How do you move all iTunes files to an External Harddisk?

I have been reading, and trying to understand, all post in this forum on how to move all space consuming iTunes files to an external Harddisk. And quite frankly, I am a bit confused. Well that and most posts are from 2008 and earlier.
Here is my task:
Currently I have my iTunes on my PC Labtop. All music files, movie files and everything i located on this labtop, and now i am running out of storage space!
I then proceeded to buy a WD External network 3TB harddisk on which I would like to move all my iTunes files. For one because i am running out of storage, but also to have it available to other PCs on my network.
I followed the instructions but it did not work. All my music dissapeared from iTunes. I moved, consolidated, redirected as per instructions in Apple document, but still?
I have latest version of iTunes and a very large amount of music and movies.
Can anyone give me an understandable, straight forward instruction and explanation on how to do this and make it work?
Please, and thanks.

Is your library working now? If not can you recall exactly what steps you have taken? You may need to unwind a few of them.
The easy way to move your library from its normal location of <User's Profile>\<User's Music>\iTunes is to simply copy the entire iTunes folder, and all its subfolders, to a new path, e.g. X:\iTunes, where X is the drive letter of the external drive. Having copied the data across you can then hold down the shift key as you click the icon to start iTunes and keep it held until you are asked to create or choose a library. Click choose and navigae to X:\iTunes, then open the file iTunes Library.itl inside it. Job done.
There is a minor "gotcha" if your library is based on the old pre-iTunes 9 layout that will break links to iPod Games/Mobile Applications but this can be avoided if you use the option File > Library > Organize Library... > Reorganize files in the folder "iTunes Media" before copying the library. Your library should also be consolidated before the move, that is all your media files should be inside the iTunes Media (or iTunes Music) folder which in turn should be inside iTunes.
tt2

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How do you transfer all your files to an external hard drive?

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Please help!!!!

This is not unusual
Quick question, have you formatted the drive using the mac disk utilities?
If you need it to be accessed from both windows and mac, then make sure it's formatted as FAT32 or FAT Extended.
If you uses osx journaled, then the windows computer cannot read it.
When you've done this, then try and drag your files across.
Two words of warning though.
1 when you format a drive, you erase all data on it, so make sure you have copies.
2 FAT32 has a max file size of 4GB, so if you have files larger than that, format as FAT Extended.

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
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HT1449 how do you move all music from two computers into one itunes account?

How do you move all music from two computers into one itunes account?

An "iTunes account" is an online account you use for buying music, like a bank account. An iTunes collection is the media you see when you open iTunes. Which do you mean?
If it is two computers, it would also help to know where these are located. Are they on the same local network? If they are, try Home Sharing (and you have control of both and you aren't just trying to get music fro your computer to your friend's computer in another state). If they are not, you'll have to use an external hard drive or flash drive.
Is this on a PC? Your computer information says Windows but you posted this in the iTunes for Mac forum.

How do I move all my files from one User Profile (account) into another? I needed to create a new account and want all of my files accessible in the new one.

How do I move all my files from one User Profile (account) into another?
I needed to create a new account and want all of my files accessible in the new one.

