Give me a simply way to transfer my ITunes from old Mac to new Mac. PLEASE!

Question

I have a new MacBook Pro and want to transfer my iTunes from my old, but still functional eMac. I have my iTunes folder backed up to an external drive. My songs are a mixture of uploaded CDs and iTunes Store purchases.
I need a straightforward way of doing this. I have searched previous posts, but haven't found any to point me in the right direction.
Question: Do I need to first de-authorize the old eMaC? And then authorize the new Macbook before I begin any transfer?
Will it be easier to transfer from the external hard drive?
And, I assume, when I connect the external drive to the MacBook with Firewire, I just drag over the iTunes folder and drop it where?
Thanks for any help; the last thing I want to do is spend the next month posting questions on how to clean up a mess from one of my ham-handed moves.

Answer 1

Thomas Hanrahan wrote:
Question: Do I need to first de-authorize the old eMaC? And then authorize the new Macbook before I begin any transfer?
you should authorize your MB before you begin. you can deauthorize the eMac later (unless you have already reached the limit of 5 authorized machines).
And, I assume, when I connect the external drive to the MacBook with Firewire, I just drag over the iTunes folder and drop it where?
assuming that the entire iTunes folder (not just the iTunes music folder) is on the external, just drag the folder to <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on the MacBook. this will overwrite the iTunes folder (probably devoid of content) in that location.
when the move's done, firing up iTunes should take you to the library you were used to from the eMac.
Another question: Do I need to consolidate the iTunes Library before I do anything? I am not sure what consolidation does, but I remember reading about it.
when consolidating your library, iTunes will copy all files it knows of to the location you have designated in preferences > advanced > iTunes media folder location. for example, if you have spread content over a couple of smaller HD's and now want to combine all of it on one big drive, you would consolidate your library.
if all your media files are on the external already, you don't need to consolidate.
JGG