How to move iTunes and Library to External Hard Drive

Is it possible to move the program and its contents to an external hard drive? The external can hold much more and it would be easier to bog down my external hard drive every so often than try to keep iTunes and its contents on my Mac.

beilenguitars wrote:
For instance would it all work if I simply dragged the "iTunes" application to my external?
Yes providing you use
Consolidating Your iTunes library
and allow iTunes to Manage your music.
Once you are positive that the External is working to your Satisfaction you can Delete your iTunes Library off your computer.
Leaving the iTunes Application / Program installed on your computer...
To Operate iTunes from the External Drive...
Start iTunes with the Option key held down and Choose library... and select the iTunes folder you copied to the external drive.
On Windows, hold Shift, launch iTunes and select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder you copied to the external drive.

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How to put iTunes and library on EXTERNAL hard drive? Having major troubles

I started importing my entire CD collection about a week ago. Got halfway finished before realizing it wouldn't all fit on my computer's hard drive.
Bought a Maxtor 100GB external hard drive, moved all library folders there, then reinstalled iTunes on there as well. I used "Ad Folder to Library" to return all the tunes into iTunes library.
All of that seemed to work just fine, but now I've resumed importing my CDs and they are automatically going right to my computers C drive (the stock internal hard drive) and into "my music folder". Obviously, there is no room there.
How can I get it so that I import CDs onto the NEW external hard drive, and have iTunes pull them from there? I want ALL my library and music folders in the same place, on the external E drive. Can I do this? If so, how??
Many thanks to anyone who can help!

"I want ALL my library and music folders in the same place, on the external E drive. Can I do this? If so, how??"
If you want to make another drive (direct or portable) on your PC the main music location for iTunes, move all song files there, as well as any future imported music from CDs, here is one method (see the links below):
You will maintain your playlists, ratings, comments, etc. This will only move your music folders location, NOT your iTunes program files or the Library database files. It is my opinion that programs (i.e. – iTunes) work better when installed on your main hard drive. At the very least, it makes it easier to manage all your programs if they are centrally located on one hard drive (the Windows default standard).
See these links for some step-by-step info:
iLounge: Moving your iTunes Library to a New Hard Drive
MacMuse: iTfW: Move iTunes music/Library to new drive
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
If you are moving the music to an external hard drive or network drive, after the transfer (and to work correctly), the drive must be running prior to your opening iTunes. If not, iTunes will reset the location of your music folder location to the default location (usually: ‘C:\...My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music’). If this happens, you need to manually change the path back to your external location, or future CD ‘Imports’ will be deposited on your internal HD.
Also make sure that the new drive always loads as the same Drive Letter, otherwise you will lose the references within iTunes.

How to play iTunes and music from external hard drive?

I recently back up all my music from my old computer on to an external hard drive. I have a new computer but don't want to store all the music on the computer's hard drive. I would rather play iTunes and all the music straight off of the hard drive. How do I do this?
I already downloaded and installed iTunes on my external hard drive and my music is on a separate folder. When I open iTunes it says that I have no music in the library. How do I tell iTunes to use all the music from the external hard drive? I do not want to save anything on my computer's internal hard drive if possible because I do not have enough space.
Thanks for the help. Also, if I should clarify anything else then please just let me know!

did you ever find the answer to this question? I have the same problem

PSE-10 how do I import and copy from external hard drive into organizer

Can I import and copy from external hard drive into organizer? Under Get Photos, I select import from folders/files but after browsing to the external hard drive the copy option is disabled/greyed out. I there a method to import and copy?

That would be mounted as an internal drive and hence the corresponding option is not checked during Import.
Once you import the media form this drive, you can select all and go for File >> Copy/Move files option and copy them wherever you want to.
Hope this helps
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Andaleeb

How to move LR catalog from one external hard drive to another

I'm having issues with the external hard drive that my LR5 catalog resides on, and I would like to move it to a new external hard drive. I'm a little nervous to do this for fear of disrupting my catalog. Can anyone give me the steps to do this safely?

You can move your catalog file using your operating system. Double-click on the file to open it.

