hard drive, how do I get my iTunes on my new mac pro to operate off of the same hard drive?

    I recently bought a mac pro. I previously had a macbook that I had set up for iTunes to run off of an external hard drive. How do I set up my mac pro to run off of this hard drive?  I have been trying to figure it out for the last hour and have had no luck.
    I have tried to move my itunes folder on my mac pro to my external hard drive but am having no luck. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

    If you had the entire library running from the external drive it should be a matter of holding down option as you start iTunes and browsing to the library on the external drive.
    If you'd followed the advice to move the media folder only then ideally you need to recover the library folder from your Macbook with a view to making the library portable on the external drive.
    Otherwise you're going to have to simply import the content into a new library, losing rating, playlists, play counts. etc.
    If you have any devices that sync to your library see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
    tt2

  • Missing iTunes, iBooks, and iPhoto content on new hard drive

    I recently bought an SSD hard drive from Crucial and had Geek Squad install it on my Macbook Pro. They also partitioned/formatted the hard drive and installed Yosemite. All good.
    Since they wanted an extra $130 to add my apps, I decided to do that part myself. I had been backing up the old hard drive to an external WD hard drive via Time Machine.
    I was able to add all my apps and they work perfectly.
    BUT there are a few very important things missing:
         Much of my iTunes Library (none of my playlists appear; none of the items I imported from CDs; none of my MP3's of lectures and things like that);
         Most of my photos and all of my albums from iPhoto. (Only very recent photos appear; all of my albums are gone);
         All of my iBooks (but oddly, the collection names appear; when I open a collection, however, there is nothing in it.)
    WHAT I HAVE (which ostensibly contains all this info in some form, but which I'm not sure how to transfer to my laptop):
         My iTunes content and iBooks are all present on my iPhone and iPad mini, but when I connected them and selected to sync these items I received a warning message: items synced from other iTunes libraries will be removed and items will be synced from ‘this’ iTunes library. Problem is, ‘this’ iTunes library, which is ostensibly mine and which is associated with my correct Apple ID, no longer contains 3/4 of my stuff.
         My external hard drive and the Time Machine backups. This was originally set up at an Apple store for me and I asked them to set it up to back up everything, so hopefully...
         I still have my old hard drive Geek Squad removed from my computer.
    What is the best/easiest way for me to retrieve all these items? I read some instructions for entering Time Machine backups and restoring files, but honestly once I got in there I didn't feel too confident. The article presumed you would know how to navigate to the correct file. I don't even really understand where my missing items would be.
    If I should post this in a different forum, please let me know.
    Any help is appreciated.
    Karen

    Use your backup copy of your computer to put everything back.

  • How can I move my itunes library from pc onto an external hard drive for use on a mac

    I have a large itunes library on my PC (roughly 200gb) and I want to transfer this to an external hard drive to then use on my new mac. I have tried this before using software which converts from NFTS to mac, but this didn't work properly (songs kept disappearing), so I also want the external hard drive to be mac formatted. Any suggestions? It seems much harder to do this than I expected.

       Yes you can go to > Music > iTunes folder and copy the whole iTunes folder and drag the folder to your external and then on the new Mac click and highlight the iTunes folder and then in iTunes click on the button at the top (add folder to library) and you should see all your songs transfer from the external to the Mac and all songs start filling up in your iTunes library on the Mac.
      This is the easiest method all songs and other media such as songs, movies, apps will be transferred over however you may not be able to keep ratings & last played counts using this method.
      To keep all metadata including ratings & play count use the Apple method exclusively for this if you have to have your metadata, play counts and ratings saved.
      I used scenario one above because it one of the simplest methods and I was just satisfied enough just to transfer all media over.

  • HT1751 I had my library and playlists on an external hard drive.  Now, I cannot get the playlists to come up in ITunes on my new computer.  I recall doing something in properties but dk next step.  Suggestions?  Thanks

    I have a new computer.  My old Mac had my playlist synced to an external hard drive. (I have an IPod Classic)  The playlists will not come up in ITunes now.  As I recall, I had to do something with properties but that is all I remember.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to syn the library playlists tofrom the external hard drive to the computer?  Thank you

    chevalierdurufle wrote:
    My itunes library used to be on a PC - but shortly before the PC went to PC heaven I transferred the library onto an external hard drive
    You mean you transferred the media, not the library...
    Now I have a laptop - but I can't get itunes to pick up the library location
    The library location is in your /Music/ oflder.
    Your media files (not yet in your new iTunes library ) is on the external drive.
    I have changed in advance preferences, but the library does not display.
    Because you have not yet added anything to your library.
    Quit iTunes.
    On the external, create a new folder named My iTunes library (or something).
    Hold Shift and launch iTunes.
    Select Choose library... and select My iTunes library on the external.
    Go into Windows Explorer and move all the media files on the external into /My iTunes Llibrary/iTunes media/Automatically add to iTunes/ folder.

