How to move my itunes library to my other hard drive?

Urgently need to move my music in my itunes library to my other hard drive to free up space. Trouble is I can't seem to do this. Can anyone help?

Please see this:
http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=147798&messageID=607487

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How to move mt itunes library from one external hard drive to another

I would like to move my itun4es library from my external hard drive H to external hard drive M; how do I go about this? without losing items

Short version: use the itunes consolidate command
Long version: read this
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive/

HOW TO MOVE YOUR ITUNES LIBRARY TO AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE

Read these directions before actually doing anything, just so you can do this right. I've messed things up before, it can get ugly...
That being said, here's what you've gotta do if you're running on a Mac:
Have all your music on the external hard drive. It should be organized in folders the way iTunes set it up
The folders should be organized something like this:iTunes Media (Top folder, everything is inside of this folder)
Audiobooks
Automatically Add To iTunes
Books
Downloads
iPod Games
iTunes U
Mobile Applications
Music
Podcasts
Ringtones
TV Shows
Voice Memos
Those folders are what I have in my 'iTunes Media' folder on my external hard drive. You don't necessarily need to have all of these folders. (I happen to just have a lot of things in my iTunes.)
Finding your iTunes Library Files
The way iTunes works is there are two parts to make what you see in iTunes work right. There's your media (songs, video, iPod games and Apps, etc) and there are your library files. They tell iTunes what your playlists are, where your 'iTunes Media' folder is located, and a lot of other important things. Here is how to find the iTunes Library files (there will probably be more than one!)
Look in (yourusername)/Music/iTunes
There will be a few things in here:
Album Artwork (It's a folder)
iTunes Library Extras.itdb
iTunes Library Genius.itdb
Itunes Library.itl
iTunes Media (a folder)
iTunes Music Library Backup.xml (this file might or might not be here. If there is no file with this name, it's okay.)
iTunes Music Library.xml
Some "temp" files (maybe, maybe not -- they are not important for this)
Anything in the list that is BOLDED needs to be placed in (yourusername)/Music/iTunesIf you copied these files to your external hard drive, you will need to copy them back onto your internal hard drive. These library files do not need to be in the same place as your iTunes Media folder.
Telling iTunes Where Your Music Is
Now that your iTunes Media folder is on your external drive, and your Library Files are in place in "(yourusername)/Music/iTunes", we need to open iTunes.
On the top bar of the screen, go to iTunes>Preferences.
In preferences, go to the farthest right tab, titled "Advanced" with a picture of a gear.
The top section says "iTunes Media Folder location" and underneath that you see a filepath ending in the 'iTunes Media" folder.
This path is probably wrong, not leading you through the external hard drive.
If it is incorrect:
Click "change" on the right and then locate the folder in the prompt that shows up. Once the "iTunes Media" folder on your external hard drive is highlighted blue, click "Open" in the bottom right corner of the window.
Give iTunes a moment or two (depending on the size of your library) to re-locate all of your songs. Voila!
If it is correct:Do nothing!
While you're in the advanced section, let's check to make sure you have a few important 'housekeeping' things checked off:
"Keep iTunes Media folder organized" (CHECK THIS BOX!)
"Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" (CHECK THIS BOX!)
At this point, iTunes should be all ready to go. Before I get into any troubleshooting, note a few things:
If you ever unplug/disconnect the external hard drive from the computer, you must first make sure that iTunes is NOT running.
Also, if the hard drive is unplugged and you open up iTunes, all of your songs will have little symbols next to them. Until you plug/reconnect the hard drive, the songs will stay like this and will be missing.
TROUBLESHOOTING:
Not having permission to access the external hard drive:
In Finder (or on your desktop), right-click the external hard drive (if you don't have right-click, control-click will also work).
Click on "Get Info"
A thin, tall window will appear on the screen.
Part One:In the "General" section, make sure that "Locked" is unchecked. If it IS checked, uncheck it.
Part Two:
We are now focusing on the very bottom of the window, where it says "Sharing & Permissions"/
In the bottom right corner of the window there is a small padlock icon. Click it. When asked for an administrator password, type it in, and click "Ok".
You will now notice that the bottom section of the 'get info' window is not greyed out anymore. Make sure your user name (it says in parentheses "(Me)" so there is no going wrong here) has "Read & Write" privileges.If not, click on whichever privilege you currently have, and a drop-down menu will appear. Click on "Read & Write".
If you have any other issues, I will add them to the troubleshooting list to help you out. Hope this was helpful!

