Help linking itunes to my music/data on external hard drive

I have my music data on an external hard drive. When in itunes and I click on a song, and ! point shows up along with... The song " ..." could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?
Locating it so far has not worked. I believe the path that points itunesto the music data on the external hd is broken.
Any suggestions on linking the the two together?
T

Perhaps my FindTracks script can help.
tt2

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How do I get iTunes to access music files on external hard drive?

We moved all of our music to an external hard drive. The hd is always on and I connect to it wirelessly. I don't know how to get iTunes to use the library that is on the hard drive, can anyone help me please.

iTunes expects to find its library in the ./Music/iTunes folder. To get iTunes to see music on another drive, you first have to create the library on your internal drive. Once you've done that, you copy the iTunes folder over to your external drive, and redirect iTunes to that drive, using an alias. (I originally did this in Tiger and it continues to work fine in Leopard. I don't know if doing it originally in Leopard would make any difference.)
Note: If your external drive library is already too large for your internal drive, simply use as much of it as you can to create the original library on your internal drive. You can add the rest of it once you've got iTunes looking at the external drive. In this case, remember to name any "iTunes" folder on the external drive to something else, so you don't erase everything in the following procedure.
Load up as much music as you can on your internal drive, making sure it appears in iTunes.
Quit iTunes and copy the iTunes folder from your internal drive to your external drive (be sure you don't erase whatever's already on the external drive). Copying that folder to the root of the external drive is OK.
On your internal drive, rename the 'iTunes" folder to something else (like orig_iTunes) -- or move it out of the Music folder.
Open your external hard drive to the directory containing your iTunes folder.
Cmd-Option drag the iTunes folder from the external hard drive to the internal hard drive Music folder, creating an alias in the internal drive's Music folder.
Launch iTunes. You should now see the music from the external hard drive. If necessary, you can now add back any missing music, and it will automatically create the necessary music and library files inside your iTunes folder on the external drive. Once you've got them all added, you can delete both the orig_iTunes folder, and the folder on your external drive that served as the source for adding your library back in.

Why can't iTunes find the music from an external hard drive?

I moved my music to an external hard drive to free up space on my old laptop. Since I moved to a new laptop, iTunes never seems to find the music. I have to go through and manually select a song for it to find it one and then it says should it use this to find the rest of the songs. Then it crashes. I have reinstalled iTunes tonight with no real improvement. I want to be able to create a playlist to upload to my new iPad as well as updating music on my iPod but I can't do any of it. Please, any advice!

angelafromlanchester wrote:
I moved my music to an external hard drive to free up space on my old laptop. Since I moved to a new laptop, iTunes never seems to find the music.
Has the new laptop given the external drive a different drive letter?
The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. (Due to a bug in iTunes 12 you currently have to say No twice!) Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links.
If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.
tt2

HT4527 can I use itunes to read music on an external hard drive without migrating my music

I would like to house my music on an external and not on my pc. Can I route iTunes this way? If so, what do I need to do special, as when I routed it, iTunes did not see the music files.
Thanks.

You need to either launch iTunes with the Shift key held down and create a new library on that drive, or set it not to import music to the iTunes Media folder, or use a program other than iTunes to play it.
(70529)

My PC computer was wiped (virus) including itunes. How do I transfer the many playlists and music to the new re-installed itunes?? Ipod is synced to old itunes. I have all original music files on external hard drive. Please help?

My PC computer was wiped (virus) including itunes. How do I transfer the many playlists and music on my ipod to the new re-installed itunes?? Ipod is synced to old itunes. I have all original music files on external hard drive. Please help?
New itunes is trying to wipe the ipod. But have many many playlists (many hours making) which I want to save. Any help would be appreciated.

If you want to just extract the playlists from your iPod, plug it in iTunes. When it appears under devices, right->click on it and choose Export Playlists. Save them to a location such as your desktop and them import them into your library once you have copied and imported all of your music back into it.
See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
B-rock

I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library. When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found". need help

I recently reset my computer and copy my music from an external hard drive to my itunes library. When I click on a song to play i get an error message that says " the song could not be used because the original file could not be found". But when I have my external hard drive plug in the song will play with no problem. What do I need to do to play my music without having the external harddrive plug in ???????? Please help