How to move a contact list to external hard drive

How can I move a contact list to external hard drive? I can not migrate bewtween computers so I want to down load then transfer to the new imac. Will this alswo work for favorites list? thank you

If you mean, move your Address Book contacts to another Mac
Open Address Book
Do File > Export > Address Book Archive
Copy the resulting archive file to your new Mac
Open Address Book on your new Mac
Do File > Import
Locate your Address Book Archive file
Import
You can use a similar process to move your iCal calendar to your new Mac
To copy (move) your Safari bookmarks,
Open Safari
Do File > Export Bookmarks.
Copy the resulting file to your new Mac
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How do you move itunes from comp. to External Hard Drive???

I have an older computer with only like 60 GB. Since I bought a 40GB ipod I am now experiencing many problems with my computer b/c I just have way to many files on my computer. Recently I purchased a 100 GB external hard drive, and would like to figure out how to move my itunes from my computer to my external hard drive.... Can anyone help me with this? I would GREATLY appreciate it!!! Thanks.

Welcome, Charles, to the Apple Discussions!
Have a look at:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
Any further questions, post back.

How do I transfer iphoto library to external hard drive keeping events intact?

Had a one to one session but forgot how to do this. I would like to transfer my iphoto library to an external hard drive keeping the folders and events intact. I figured out how to send all my photos to the hard drive but they all transfer in single images, if that makes sense, and then i have to go thru all of the 15,000 images by hand and sort them into folders. Ahhhhhhh!
When they showed me how to do this at apple I am able to open my external hard drive and see a folder labled 'iphotolibrary" and I am able to click it open and then all my events show up just like in iphoto library.
Also does your iphoto library "Trash" take up space on your HD? Forgve me if thats a dumb question but I am kind of a computer "dummy".
thanks so much. My hard drive has VERY little space left on it so I need to transfer ASAP.

I just posted this to another topic, but it applies here as well. Hopefully there's no prohibition on cross-posting on this board, my apologies to all if there is:
"I haven't read the whole thread, so someone could have already mentioned this, but I did the same thing, move my music library to an external drive. The Help articles are helpful, but only up to a point. When that didn't work, I called up AppleCare support up, and they took me through all the standard steps, and got stumped at the same point I did. Finally she suggested trying something, and that ended up doing the trick. So here in brief is what you do:
1) Copy over your "iTunes Music" folder to the external hard drive
2) Go into Advanced preferences to have iTunes look for the "iTunes Music" folder in the new location. If you're like me, your music won't appear in the Library.
3) In iTunes, go to the Library window (which is probably blank), then in a Finder window, find the icon for the "iTunes Music" folder in the new location. Drag that icon onto the Library window.
You should now see a progress window pop up showing all the songs that it's populating the Library window with."
20" Intel iMac 14" iBook G4, 233 MHz Beige G3 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Link between iTunes and Library lost. Hard drive failure

Hi!
   I need help with the following problem. (i7 27" iMac/256GB SSD + 1TB of internal disk hard drive. (SATA/7200rpm/3.5"))
          The 1TB internal hard drive on my iMac failed the S.M.A.R.T. Utilities test so Apple called in the computer and I had to have the hard drive replaced. The technicians reloaded the system from a 1TB external Western Digital hard drive; I had backed up the everything on it using Time Machine.
          Unfortunately, the iTunes application cannot now locate my iTunes library. I create a lot of slideshows on Aperture and use music from iTunes on the audio tracks. The titles on the audio tracks are now inaudible and are preceded by a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark inside. Can anyone help me on how I should re-establish the original link between iTunes and its library. The music files are located in folders (name of artists), within a folder (iTunes Music), within a folder (iTunes), within a folder (Music), within a folder (declangreaney) on the 1TB of internal disk drive.
          In trying to solve the problem, I went through the folders and double clicked on one song. This opened iTunes so I highlighted and dragged all the other 'artist-named' folders on the iTunes interface and in doing so, I succeeded in accessing all the files. This is not wholly satisfactory, however, as I do not have my own playlists and more seriously, there is still no link between the Aperture audio tracks.
Sincerely,
     DG.