My iTunes library is set up the way I said in the top post and works totally fine.
Yes, and that is the default structure to which I was referring. iTunes will organize it that way automatically unless people do start changing settings (in which case they should know what they are doing and how iTunes works with library files and media structure.)
Both ways work, the advantages of mine would be that should iTunes try looking fo a library, it will always be in the default location.
It makes people think they have to change media location in preferences. They do not unless they want to relocate media only and leave other things on their internal drive (in which case there is no point in copying library files to the external, and you certainly wouldn't want to then delete them from your internal).
Downside is that then should someone move their iTunes library to anther computer they need to remember to get those library files on the external hard drive.
Just copy the whole iTunes folder and it will get the library files to the other drive in one step, along with all the other files.
Your post has good stuff but it makes a move appear intimidating and look like people have to do a lot of organizing to move the collection. It also throws in extra steps (namely altering preference settings) that could cause confusion or even make a mess of things. If people leave iTunes to default preference settings (which most people do) the move summarizes into a short line: Copy a folder and hold an extra button the next time you start iTunes.
Note that the instructions in the link I provided earlier do also include many steps, but those are to ensure that everybody does have it all organized correctly before simply copying the iTunes folder. In the end it is just a simple action.

How to move an iTunes library from the internal hard drive to another bootable disk.

         I got two Mac OS X installations on my i Mac system. One on the internal hard drive (320 Gb), that has been there since the iMac was bought 3 years ago, upgraded to Lion on 2 August. (call that INT) . I have a USB external drive, and recently bought a firewire Lacie external drive (2Tb), so to boot from there when I can, with hard drive space getting tight this year. I successfully installed another copy of Lion on LACIE.
         Then I went to work to transfer my iTunes library, which the media files were optioned to store on the USB drive. Intending to transfer both the music and video files, and the megadata ( playlists, ratings, playcounts ) I found the media files and the iTunes library file and the .xml document in my iTunes folder from INT. I made a new folder in the USB drive, and copied the contents from the old iTunes folder to that new folder. I re-started in LACIE, and found my empty iTunes folder. I copied over to the new iTunes folder, then opened iTunes. My eyes saw the music library to the same number of items, with the playlists etc showing.
        However, I tried to sync an iPod Nano, and a window came up saying 100 songs could not be copied to the iPod because they could not be found. After ejecting the iPod I tried to play a song from iTunes, and the screen filled with exclamation points. A small window came up, asking for a password to open "sparsebundle" and my name. I entered my password for the administrator's log-in and it said try again with the password. Without knowing what password to put in, I clicked Cancel, and got another small window asking to locate the file. Then clicked Cancel again, not knowing where to search. All the media folders were showing after quitting iTunes and opening Finder .
      I re-booted into INT, and opened iTunes. The library was still there. I synced my iPod again, ejected it, played 3 songs on the iPod, synced again, ejected it again, and opened the playlist "Recently Played". It showed up okay with no problems. So my iTunes library in INT is alright.
      Has anyone got any idea how to make the transfer into LACIE and get it running alright, or what went wrong with what I did ?
      In the meantime I will empty my LACIE iTunes library folder's contents to the trash, and securily empty the trash .