Because the location for each song in your library is on your hard drive. If the hard drive isn't there, how can iTunes play it?
You'll have to move/copy the music from your hard drive to your computer's hard drive.
Basically, EASIEST way to do all this, if you don't care about your play counts, etc...
-Delete EVERYTHING from iTunes, so that your library is now empty.
-Go to "Advanced" inside of the "Preferences" window, found in the "Edit" drop-down. You can also access Preferences by pressing Ctrl+, (Press Ctrl and the comma key)
-Change your iTunes Media Folder Location to something simple, but on your computer. I use C:/iTunes. Make sure "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" and "Copy files to...." are both checked. You can close Preferences now.
-Now, drag and drop your music from your hard drive into your iTunes library. iTunes will automatically add the music to your library, as you would expect, and also creates a copy of each file to place into that iTunes Media Folder you just created.
Shouldn't have any more problems...

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
4th I deleted the iTunes Media folder because I felt it was stupid to have a "iTunes Media folder" and "iTunes Music Folder" in the same place but not actually have anything in the iTunes Music folder (probably really stupid of me in retrospect)
5th I unchecked the box under iTunes > Preferences > Advanced "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library"
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
I then believe I tried to run iTunes and play my content, but when I did all it did was copy my music/media back to my MacBook Pro hard drive but I did not realize it was doing this until later the next day when I tried to play some music and realized I had 3 copies of everything in my iTunes program (ie music movies podcasts tv shows etc) however, I could play all three versions of whatever it was I selected there was no "error message" saying that iTunes could not located that file, would you like to try and locate.
So I checked Finder to see if there were 3 copies of everything (by the way at this point I stopped connecting my external hard drive for the sake of making more copies on iTunes) but there wasn't??? So I tried to go through Option+View > Show Exact Duplicate Copies and delete all but one of the items. When I would delete them and it asked if I wanted to move them to my Trash Bin I clicked yes and all the 2nd and 3rd copies were gone!!! Yeah, so when I played those songs/movies that remained they would play!!!!!
Than I realized that my Internal Hard Drive was almost full and went looking around for things I could delete to help make my MacBook run better, and realized that my Trash had a large amount of data in it and that emptying it would significantly reduce space on my Internal Hard Drive, but when I went back to iTunes and selected music or movies to play it placed the infamous "!" next to that track or movie and it could not locate those items anymore?
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.

How do i get itunes 11 to stop adding music played from external hard drive to itunes library

I use itunes 11 to play music from my external hard drive and when i am finished using the hard drive and disconnect it the artist and songs appear in the itunes libary and when i click on it to play them it cannot locate the file and i assume this is becuse under the advanced prefrences tab i unchecked the auomaticly add played music to itunes library. I do not want my external hard drive music to be added to itunes library which at this point it does not but it is still showing the music in the library even though it cannot be played this is very fustrating please help. how do i get the artist and songs played from the external hardrive from appering in the itunes library.

Do you have a working copy of the library anywhere? The key file is called iTunes Library.itl and normally exists inside <User's Music>\iTunes. This is the file that knows what is in your library and each of the playlists, and holds ratings, play counts etc. Changing the media folder path in preferences tells iTunes where you'd like it to store media in future. It doesn't magically connect iTunes to any media that might already be there, or fix links to media that has been moved, or make it pick up a non-existent library file. If the worst comes to it you will need to import the media into the new empty library.
See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device if you have any of these to recover ratings, play stats and playlists, and to associate your device with the new library.
tt2

How to keep music on an external hard drive, but still manage in itunes

Hello, so i just got a new pc. Have downloaded and authorized Itunes and have pointed my file media folder to the external hard drive. What I'd like to do is keep all my music on the external hard drive without saving any music onto my new pc. So is it possible to keep all my music on the external hard drive but still be able to manage the music library in itunes?

Hi,
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're asking for, but I asked a similar question once before. I hope this helps.
Here is a tutorial from Apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364?viewlocale=en_US
and here is a link to the question I asked previously: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2110013&tstart=0

How do I update Itunes when music is on external hard drive

I have all of my music on a external hard drive and I need to update Itunes. When I tried to update Itunes this week, it gave me an error message saying that it could not update it. I also tried to update Itunes directly from the this website and I get stuck. Can someone let me know the steps?
Thank You

You may not get the required help here as this is the forum for the iPod Classic.
There is a dedicated forum for installing and updating iTunes on Windows, and here's the link.
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=792
You might want to post what the error is also.

