Can iTunes be backed up on an external hard drive?

I got a new 5th Generation iPod. I have to upgrade my iTunes version 6.0.1.3 to versi. I have read on these forums how some have lost their music in iTunes after upgrading to version 7. I was wondering if I can save a copy of my iTunes onto an external hard drive before upgrading to version 7? If I was to lose all of my music could I get it all back from the external hard drive?

Hi, eddie from pataskala ohio.
We love pro-active thinking here at the Apple Discussions and you're off to a great start.
Even though upgrading iTunes shouldn't affect your Library, one of the funny things about computers is that sometime, somehow, somewhere when you least expect it , they can do some not so funny things, like losing data that they're not supposed to. Which is why it's a good idea to have a back up copy of any data (such as your music) that you value in reserve ... just in case.
The most straightforward way, is to go to the iTunes Edit menu > Preferences > Advanced tab > General sub-tab and make sure your iTunes Music folder is assigned to its default location: C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents\My Music\iTunes .
Next make sure all your music is stored in that folder by using the iTunes Advanced menu > Consolidate Library option.
Now you can copy the entire iTunes folder - the iTunes Music folder and the iTunes library files in particular - to your external drive.
If anything does go wrong with the upgrade, you'll be all set to recreate your Library.

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I know this isn't a complete answer because I am not sure why or if your backups to CD/DVD are not working, but one thing I do know is yes you indeed can backup any of your iTunes Media (music, movies, tv shows, podcasts, etc.) to an external hard drive. In fact, it's recommended that you do this anyway (in case of a hard drive crash, computer being stolen, etc.)
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My itunes can't find the music on my external hard drive.

My itunes was working fine using my external hard drive. Then I played a song that was not part of that music folder. Now itunes says it can't find any of the songs that are listed. The little evil exclamation point pops up. How can I reconnect to the hard drive without having to start all over?

Thanks for the clarification of check vs click. I guess once I saw the word "double" I stopped reading. I ended up "reloading" the drive to itunes. The interesting thing is that itunes isn't setting the location for the external drive. It is set for a folder under "my music" The actual songs aren't there, but the folders are there. When i put my external drive music to a new itunes library, i did so without copying the songs. So about 100 gig of music is in a folder that is really only about 300mb. I noticed before i restarted that the location was this folder. When i opened it, it was empty. After redoing everthing all of the songs are on the folder. I probably should have just changed it to go to the external drive like you suggested. Just for fun i changed the location to the external and bypassed that small folder. It worked great. It only took about 2 minutes to update, and it works great. I thought i had to use that stupid little folder. Thanks for all of your help!!

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Drag and drop the music from your Itunes to your desktop - to the external hard drive.
- Works for me, Works for you.

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.
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Erasing all music from iTunes and starting over from an external hard drive

Hello,
I tried moving all my media to an external hard drive to make room on my MacBook Pro and just be able to run the media (ie music movies etc) from the external hard drive when it was connected.
Well this backfired big time probably because I did not follow any sort of instructions.
1st I backed up Finder > music > iTunes > iTunesMedia folder to two seperate external hard drives just in case.
2nd I think (this was back in March 2013) I decided to cut/delete the folder Automatically Add to iTunes and moved it to one of my external hard drives (this folder for some reason contained mostly everythiing that was in the iTunes Media folder).
3rd I finally decided to erase content from iTunes Media Folder
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6th I believe I changed the location of "iTunes Media folder location" in the Advanced area under Preferences thinking this should be pointing to my external drive
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Long long long story short hopefully, can anyone help me set up iTunes so that it only can play content/media off of my external drive and not take up space on my internal hard drive? Is this even possible to do that or will always start to copy those files from the external hard drive back onto the internal hard drive? and second is there anyway to use the Apple router external hard drive to use as the source for all my media?
PS I am running Mac OS X Lion version 10.7.5 and iTunes 11.1.3 (8) 64-bit

2012EVOL wrote:
Hello,
I tried moving all my media to an external hard drive to make room on my MacBook Pro and just be able to run the media (ie music movies etc) from the external hard drive when it was connected.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to the external. Don't only copy the iTunes media folder.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the external.
This is all you need to do.
Everything for iTunes (except the application) is on the external.
2nd I think (this was back in March 2013) I decided to cut/delete the folder Automatically Add to iTunes and moved it to one of my external hard drives (this folder for some reason contained mostly everythiing that was in the iTunes Media folder).
Make a shortcut to this folder on your desktop.
Nothing should be in this folder. When you put a file here, it will get moved by iTunes and added to the library.
The reason it had files in it is because you moved it.