  • Putting library and all music on external hard drive

    This may be obvious, but I want to put all my music on an external hard drive to free up space on my laptop. I want to be able to plug in my ipod and have it update the full music library. I tried changing the library in advanced preferences and it just made a folder that didn't have anything in it on the external hard drive. Do I have to drag and drop Itunes Library from my internal harddrive user folder to the external? Thanks, and sorry for the slightly dunderheaded question.

    In the iTunes preferences, under the "Advanced" tab, you have to make sure to uncheck the option to "Copy files to the iTunes Media folder when adding to library". Make sure to keep the option above it checked, that reads "Keep iTunes Media folder organized". Then, when you want to add music to your library, put the new music file in the external drive's folder with the rest of your music files, then drag it to the iTunes icon. iTunes will keep it on the external drive and organize it in there.
    This is at least what I do. Perhaps others have a different way to do it but that has worked pretty well for me.
    Message was edited by: gojirasan

  • Exporting iphoto album to external hard drive.

    Hello,
    I'm trying to export an iphoto album to an external hard drive that shows up on the left side (side bar) of finder. If I copy and paste the album, the pictures are rearranged.
    Is there a way to drag and drop the album directly into the external hard drive?
    Side question: Is there a way to add iphoto or imovie to the side bar of Finder under 'places'?
    If there is, it seems this would be an easy way to access a specific album in iphoto and directly drag and drop it from a listing in Finder to the external hard drive listed in Finder's side bar 'devices' category.
    Thanks

    PWpw:
    First, you don't need to go into the iPhoto Library package to get access to your photos for use outside of iPhoto. Read Terence Devlin's treatise on file access. It has all you need to know.
    The pictures, when exported to the external HD, are viewed using the Finder and can only be viewed by title or date. If you want your photos to be in a particular order, you will need to rename them in iPhoto using the Photos->Batch Rename-Title to Text with the sequential numbering box selected. Then export them to the EHD using the File->Export->File Export menu option with the option to use the title as the new file name. You photos will then be in the order you want when viewed alphanumerically in the Finder.
    TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
    I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
    Note: There now an Automator backup application for iPhoto 5 that will work with Tiger or Leopard.

  • My itunes library is stored on an external hard drive. How do I set it up to be able to use with my work macbook pro? I do not want it stored on my laptop.

    How do I store my itunes library on an external hard drive and access it on my macbook pro? I do not want to store my library on my macbook because it is a work computer and do not want to take up storage space there. I know it can be done because I had it that one on a previous laptop but I cannot remember how I did it and would really appreciate a quick step by step process. I do not mind if it seems elementary. I am admitting my lack of knowledge and would really appreciate basic instructions. Thank you for anything anyone can do to help.

    iTunes>Preferences (Cmd+,)>Advanced
    Choose the Ext HD (and the appropriate folder) as the location for your library.

  • How can I access iTunes; the songs are on an external hard drive?

    I have had an iBookG4 for almost 4 years now, and I recently had to get it updated to Leopard because the operating system was so out of date. Now though, my computer has no spare memory because the hard-drive is full with Leopard. So I have to keep my iTunes files on an external hard -drive. The problem is that when I want to play songs though iTunes, the file copies itself to my hard-drive, which I have no space for. Either that, or iTunes tells me that the files can't be found. In store when I got the operating system updated, I was told to press 'alt' before opening iTunes, so that the songs would play through the hard-drive, but this doesn't seem to work. Is there any way of being able to play the music through iTunes and the external drive only? This is very annoying because I recently got an iPod, and I can't seem to put any music onto it.
    Any help would be appreciated!

    Thanks very much for that!
    I have an extra question. While I was on the advanced settings, I changed the location of my iTunes folder from my computer harddisk to the external drive, so I could avoid having to go through my hard disk at all. Now when I have looked at my external hard drive, the folder with my music has disappeared, and I don't know where it is. Also, some song files aren't there any more because my computer only had room for the majority, but about 700 are still missing. However, all the songs seem to be playing through iTunes. What has happened?
    Many thanks,
    C

Maybe you are looking for