My computer had a virus and needed to be wiped clean. all my itunes docs are stored on an external hard-drive so i downloaded a new itunes but it over-wrote my old one - how can i restore this without wiping my iphone? please help :(

Hi there,
My windows xp computer got a virus and needed to be wiped.
As i store all of my itunes and iphone stuff on an external hardrive i thought this would not cause a problem.
Got a bit confused when i tried to open itunes again from the back-up hardrive as it would not open.
Wrongly assumed that the best option would be to re-download itunes and move my old itunes info across - silly silly thing to do :/
The new download just over-wrote the old one and after trying a few of the suggestions on here to get my old library back - i still cant work out if its possible as it has been over-written.
I don't want to plug my iphone4 into my computer as i have heard that this can wipe your phone completely, so before i do anything, does anyone know what is the best thing to do from here? or how i could posibly recover my old library, playlists, apps, podcasts e.t.c
please please help
mappy1970

thisisdavid wrote:
i have all of my music on my external hard drive, and would like to be able to listen to it on itunes without it copying to the computer.
go iTunes > preferences > advanced and temporarily disable the copy files ... when adding option.
from the file menu, choose add to library and select the folder on the external containing your content, or drag the folder to the automatically add to iTunes folder inside the iTunes folder.
when iTunes has finished the operation, go back to preferences > advanced and point iTunes media folder location to the external so that future additions to your library are put there. also, re-enable the copy files ... when adding option.

In order to save disc space on my computer I wish to save all my itunes music onto an external hard drive only. How can I set up itunes to do this. Thanks

In order to save space on my laptop hard drive I wish to load all music via itunes onto an external hard disk only. I do I configure itunes to do this?
Thanks

Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
Hope this helps.

HELP WITH FINDING MY MUSIC ON MY EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE

OK here goes need some help,i have my music on my external hard drive that i dragged on to my itunes everythings fine no problems there.But i went to tidy up my music in my external hard drive but can't find the mp3's all i see is the album folder.I know that the music is there because it say's on my hard drive and all the music in Itunes plays no problem can someone help me figure this one out.

It points to my external hard drive, it's just when i go to the external hard drive and go to the music folder theres just the artist and album name no mp3's

Trouble getting iTunes to sync with music on my external hard drive

PLEASE HELP ME! I recently moved all of my music to my external hard drive to free up space on my computer. I have all the original files on my hard drive now, but (perhaps stupidly) deleted all the files from my actual computer. Now, I'm afraid I can't get all my ratings, last time played, number of plays, playlists, etc. back.
This is basically what I did:
1. Moved music from computer to External
2. In my iTunes preferences menu, I changed my "iTunes Music Folder Location" to the same original folder on my external hard drive.
My problem is that after I did that, iTunes didn't automatically add all my files back into the program. Now, it seems like I've got to add everything back one by one and everything without my customized info (#plays, recently played/added, rating, playlists, etc).
Will someone please just talk to me about this since AppleCare represetatives refuse to deal with problems that have absolutely anything to do with products that aren't made by them....even though I bought the thing at an Apple Store. I'm not sure if I'm giving the right info...I just need someone to ask me the right questions! PLEASE!

Here's Apple's method of moving your Music Folder:
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
It refers to iTunes 4 but works for iTunes 6. Notice step 14. Leave the iTunes Library & iTunes Music Library files in the ~/Music/iTunes folder on your internal HD. This is where iTunes, also other iLife apps, expect to find them.
What are the iTunes library files?

Can i show and play music from my external hard drive in iTunes without adding it to my Mac hard drive?

I have more music than I can keep on my Macbook hard drive by over 200GB. I'm hoping to be able to show and play all music from my external hard drive in iTunes without having to add any of it to my Macbook Hard Drive

Hello B3NN13,
If you would like to add the music from your external hard drive to iTunes without copying it to the iTunes Library on your internal hard drive, you may find the following article helpful:
Add files to your library without adding them to your iTunes folder
When you add an item already on your computer to your iTunes library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder. The original file remains in its current location.
You can change this setting so that files are added to your iTunes library without being added to the iTunes folder. You might want to do this, for example, if you prefer to store video files on an external disk but still want to view them in iTunes.
Choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced.
Deselect the checkbox next to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.”
From now on, when you drag a file to your library or choose File > Add to Library, the item appears in iTunes, but the actual file isn’t copied or moved.
Tip: You can temporarily reverse this setting by holding down the Option key while you drag files to the iTunes window.
iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored
Sincerely,
- Brenden

Help linking itunes to my music/data on external hard drive

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