How do I transfer my Music Library to my new laptop?

Question

Hey there everybody! I have an Imac G4 swivel-screen and a new white MacBook 1.83. I would like to transfer my music library from my IMac to the laptop. I do have an touchscreen Gen2 Ipod that I was thinking of using, but taking the songs, copying them to my Ipod then connecting the Ipod to the laptop and copying all the songs one at a time to the laptop takes forever as i have 1000+ songs to transfer. Any faster methods of transfering songs?
Also, I did said method with some songs I purchased at the iTunes store, an it said I have to Authorize my laptop to play them, Do i have to do it for every song I purchased from the iTunes store?
F.Y.I. I have upgraded to iTunes 7 and Mac OS 10.4.7. Thanks for Reading!

Answer 1

Probably the most straightforward way to get iTunes onto your new computer is to network it and the original one and copy over your entire iTunes folder. This works fine if you have been using iTunes to completely manage your music and all your songs are in iTunes Music not in different folders: Connecting two Mac computers using Ethernet
Copying the whole folder brings with it the iTunes Music folder and also the iTunes Library (iTunes Library.itl in Windows) database file which holds all the information about your songs (Playlists, Ratings, Play Counts, Last Played, Date Added, etc). You'll get more information including the Folder/File structure in this article: What are the iTunes library files?
When you copy the iTunes folder make sure you put it into the same location on the new computer. This has to be the exact same place, on a Mac this would be in Username/Music/. When you open iTunes on the new computer it will be the same as on the original one Songs, Playlists, Play Counts, Ratings etc. When I moved iTunes recently for my daughter I was also using the same version of iTunes, not sure how important that is but it's probably worth keeping them the same. When you are authorising your computer you only need to do it once not for every song.
Another way would be to use an external hard drive, the guide for using the iPod as a hard drive is a good starting point. Apart from the sections on initially setting up the iPod, the instructions are the same for copying the iTunes folder to an actual external drive. If you substitute "external hard drive" for "iPod" the process is the same: How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer