How do I back-up Itunes music onto an external drive?

I wanted to know how I can back up my Itunes onto an external drive. I tried to back up but it will take about 9 discs to burn it onto. Can;t I just drop and drag all the songs onto an external drive?

"Choose Consolidate Library from the Library section of the File menu in iTunes".
I started this process and a screen popped up advising me this was irreversible and was I sure I wanted to do it. I clicked no until I could get further advice. If I do this, what is the outcome/consequences and why would they warn me?

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Can I move only my iTunes movies, not my iTunes music, onto a flash drive? And, is there a program (apart from iTunes) that can play movies on MacBook Air?

I have a MacBook Air and I need to free up space...
1) I have three series of a tv show on my itunes which are taking up loads of memory - see image - I want to move these movie files onto a Flash Drive. However I do not want to move my itunes Music onto the flash drive, only my Movies, and want to keep my music on my hard drive.
Is this possible?
2) I have managed to copy the movie files onto the flash drive, however when I tried to play one to check that they were loaded properly it didn't have a program that could run the file (they have copied over in a m4V format). Do the MacBook Air's not have a separate program other than itunes that can play movies? If so, is there a program I can get to solve this problem? I went onto the App Store to see if there was something I could download, but all the apps were for creating DVD's, not simply playing them.
3) If 1. & 2. questions are solvable, will it then be safe to delete the movies from my itunes?
Thank you so much for any answers posted.
Best,
Eloise15.

1) However I do not want to move my itunes Music onto the flash drive, only my Movies, and want to keep my music on my hard drive.
Is this possible?
Yes
2) Do the MacBook Air's not have a separate program other than itunes that can play movies? If so, is there a program I can get to solve this problem? I went onto the App Store to see if there was something I could download, but all the apps were for creating DVD's, not simply playing them.
If you can play the movies in iTunes, you should be able to open the movie files using Quicktime, which should already be on your system. If you have already transferred the files to your flash drive, open the flash drive in Finder, and hold control when you click on the movie file (or right click if you have the enabled) and select Open With Quicktime Player. This should play the movie directly from the flash drive.
If you want to set all .m4v files to open with Quicktime by just double clicking on the file, you can follow the steps here: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2573/os_x_how_to_change_default_application_to_op en_file_type/
3) If 1. & 2. questions are solvable, will it then be safe to delete the movies from my itunes?
You can move the TV shows to your flash drive by dragging them from the iTunes window to your flash drive in Finder or the flash drive icon on the desktop. When you are sure everything is transferred over to your external device, you can delete the movie from iTunes. I recommend playing the videos from the flash drive first before deleting them in iTunes.
To delete the videos from iTunes, you can highlight them and press the delete key on your keyboard. In the next prompt, you would want to move it to the trash so that it is deleted from your internal hard drive.
I hope that helps!

How can I put part od the iTunes music library of iTunes music on an external drive in order to free up disk space?

How can I put part od the iTunes music library of iTunes music on an external drive in order to free up disk space?

see this
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Peace, Clyde

My mac mini does not boot, after backing the enire system onto an external drive with Carbon Copy Clone

My Mac Mini does not boot, after backing the enire system onto an external drive with Carbon Copy Clone. I had switched the start-up disk back to the original of course. Now all I see is the Apple logo. What should I do? Thanks in advance.

Try disconnecting any external devices, especially hard drives
and try rebooting.
If that doesn't help, then :
If you are running Lion, boot to the Recovery HD and run a
Repair Disk on the OSX partition.
If Snow Leopard, boot to the installl DVD and run Repair Disk.
Also, you may want to bookmark this:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57345273-263/troubleshooting-the-boot-proce ss-for-intel-macs/?tag=txt;title
for future reference. It is a pretty good explanation of the
Mac boot process and how to identify where problems may be.

HT1373 How do I backup my itunes library to an external drive

My iTunes library is unstable. I have two questions:
1) How do I backup my iTunes library to an external drive?
2) Why am I constatntly prompted to add my computer to iCloud when I have done so multiple times?
When opening iTunes, I receive he error message: "Please Sign In Again, iTunes Match has encountered an error. Please choose Sign Out and he Sign In from the iTunes Store menu and try again."
I tried downloading and installing/repairing the latest iTunes. That did not correct the problem.
Also, I have sync'd to iCloud. Every time I select iMatch from iTunes, I am prompted to Add This Computer to iCloud. I have already done this multiple times.

Hello cijackson,
You posted your question in the iTunes for Mac Forum. You may get better results on the iTunes for Windows forum. Best of luck > https://discussions.apple.com/community/itunes/itunes_for_windows?view=overview

I cannot download the update for itunes - music stored on external drive - download error state invalid "H" drive ? anyone have any ideas ? Cheers

I cannot download the update for itunes - music stored on external drive as computer got full up - download error state invalid "H" drive ? anyone have any ideas ? Cheers

See "Invalid drive X:\" install errors.
tt2

How do I move my iTunes Music to an external hard drive? Please help!

I bought an external hard drive and moved the iTunes Music folder from my local hard drive to the external hard drive and now the iTunes library appears empty. I moved all my music back into the local hard drive and the libarary is now full full of music again. How can I move all the files to the external drive and have iTunes retrieve the music from there?
Thanks!
Paula

This article tells you the proper way to move your music:
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
After a successful move, always connect your external disk, before running iTunes.
Failing to do so will iTunes cause to reset the 'iTunes Music folder location'.
That means your next ripped CDs will be stored on your internal disk.
If that happens, just set the proper location again in the preferences.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

How do I store my iTunes library on an external drive and can I still access it as I would if it was still all sitting on the mini mac?