ok, what you're learning right now is 101 unix, which is good. Unix is a good thing
now: the way unix works, and macos (which uses unix underneath) the files and folders work like a hierarchy.
the start of that tree is /
so, if you were to do:
cd /
(cd means change directory)
it will bring you at the highest branch of the file system.
cd /Users
will bring you to where all the users are.
to see whats in /Users you can use your friend ls command
ls means list files/directories
so:
cd /Users
ls -la
(the -la here means show all (even hidden) and long format (very verbose)) this flag is very optional.
you will see
fred
user2
for example.
if you want to see the desktop of user2 you would change directory to it then list the files.
for example:
cd /Users/user2/Desktop
Note that the files and directory are case sensitive, so, desktop is NOT the same as Desktop, or DESKTOP
ls -la
you should then be able to see everything in users2 desktop
you could have done as well the same thing in smaller steps, for example:
cd /
cd Users
cd user2
cd Desktop
this is the equivalent of cd /Users/user2/Desktop
So, for your file, i don't know where it was, but know that if you log in as user2, it will directly put you in
/Users/user2
which most likely the file you had created from the other user was in /Users/user1
if you copied all the files from /Users/original_user to /Users/secondUser
most likely yes, all your mail, bookmarks etc would be copied over.
so in your case.
sudo chown -R seconduser:staff /Users/secondUser
should work
Remember that if you start a path with the character / it means start from the root of the file system, at the highest top you can ever get.
so
cd /Users/fred
is not the same as
cd Users/fred
unless you were in / already
i know it may be confusing at first but it's actually very logical if you play with it.
to simplify, think of it that / means C:\ on windows
you can't go any higher than C:\ (in a way)
if you're unsure which directory you're currently in, you can always type:
pwd
it will tell you where you are.
for example:
cd /
pwd
this shows /
cd Users
pwd
this now shows /Users
cd /System/Library
pwd will show /System/Library
cd /
cd /Users
cd fred
cd Library
pwd will show /Users/fred/Library
unix can look very scary but it's actually vital and very necessary to do tasks sometimes that would take for ever to do via the windows. This is good learning.
so for the myfile you had created, i can't tell you where it is, at the time you created, if you can do a pwd command you'll know the path,
ls -la (this shows all the files where you are)
if you see myfile in the list
do a pwd
whatever is return, the real location of the file would be:
whatever pwd returned / myfile
I hope that makes sense.

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See this page http://macosx.com/forums/networking-compatibility/296947-sony-camcorder-my-mac.h tml - might be some helpful tips there.
Clinton

HT4527 How do you move your iTunes library to a new computer without access to your old computer?

How do you move your iTunes library to a new computer without access to the old computer? The old computer id damaged and unavailable.

See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4413?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1963
Troubleshooting Firewire target disk mode:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

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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 move my iPhoto files to an external harddrive?

Hi there
I only recently moved to Apple from Windows and am struggling to move my iPhoto files to an external harddrive, despite there being some quite old discussions on this on these discussion boards.
My late 2013 32GB Macbook Pro Retina is currently at full capacity because I have imported to iPhoto all of my photos from my past few months of travel. I have recently acquired a 1TB external harddrive which I have successfully partitioned, and I have backed up my Macbook Pro's harddrive using Time Machine to one partition.
I want to move my iPhoto library to the other partition to free up space on the local hard drive, but am needing some assistance.
My questions are:
1. How can I locate all of my iPhotos that I can see in iPhoto but nowhere else? I thought there would be some place I could find them and drag and drop onto the external hard drive.
2. How do I go about moving the photos so they are only on the external hard drive? Do I have to move to the hard drive first and then delete?
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To move your iPhoto Library to an external drive is simple and straightforward:
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
1. How can I locate all of my iPhotos that I can see in iPhoto but nowhere else? I thought there would be some place I could find them and drag and drop onto the external hard drive.
The point of iPhoto is that it replaces the File Manager for everything to do with your photos.
For help accessing your photos in iPhoto see this user tip:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4491

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.
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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 you move your itunes to a whole different computer?

What that question is up there, is the question that I am asking.

Probably the most straightforward way to get iTunes onto your second computer is to network it with the first one and copy your iTunes folder across. Start by consolidating your library. When you consolidate, any songs in the iTunes Library that are not in the iTunes Music Folder are copied to the Music Folder and the Library is updated to point to those new files. Files already in the iTunes Music Folder have no changes made to them: Copying all your iTunes files to one location - Windows
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 PC this is \Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Music\ (or C:\Username\Music\ in Vista). Everything has to be exactly the same on the new computer including the Windows user account name. When you open iTunes on the new computer it will be the same as on the original one Songs, Playlists, Play Counts, Ratings etc. You should also use the same version of iTunes on both computers.
You can also use this method with an external hard drive, you drag the folder from the first computer to the external drive and then from the drive to the second computer.
If you have an iPod it can be used as an external drive and you can move the iTunes folder onto it: How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer
If you have any iTunes purchases in your library don't forget that you'll need to authorise your new computer to play them. Also if you are disposing of the old one remember to deauthorise it so you don't use up one of your allowances: About iTunes Music Store Authorisation and Deauthorisation

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Apple has tutorial and FAQ articles on moving and importing here:
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes
There is a great set of articles on iTunes and how to over on
http://www.ilounge.com
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

How do you move all iTunes files to an External Harddisk?

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