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There are some wireless external hard drives that can be used with the iPad.
The Kingston Wi-Drive, which costs $50 for the 16 Gigabyte, and then $30 more for every 16 gigs more. It works by you turning it on and then accessing the files on it from an app that you download on your iDevice. You can access music, movies, and other stuff. No connections or anything, it works like a WiFi connection, you connect to it from the setting on the iPad under wireless networks.
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Windows - Changing IPhone and iPad backup location
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 Cheers, Tom

Itunes will not store in an external hard drive

I use an external hard drive to store my music.
The last few CDs we have put onto itunes do not appear in the external hard drive, why?

Hello compsec1951,
It sounds like the content may have been saved in the default iTunes folder location in the Music folder.
Use this article to determine how iTunes is setup and where it is saving the new content. While it may be accessing the library on the external drive, it may be saving new media to a different location.
Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Mac OS X: Click the iTunes menu and choose Preferences.
Windows: Click the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
Click the Advanced pane. iTunes displays the location of your iTunes Media folder.
You can then:
Note where your media folder is, such as for backing up your media.
Use the Reset button to reset it's location to the default (which is the iTunes folder).
Click the Change button to select a folder for a new location. Once you change this location:
If you make a new or alternate iTunes library, the new location will be used by that library.
Existing files will not be moved unless you choose File > Library > Organize library and choose the option to "Consolidate files."
Regards,
Sterling

Running itunes on two pc's with external hard drive library

Hi All;
I am working with two laptop pc's, a large external hard drive and my iphone. I am in the process of putting my cd library onto an external hard drive and I plan on plugging the drive into either laptop to play my music library wirelessly using apple airplay. Both laptops are running windows 7 and I use the latest version of iTunes.
Initially, I transferred my music off my laptop onto the external drive (following the 'consolidate library' process provided in one of the help menus) and then successfully told iTunes where to find the library on my external hard drive (E:/itunes Music). I then did this with the 2nd laptop. Then I resumed downloading music from cd's.
All of my music is successfully saving to my external hard drive (E:). However, when I download on one laptop and then go to the other, I can't always see all of the albums. I got frustrated, started checking and unchecking things, now I'm sort of lost. iTunes has never been my favorite program.:/
My questions are below:
1. Can I use two laptops and my external hard drive interchangeably?
2. Right now, I get the message 'please choose an iTunes library' but when I direct it to the E: drive and click 'open' it keeps opening into my music files and doesn't open the program. If I try 'create library' I see this:
3. Now that there is a new library, I see this:
but previously I had it set to look like this:
My question is- should I have both boxes checked? Only the top one? What do they mean, anyway?
Ideas, suggestions and links welcome.
Thank you!

