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

Similar Messages

How to keep music files on external hard drive

My laptop is only 80 gigs. My external hard drive is 500. I want to keep my music on the external drive because I have over a hundred gigs of music. I would like iTunes to just reach into the external drive and play the tunes without bringing them into my laptop, yet whenever I add the files to my library, they are brought into my laptop, filling up all the space. How do I get them into the library without bringing them into the laptop? My favorite way of playing music is by Shuffle.

Turn off the preference setting for "Copy Files to iTunes library"
Choose Edit > Preferences and click Advanced.
Uncheck the "Copy files" checkbox.

How to import music from an external hard drive to my itunes on my computer?

how can import music from an external hard drive that i saved my itunes music to. i dragged the music from my hard drive to the itunes on my computer but the music does not play from my itunes. it does however play on my ipod. it gives me an error that the original can not be found and do i wish to locate it. i am thinking that i did not drag the right file or all of the files necessary .thanks. kevin

To import music into your iTunes library on the computer go to iTunes>Help>iTunes Help>Add items to iTunes and follow the instructions

How do I keep music on an external hard drive?

I know there are some iTunes geniuses out there that can help me! I want to keep my music on an external hard drive (USB port kind) and have iTunes automatically pull music from it and dump new stuff in it. However, I am having continuous problems. Would someone please give me instructions? Or directions to where I can find instructions? Thank you SO SO much.

If you are running iTunes 6 or wish to keep the library files on your internal drive, see:
iTunes: Moving Your iTunes Music Folder
IMPORTANT: do not delete the iTunes folder or the preference files it contains from your boot hard drive; delete ONLY the tracks themselves (i.e. the contents of the old iTunes Music folder).
If you have iTunes 7, then you can use the procedure above, or you can just drag the entire iTunes folder (the entire folder, not just the iTunes Music folder) to your desired location. Then hold down the Shift key in Windows while launching iTunes. You'll be given a dialog box where you can select the iTunes library you want to use. Navigate to and select the iTunes folder in it's new location.
In either case, don't delete the tracks from the old location until you've confirmed that they're working correctly from the external drive.
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.
Regards.

How do I keep my media on an external hard drive but still access it in iTunes?

I just recently purchased a new Macbook Air and I had my itunes media library on an external hard drive. How do I access my itunes media on the macbook air from the external hard drive without transferring all the media onto my macbook air? I also want to be able to add and download media to my itunes and have it saved on my external hard drive. I have been trying to figure this out for weeks and need some assistance. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

hey, basically i had the same problem as you. i had all of my itunes on an external hard drive and just bought a macbook pro, so here is what i was told to do....plug in the external hard drive to your MBA and then when you open itunes hold down the option button while you click and hold it down till you see a pop up window, it will ask you what library you want to use, click choose library and choose the itunes file that is on your external hard drive. and then all of your stuff will be in the itunes.
what i have seemed to run into though is, when the external hard drive isn't plugged in itunes won't open unless you choose another library or plug in the external hard drive. - my question is this, should i open another library on my macbook pro's internal hard drive so i can at least look at itunes when i don't have my external hard drive connected. my old macbook did this, it would point to another library on my macbook and i would still be able to see all of my media but couldn't play it without the external hooked up, is there a way to do this on lion?
i hope i was able to answer your question sam and hopefully can have my question answered too.
thanks!
- sorry sam, don't mean to hijack your thread but hopefully it will help us both - i don't want to store any media )movies, music, podcasts, apps, any of that stuff on my macbook pro's hard drive, so say there is a way to get itunes to open without my external hooked up and i can still see my media, or not see my media and i want to download a song or a app that i see when i am not near my external....what is the easiest way to get that file onto the external and not have it taking up space on my macbook pro's hard drive? sorry for all the long questions
Message was edited by: thenumbersarebad - thought of one more thing - sorry

How do i add music from my external hard drive to my new computer itunes

I want to put all of my music from my external hard drive into iTunes in my new computer. I want to save all my old iTunes playlists from the old computer to the new one as well as my purchaced items from iTunes.

iTunes File menu option - Add to Library. Select the files you wish to add to the library, then click the button on the lower right - Open/Add.

How to play music through my external hard drive through iTunes on my mac?

I recently purchased a external hard drive for my mac for my movies and music, as my disc was almost full.
I have spent HOURS searching how to play music through my itunes without transferring them onto the mac.
BUT everytime I click media destination folder in prefrences and advance, the whole music library in my external hard drive folder is greyed out, and when i click it nothing happens.
PLEASE someone help...