    Hi again!
     I saved the last message by accident which caused the reply to be sent off and so I had not finished what I wanted to write. Aploogies.
     I didn't find the new iMac hybrid SSD/Disk system easy to understand when it arrived over a year ago. I eventually decided that the 256 SSD section would be best suited to having the Operatin System for greater speed and I must have decided to put the music files on the 1TB internal hard drive along with photos and raw video clips. I can't honestly remember. There was a lot to take in. I wasn't even aware until this failure that iTunes had a default location.
     In addition to having the iTunes folder on the internal 1TB hard drive, I used Time Machine to store the entire computer contents on a 1TB Western Digital external hard drive. I had done my last Time Machine back-up on the 13 February and so I was hoping that by opening one or two songs on the back-up, they might reactivate the 'old' interface with the original playlists on it. That didn't happen but I then realised, while I was still in the Tme Machine back-ups on the WD external hard drive, that in the iTunes Media folder contained within the iTunes folder on the default Users/Username/Music location there was only an Add automatically to iTunes folder which was empty. While still still looking through the Time Machine back-upsI saw that the music instead was stored on the 1TB of internal hard drive as outlined on the first post:
     'The music files are located in folders (name of artists), within a folder (iTunes Music), within a folder (iTunes), within a folder (Music), within a folder (username) on the 1TB of internal disk drive.'
   The iTunes.itl file was last modified on Monday at 21:52. Created on 17th February, 2012. Size 386KB
     Regards,
     DG.

Help needed - New PC with all Songs and library on External Hard Drive

I hope someone can help me - I have just bought a new PC and have downloaded iTunes. All my songs are on an external hard drive, which I know how to get them on to iTunes - but I want to keep the playcounts and playlists that are also stored on the HD - I have tried looking for the answer to this, but cannot seem to find it anywhere. Thanks to anyone who can help.

Use these instructions to open the library from its location on the external hard drive...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
This assumes that everything needed for an iTunes library is on the external hard drive which includes the data base files that contain the info you are concerned about (playlists, counts, ratings, etc.).
Patrick

Itunes won't find 'itunes music library' on external hard drive by default

I have my Itunes library saved on a wireless external hard drive. When I open itunes for the first time after a re-start it won't automatically detect the itunes music library file and I have to point it to the correct folder on the external hard drive. Once I do this everything works perfectly until I re-start my mac and then I have the same problem.
One of my friends has told me that macs won't automatically connect to wireless devices like windows does but he thinks there is some software that enables it to do so. I presume this would sort the issue out or alternatively any other suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks for any help

Your external HD needs to be mounted before launching iTunes or iTunes will create a new blank library on your startup drive.
You can add your external HD to the list of startup items in  > System Preferences > Accounts to avoid this problem.

How to move from a "recovered data external hard drive" to the new Computer?

Computer 1's hard drive crash and all programs and data were recovered professionally and sent to me on an External Hard Drive. Computer 1 was on Windows 7. I can fun the program off of the External Hard drive fine, when connected to my my new Computer. I click on the .exe file and it pulls up the catalogue as it should. All off of the recovery drive.
The new Computer, is on Windows 8.1. How do I get the Adobe Catalogues moved/copied to the new Computer?
I redownload Adobe 10 onto my new 8.1 Computer from the Adobe website. Using the new download, I was able to open the Catalogue on the External Drive (F). Cannot find a way to "relocate" the Catalogue to the new computer. The pictures have already been copied to the new computer.
Please help!!!!! Desperate not to lose the organization (tagging/dating) etc in 30,000 pictures+.
Kay

Before we can give a solution, we need more information and we must be clear about the details of the recovery.
From your post, I assume that the external drive contains a copy of your picture files, with probably exactly the same folder path. I think that that path is identical in Win7 and Win8 (it was not in XP).
You have reinstalled Photoshop Elements 10 in your new computer.
So the main point is : what about your old catalogs ? It's quite possible that the professional recovery has also made a copy of those.
You'll have to search the external drive for one or several folders containing a 'catalog.pse10db' file.
If you find one or several, select the newest in date (or the biggest), the folder containing it is the catalog you are looking for.
If you don't find one, be sure that the explorer is set to show hidden files. Without catalogs, you can't restore your organization
Now, when you have found the catalog (the folder), you can do this test. With PSE and Organizer closed, double click on the 'catalog.pse10db' file. That should open the organizer with the catalog. Since the files are not in the same location as before, all links in the catalog will be wrong : different drive identification and perhaps different folder structure. That test should show you the thumbnails (the catalog cache in the folder should have been recovered; if not it's not that important, the thumbnails cache will be recreated automatically).
Now, how to 'reconnect' all files, that depends on what you want to do: keep them in the external drive or copy them back to the main internal drive. The problem will be either to update the catalog database to point to the new location or to recreate the same drive identification as before : letter and drive serial number, exactly same folder tree. We can discuss those options when you have made the first test.
If that goes well, don't worry about the location of the catalog : you can move it either from the catalog manager or manually.