Making some assumptions:
The iTunes Library.itl file located at E:\iTunes Music\Music\iTunes 1 is your current/active database
When you run iTunes all your media files can be located and will play
You have free space on your external hard drive - at least as much as currently used for your E:\iTunes Music folder
If one or more of these are not valid, STOP HERE and report back - some parts of the procedure below would be different.
Before starting I would strongly suggest taking a backup of your E: drive as insurance against anything not working as it is supposed to.
Exit iTunes
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to drive E:
Select Organize > Folder and Search Options, then the View tab - make sure that the Show hidden files, folders and drives option is selected
Create a new folder E:\iTunes - this will be the new starting point for your iTunes library
Navigate to the folder where your library files are currently stored (E:\iTunes Music\Music\iTunes 1) - you've already provided a screenshot of this, but with the Show hidden files, folders and drives option selected you should see one more file:
(sentinel is a hidden file that iTunes uses while running).
Select all five files in this folder:
then right-click > Copy or press Ctrl-C.
Still in Windows Explorer, navigate to the E:\iTunes folder you created in step 4, then right-click > Paste or press Ctrl-V. At this point the E:\iTunes folder should look like this:
Now hold down the Shift key and start iTunes. You'll get this prompt:
Click on Choose Library..., navigate to E:\iTunes and select the iTunes Library.itl file (that you just copied into this folder). Click Open. iTunes will start and show your library with the same content as before.
Select Edit > Preferences > Advanced. Click the Reset button, which will change your iTunes Media folder location to E:\iTunes\iTunes Media, which is what you should want it to be (ignore the I: drive shown here, yours should be E:)
Click OK - you should get this prompt:
Click Yes. This doesn't actually move your files, there's one more step. Still in iTunes, select File > Library > Organize Library... When you see this prompt:
check the Consolidate Files box and - if not greyed out - the Reorganize files ... box. The click OK. iTunes will now start copying your media files to the new, preferred location and layout. The time taken to complete this process depends on the size of your library - for a small one it'll be a few minutes; for a large library considerably more. Allow the process to finish.
Once complete, your library in iTunes should look exactly as it was before - you should be able to select and play any of your songs/albums. However, if you right-click > Get Info on any song and select the File tab, you should see that the file location has been updated:
and if you go to Windows Explorer and navigate to E:\iTunes\iTunes Media you'll see a Music subfolder which in turn contains one folder for each artist:
In your case the drive reference at the top will be "My Passport (E:)" and the folders listed will be those for your library.
Successful completion of all these steps should now have brought your library into the "portable" or "well-formed" layout. Just to make sure everything's working:
Exit iTunes
In Windows Explorer, rename your E:\iTunes Music folder to something like "Old iTunes"
Restart iTunes, without holding down shift. Your library should be available to you as in step 11 above - however, its worth testing a significant sample of your music just to make sure that everything is in the right place and plays correctly.
One point I didn't cover is the case where the other (older) iTunes library you have - the one where the iTunes Library.itl file is on the C: drive - may be referencing albums/songs that were not in the library that was on the E: drive and that the procedure described above will bring into a more standard format. If this is the case then there are a couple of approaches that you can use to merge the two libraries - report back if this is the case.
If this last point doesn't apply, you can now go ahead and delete the renamed E:\iTunes Music folder - otherwise there will be a few more steps to go through before you can finally get rid of this.
Finally, once you've completed everything successfully, work out how you're going to create and maintain a backup of your library. With the approach described above all of iTunes' data is in one place - E:\iTunes. I would suggest using the method described in turingtest2's notes on Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy ... remembering that "Hard drives fail. Always. You just don't know when its going to happen."
Apologies for the length of these notes - however, based on your description of your current setup I thought it worth going through all the steps to bring it into a more conventional layout.

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up. I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up.
I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?
When I bought the new (used) iMac, I also bought an external hard drive for backups. It worked fine, but my husband stole it.
Then I bought a new external hard drive (Seagate) and it worked fine for three weeks, then died.
So I just got a new external hard drive, which was put together from an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure.
Time machine did the first backup today, and it should have taken 9 hours like it did on the previous first time full back up. Instead, it took 30 minutes. That can't be right. I want to start over and do a full backup to make sure everything gets onto my new external hard drive, but I can't figure out how to do that. Please help.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil compare -E
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
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Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
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Can I put my library on an external hard drive and use it between two computers?

Can I put my library on an external hard drive and use it between two computers? I have two MBP; I will refer to one as computer A and to the other as computer B. I would like to be able to plug in my external hard drive, boot up iTunes, and if there were any changes made to the library previous to its last time accessed on this compluter, they show up on that computer, regardless of being imported on the other.
A hypothetical example: I import three albums called 1, 2, and 3 on computer A over a week or so. I take the external hard drive and plug it into computer B. The entire library which was visible on A, is visible on B, including albums 1, 2, and 3.
Is this possible? If so, what files need to be copied onto the external? I'm trying some different combinations, trial and error basically. Hopefully someone knows and can answer before I mess up my library. I also want to do this to free up space on my computer. All importing will be done from disc.

iTunes/Preferences/Advanced : point your iTunes to the new location of the Library.
Set "Share on local network" in the Sharing tab, and you or everyone on the local network can play your music.
You make a backup first of the Library.
Move the follwing to the new location:
/Users/your username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
have fun.

Can iTunes be backed up on an external hard drive?

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