The mini mac is full and I want to be able to use the 2 tb drive as storage and time machine. How do I get the content onto the external drive and access it it and hoe does new content get downloaded and stored to the drive not the mac? Also can I have 1 drive playing storeage and back up or do I need a second? Basic questions I suspect but not to me!

1. Drag the library to the external drive, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and point it there.
2. Get a second. Having the backups on the same drive as the original data won't help when that drive fails.
(66929)

How do I save 2 iphoto libraries onto one external drive?

Hi
I have an iphoto library on my MacBook Pro and I have an older library of different photos on my graphite iBook.
I'd like to store all my photos onto one external drive.
How can I do this without losing either library in the process?
I actually have the same question regarding music on iTunes.
Thanks
AS

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Do you want to merge these libraries into one? If so, then you'll need the paid version ($20) of iPhoto Library Manager
It's the only way to merge Libraries while preserving all metadata, versions and so on.
Otherwise, simply rename one of the Libraries (so they don't overwite each other) and Copy the iPhoto Library from the Pictures Folder to the External Disk. in each case.
To choose which library to open: holf down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location.
Regards
TD

How do I move my iTunes Library to an external drive and retain everything?

I'm sure this is a common [stupid] question, but I couldn't find a clear answer and I want to be sure I'm doing it correctly.
To clarify; I want to move/relocate my iTunes Library folder to an external drive (FW800 two-disk RAID1) to free up my system drive and have a backup. Do I redirect iTunes to the new location and use File>Library>Consolidate Library, or, can I just move or copy the 'iTunes' folder to the external drive and then change the iTunes 'music folder location' to the new location? Will this now save all subsequent imported/purchased music, movies,,..etc to the external drive and retain all my library details?
Message was edited by: Sakahara

Hello, Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Below you will find more information about your options of relocating iTunes Library and backing it up.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
How to back up your media in iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1382

How can I move entire ITunes library to an external drive

How can I move the entire file to a new external drive & still add new downloads & use from the external G: drive?
Or can't this be done - I have the 80G Ipod & the files take up so much space that I want to move it to the new G: drive.
I thought I had it figured out but nothing would play from the G drive, so I had to restore everything back to the C: drive.
Thanks for any advice

This is actually the 5G iPod forum, not the iTunes folder.
However, To move your iTunes music...
1 Quit iTunes.
2 Move the entire iTunes folder including music to the external drive.
3 Restart iTunes holding the Shift key in Windows, Option key in Mac.
4 iTunes will ask to Create new library or Choose existing library. Select Choose existing library and select the library in the folder you just moved.
5 Move the old iTunes folder to the trash but do not empty it.
6 Restart iTunes normally and verify the songs work. If they do, empty the trash.

How do I move an iTunes library from one external drive to another?

I need to move my iTunes library from one external disk to another, because the original disk is about to fail. So, I went into iTunes Perferences --> Advanced, and set the library to a new, empty folder on the new drive.
Nothing changed. I expected all my music to vanish from iTunes, so that I would have to re-import it. However, all the music remained, still on the old disk. At this point, if I were to recreate the library on the new disk, I would have all of my music twice.
Is it possible to move an iTunes library from one external drive to another, or am I stuck with my original choice until I buy a new machine? If I can move it, can one of you clever folks explain how it could be done?

Paul Seymour1 wrote:
However, those are all dealing with old versions of iTunes that still contained the Advanced --> Consolidate Library command which is no longer part of the app. (I'm on iTunes 10.6.1.)
Consolidate is still part of iTunes.
It is in iTunes menu File > Library > Manage library > Consolidate.
The article you linked to is old and it is (and was) a hacky way of doing it.
Just copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to new location, hold Option (Mac) or Shift (Windows) when launching iTunes.

How do I back up my MBA to a external drive

How do I back up my MBA to an external drive

Connect it and either set up Time Machine or use a product such as the Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper to create a bootable clone on it.
(111917)

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.

How do I get non-iTunes music onto iCloud (*not* iTunes match)?

I recently won a new iPad in a drawing, and am now trying to figure out how to sync some of my music on it through iCloud. The issues here are 1) I don't own any music from the iTunes store (all my music was ripped from my own CD collection), and 2) I'm not interested in shelling out $25/year for iTunes match until I see how the iCloud experience works. Thus, what I'd like to do is use my free 5 GB iCloud allotment to store some of my music in the cloud so that I can access it on my iPad without having to use up my iPad's limited storage (I only won the 16 GB model, most of which is tied up with movies for my kids). The trouble I'm having is that I can find no way to move any of my music files up to iCloud. How does one do this? I've tried creating a new iTunes library containing just the songs I want to put on iCloud, but I can't find any way to move these files. Help would be greatly appreciated!

The iCloud service is not meant for this. That's what iTunes Match is for, and there's a reason it costs extra. If anything, there may be a third-party app that offers the possibility.
Alternatively, you can use Google Music to store up to 20,000 songs online free of charge: https://play.google.com/music/
...but this doesn't offer the close integration with various iThings and software that iTunes Match offers, nor does it upgrade your existing collection where possible, nor does it clean up your library or song information like iTunes Match can. You can get some competant, if slow, apps to use Google Music on your iThings.

How do I back-up Itunes music onto an external drive?

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