Music and photos transferred into itunes and iphoto from external hard drive on to my new hard drive installed in my 2007 macbook

I just installed a new 250 GB SATA hard drive on to my 2007 macbook computer as the old one failed. I had backed up my old hard drive on to a 250 GB external hard drive using time machine via a USB cord. I am having trouble locating my music and photo files to transfer them into itunes and iphoto on my new hard drive. I have signed in to my itunes account, where it shows my app and book purchases, but not my music purchases. I have over 1,000 songs purchased. Any help would be appreciated- Thanks!

Hi aourada,
Since you have a current Time Machine backup of your computer you should be able to use the Migration Assistant to recover your music and photos.
Archived - Mac OS X v10.6: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from a Time Machine backup
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4500
Alternatively, if your music was purchased from the iTunes Store, you can re-download available songs for free.
iTunes 11 for Mac: Download previous purchases from the iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12283
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Nubz

Music has disappeared from iTunes and from my external hard drive

I store my music on 2 separate external hard drives. I have a lot of music and didnt want to choke my system drive. I do not have iTunes organise my folders. I have a lot of classical and iTunes doesnt understand classical music.
I began to notice a while back that music files were not accessible to iTunes giving the annoying ! when I go to play them. I thought it was because one of the two drives is regularly swopped out for a back up drive. So I recently became aware that many more files were missing and when I search either drive the actual file has gone.
I ran Dougs MIA script and a total of 2600 files are missing out of roughly 17,000. These are a mainly things I ripped myself from CD and alot of it is stuff I dont even listen to/ has never been in a play list so I couldnt have accidentally deleted them.
I notice a lot of comments about this stuff over the years in the other questions here but not much is so recent.
I'm on 10.6.8.

Hey idw3,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities, and thanks for the question. Follow the instructions on this article to move your iTunes Media folder to an external hard drive:
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Regards,
David

How to manage clips and Projects with external Hard drives

I have a lot of video, I use external hard drives so my internal does not fill up. But now I have several different iMovie libraries. How do I merge them or clean up this mess. I am using the latest version of I movie 10.0.4

Hi
You must do this the right way.
• EXTERNAL Hard disk - MUST - be Mac OS Extended formatted
Nothing else will do - for VIDEO !
• The Moving of Event's and Project's - Must be done within the iMovie Application
Folders named iMovie Event's and iMovie Project's - can not be moved via Desktop/Finder - as links back to iMovie will break and can not be mended.
My general note on this:
Moving Event's and Project's
Connection - Either connect one Mac in Target mode to the other via FireWire. Or use an external hard disk !
(Target-Mode - Start one Mac e.g. laptop - BUT keep T-key down during full up-start - Now a FW-symbol is jumping around the screen and it will work as an external hard disk when connected to the other Mac)
A. The External Hard Disk - MUST BE - Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted to work for Video. UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange works for most other things but not for Video whatever program is used (iMovie or FinalCut)
B. Should be a FireWire one as USB/USB2 performs badly to me and especially when filling up
C. Do never Move or Alter any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - as this will result in iMovie losing connections to them and repair can be anything from hard to impossibly.
D. Moving and Copying must be done within iMovie application and Events to Events - and - Project's to Project's.
E. Moving Project's to Event's - Do not work for me - I have to export project as a QuickTime movie then Import this into Events.
Event's window can show two faces
Like this
or like this
from one hard disk Event - You can move it to the other hard disk
You can not (at least not me) move Event to Project or other way around only
Event to Event and Project to Project
Yours Bengt W

How to move iTunes and Library to External Hard Drive

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