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

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Take the files that you list and the iTunes music folder from the TM b/u and drag them to the iTunes folder. To put it in simpler terms - drag the iTunes folder from the TM to the same location on the internal HD.
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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.
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Is the iPhone the only location or your media now? See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
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Moving iTunes library from macbook pro to external hard drive

I need to move my iTunes library to my external hard drive.

Drag it there, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, and choose it.
(121239)

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.)
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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.

How do I restore iTunes library from flash drive backup?

How do I restore iTunes library from flash drive backup?

brigdool wrote:
How do I restore iTunes library from flash drive backup?
HI Brigdool,
It depends how you made the backup.
If you copied your entire iTunes folder onto the flash drive, just copy it back to the appropriate place on the computer.
If you copied individual folders or files, add them back to iTunes by inserting the flash drive in your computer, and then dragging the files into your "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder.
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How to restore ITunes Library from Backup hard drive?

My computer crashed. I restored it -- but ITunes was wiped clean. I have all my music files and ITunes Library backed up on an external hard drive. How do I get the library from the external drive back to the computer with playlists, artwork and all intact? I guess it is more complex than just dragging the file labled library into ITunes becuase the computer won't let me do that. When I go to the original songs they are all individually in folders accorging to the artist and album -- that will take days to copy each album 1 by 1 -- I have 3,700 songs.

What you first need to do is Place the music it the Location they was in before you restored. If you had songs on the C drive in My Music folder, place them there. If iTunes was reading the music from the external, not much you have to do sincve there already there.
Now with the Library file you have to make iTUnes take the file and recreate it, this is explained here http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313

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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.
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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.
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PLEASE HELP!! How Do You Restore ITunes Library From IPOD Back To Computer

My entire library on intunes has been deleted and now all I have left is the music which i still stored on my ipod. I have done a total search on my PC and there is no track listings at all. My only chance is to restore the itunes library from the Ipod back to the PC. Is this possible and how do you do it. Am totally gutted and cant beleive the files are gone. Plllllease help me.

If you're using iTunes 7, you can copy purchased music back to iTunes directly. If you're not using iTunes 7 or want to copy other tracks, the easiest way will be to search VersionTracker for "iPod". You'll find a number of utilities that can transfer your tracks and your playlists from your iPod back to your PC.
It's also possible to do this manually, but the procedure is rather involved. If you're interested, though, see this thread:
MacMuse: Computer crashed
Forum Tip: Since you're new here, you've probably not discovered the Search feature available on every Discussions page, but next time, it might save you time (and everyone else from having to answer the same question multiple times) if you search a couple of ways for a topic, both in the relevant forums, in the User Tips Library and in the Apple Knowledge Base before you post a question.
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Cannot restore iPhoto Library from Backup Files

Help! All of my photos in the iPhoto library are suddenly gone. I read through a number of threads addressing similar problems and have tried the following fixes to no success:
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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.

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How Do I Stop Time Machine From Filling Up My External Hard Drive?

Hi all -
I have a 750GB OWC external hard drive on which I back up about 100GB of data from my MacBook using Time Machine, and also store a bunch of media files for work. Currently about 650GB of that is full, and that is mostly because of two Time Machine-related files: The "Backups.backupdb" folder, which is 135.15GB, and "MacBook_001b63336000.sparsebundle," which is 233.71 GB. That means that in the nine months since I bought the drive, about 370GB, or half its available space, has been eaten by Time Machine backups.
I only back up so I have a bootable copy of all my current (not past) MacBook data if my MacBook is ever lost, stolen, or damaged. I am now very concerned that, if left unchecked, Time Machine will eat into the remaining 100GB of empty space. And my old external hard drive died precisely because it ran out of empty space. Some of my critical files were lost forever, and others I got back in pieces after several weeks of anguish and quite a bit of cash.
Apple's support page addresses this concern (incredibly) by instructing me to buy another external hard drive. That solution is expensive for me, and what's the point, when Time Machine will eventually fill that one up too?
So, my questions are:
1. Is there any point at which Time Machine recognizes it's nearly out of hard drive space, and either stops backing up, or deletes old backups, or sends me a warning, or something?
2. If not, is there a way I could designate a maximum size for Time Machine backups to take, such as 150 GB, that it cannot exceed?
3. Partitioning has been suggested, but I don't know how. Any instructions?
4. The OWC hard drive came with its own backup software. Should I just use that and shut up?
It would be mighty ironic if the software I use to save all my data got so fat, it sacrificed all my data....
Thanks in advance -

Andrew Saks wrote:
Hi all -
I have a 750GB OWC external hard drive on which I back up about 100GB of data from my MacBook using Time Machine, and also store a bunch of media files for work. Currently about 650GB of that is full, and that is mostly because of two Time Machine-related files: The "Backups.backupdb" folder, which is 135.15GB, and "MacBook_001b63336000.sparsebundle," which is 233.71 GB. That means that in the nine months since I bought the drive, about 370GB, or half its available space, has been eaten by Time Machine backups.
this is pretty confusing. have you been using it for both wireless and wired backups? the sparse bundle would only be created if you've used it for network backups. directly attached TM drives don't use a sparse bundle so it looks like you've got two separate backup lines. you should get rid of one as using both is very space inefficient.
I only back up so I have a bootable copy of all my current (not past) MacBook data if my MacBook is ever lost, stolen, or damaged.
FYI, TM backups are not bootable themselves. You can use the "full system restore from TM" utility on the leopard install DVd to restore your system from backups. That restored system will, of course be bootable.
I am now very concerned that, if left unchecked, Time Machine will eat into the remaining 100GB of empty space. And my old external hard drive died precisely because it ran out of empty space. Some of my critical files were lost forever, and others I got back in pieces after several weeks of anguish and quite a bit of cash.
Apple's support page addresses this concern (incredibly) by instructing me to buy another external hard drive. That solution is expensive for me, and what's the point, when Time Machine will eventually fill that one up too?
So, my questions are:
1. Is there any point at which Time Machine recognizes it's nearly out of hard drive space, and either stops backing up, or deletes old backups, or sends me a warning, or something?
I'm not sure of the precise point (TM need some free space on the backup drive to operate) but yes, this will eventually happen. when it does, TM will inform you of this and will give you an option of either stopping TM backups and changing the TM drive or starting to delete old backups. If you choose the latter it will start deleting old backups to create space for new ones. this is done automatically.
2. If not, is there a way I could designate a maximum size for Time Machine backups to take, such as 150 GB, that it cannot exceed?
not unless you partition the drive.
3. Partitioning has been suggested, but I don't know how.
it's an option but not right now. you have too little free space left for a successful partitioning process. If you try, the process is sure to fail due to disk fragmentation.
You need to get rid of A LOT of data if you want to try partitioning. also, fort the future, it's a very good idea to keep one partition entirely for TM and another for data. You'll avoid some of the problems you are having now.
Any instructions?
type "creating new volumes" in disk utility help.
4. The OWC hard drive came with its own backup software. Should I just use that and shut up?
don't. besides TM there are much better options out there. CCCloner and Superduper! are better than anything that OWC software has to offer.
It would be mighty ironic if the software I use to save all my data got so fat, it sacrificed all my data....
Thanks in advance -

How do I copy iTunes folder which is on my external hard drive to my iTunes folder on my mini mac?

I am new to Apple computers. I have just downloaded an iTunes file from my pc onto an external hard drive and I want to know how I copy this file into my iTunes folder on my imac.

Connect the external hard drive to your iMac.
Open iTunes, go to the File menu, then select the item "Import into Library" and select your song in the file chooser that will appear. Press the ok button.

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

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