First, a brand new drive is likely formatted for use with Windows. You need to reformat it for use with Mac.
Pondini: Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks... - http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html
Second, you are better off moving the whole iTunes library to the external drive, not just the media.
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the new location of the library.
Do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

How to delete music from an external hard drive

Hi I have 1 Toshiba and 1 WD Elements external hard drive which is working find the only problem I have is that I can not transfer files music videos nothing between this 2 external Hard Drive's and I can not Delete anything while they are connected to My 13 inch MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite 10.10.1
please let me know what do I Have to do Thank You

A word of warning. You can change privileges for yourself as an administrator (Me) but don't interfere with others in the list on the left ("System" "Wheel" etc.)
Here's a shot of the Get Info window for a partition on an external hard drive whose icon I selected on the desktop.
Yours should look something like this. The one you want is the one at the top (Me).
Move your cursor to Read only in that line and click on it. You should get this, or something like it.
Now move your cursor to Read & Write at the top on the left and click on it.
This should be the result.
You now have read and write privileges for that disk or partition and should be able to put files on it or delete files.

I have recently changed my apple id and password, but when i try to access music on an external hard drive that i bought on iTunes it asks me to authorize my computer with my old apple id? can anyone help?

I have recently changed my apple id and password. When i try to access music that i bought on itunes on an external hard drive, it asks me to authorize my computer with my old apple id? can anyone help?

Please try to sign in at https://appleid.apple.com
Check if your new username/email address is verfied
If this works, delete your account on your iPhone (Settings > iCloud)
Sign back in

How can I store photos on an external hard drive and still manage w IPhoto?

The hard drive on my MacBook is almost full and I want to move my photos to an external hard drive. Can I do this and still manage and organize the photos using I Photo? I can export the photos, but when I do I lose the organization (Events, Albums, etc.) that are in I Photo. With my new DSLR camera the photos (JPEGS) are really big and I am quickly running out of storage on the MacBook. Thanks in advance for you help.
Jim in Seattle

Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
LN

I have just restored data from an external hard drive, but half of my iTunes songs are getting the error "original file cannot be located." Where are these files?

My Windows 7 PC just had to be reformatted, and I have retrieved all of my files from an external hard drive. About half of my iTunes library is working fine, the other half pop up the error statement "original file cannot be located." If they haven't come off my external drive, where are they?

This 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, or that 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 cancel when asked to try to locate the track. 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, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes .
tt2

Is it possible to set a default music player for the music on my external hard drive while still keeping my iTunes the default player on my Mac ?

Is it possible to set a default music player for the music on my external while still keeping my iTunes the default player on my Mac ?
Message was edited by: Pellseidon

There is no setting in the iPhone to set another default music player. The default is Music. If you are using another application, you are at the mercy of how that application operates as far as what occurs when it stops or errors out. The car is looking for music to play.

How do I get my music form my external hard drive to show up in iTunes?

I have a five hundred GB hard drive with over 30000 songs on it that I would like to show up in Itunes. I don't have enough space for all of the songs on my computer though. I've gone through all the advanced setting and clicked the right files but they're not showing up in my iTunes library. I use iTunes for Windows, but the computer that all of the music came from was a computer that used a newer version. Could that be part of the problem or am I just doing something wrong?

In your iTunes menu, click "FILE, Add Folder to library", select your external Drive, then click the SELECT FOLDER Button. All music in the external drive should appear in your iTunes.

I have all my music on an external hard drive. It is on iTunes on my old Mac mini, which cannot support the new OS, which in turn means I cannot get iTunes match. I have a new Air. What is the best way to get my music where I want/need it?

anybody have any idea how I should get that music from the hard drive to the air without having it docked all the time?

If you have iTunes Match, you don't need to use Home Sharing.
Can I get that to work through Home Sharing?
No. iTunes Match gets your music from the cloud. You upload from one computer and you can then downlaod to the other computer.

How to keep music on external hard drive, but play on iMac?

So, I have nearly 500GB of music on an external hard drive. I don't want to move them into my iMac, because it'd obviously eat up all my free space. My question is, how can I keep them on the external hard drive, but still access and play them while I'm on my Mac?
How would I do so using itunes? Would it be simpler to use a different program? If so, which one? Cost?
Could some please tell me how to do this step-by-step? I am at a loss for how to do this! Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.
(Also, on a slightly unrelated topic, does anyone know a good software to create album cover? I like to make them for mix cds I make. Name cost, preferably something cheap).
Thanks again!

How would I do so using itunes?
Open the Advanced section of the iTunes preferences and set it not to copy content to the iTunes Music folder when it's added to the library. Alternatively, drag them onto the QuickTime Player in the Dock.
(48130)

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

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for