Solved the issue without using the trash . I tried to consolidate the library in LACIE, then clicked on any exclamation-mark song and tried to locate the file. Repeating those steps 3 or 4 times cleared it up. That was confirmed when I synced the entire library on a iPod Classic, and showed up no problems after syncing the Nano.
     What went wrong was perhaps to fail to consolidate the library at first .

How do I move my itunes library to an external hard drive?

How do I move my itunes library to an external hard drive?

Drag it there in the Finder, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and navigate to that instance of it.
(108779)

How do I Play videos from external hard drive on Apple TV2? Can I just move the iTunes Library to the External Hard Drive?

I have several HD videos stored on an external hard drive and would like to bring them into iTunes and play them via iTunes on my Apple TV2, but I am not sure how to go about it. I don't want to store the movies on my iMac hard drive because it would eat up to much space...so do I just move the iTunes Library to the external hard drive? And, if so...will the Apple TV2 find the iTunes Library on the external hard drive? Thanks for any help anyone can suggest.

iTunes content on an external drive isn't a problem.
The simplest method is to just move your library to an external drive.
If you wanted to keep just movies on an external drive, that's a little more difficult. You'd need to put the movies where you want them to reside on the external drive and add drag and drop them onto iTunes while holding down the option key. Obviously any movies already in iTunes would need moving from their current location and removing from iTunes first.

Can I safely move my iTunes library to an external hard drive, to free up memory?

As an elementary music teacher, I have more than 10,000 songs in my iTunes library.
I also have a lot of video footage of my students' performances.
I need to free up memory and am wondering if there is a safe way to move the iTunes library to an external hard drive, and, if it is safe, how difficult will it be for me to access it from the external hard drive.
On my school computer, one of the "techies" moved that iTunes library to an external drive and ended up quadrupling the size of it, so want to be sure that if this makes sense, that I do it the right way!!!
Thanks so much!

Can I move those songs to an external hard drive?
yes.
Will that improve the speed of my computer?
maybe. what is the total capacity of your boot drive and how much free space is left ?

How do I export itunes library onto an external hard drive so i can put the music on my new mac book?

How do I export itunes library onto an external hard drive so i can put the music on my new mac book?

iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
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
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.

I just need to know how you get an iTunes library off the original hard drive of a mac and onto an external hard drive and still have it work normally?

I just need to know how you get an iTunes library off the original hard drive of an imac and onto an external hard drive and still have it work as it normally would?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

HT1751 if I move my iTunes library to an external hard drive can my computer access these files in iTunes or do I need to move them back to play music, watch movies, etc.???

If I move my iTunes library to an external hard drive, can my MacBookPro access these files in iTunes or do I need to move them backto my MacBookPro to play music, watch movies, etc.???
Trying to alleviate some disc space on my Mac!!!

Yes, it can. Launch iTunes with the Option key held down and navigate to that instance of the library.
(86939)

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

I need to move my iTuns library to an external hard drive in order to free up space on my macbook pro. I've checked the external hard drive & it is playing my iTunes fine. I've moved the iTunes folder on my macbook to the trash can. Is there anything else I need to do before emptying it from the trash can?

Sounds like you are OK. Be sure to open iTunes then preferences. Click on Advanced icon in toolbar. Set the path to your media folder in the field where you should see the path to the original location. Or, you can hold down the OPTION key while starting iTunes and choosing the library you wish to use.
This should be it. If all is working well delete the data in the Trash. Now, if it were me I would have a backup somewhere just in case. Better safe than sorry.

I need to move the iTunes library to an External Hard Drive to free up space on iMac. Need suggestions on type of External Hard Drive to use. A Multimedia Hard Drive like LaCie LaCinema Classic HD Multimedia Hard Drive OR a Large Desktop Hard Drive?

I need to move an iTunes library to an External Hard Drive to free up space on iMac. I Need suggestions on type of External Hard Drive to use. Should you use a Multimedia Hard Drive like LaCie LaCinema Classic HD Multimedia Hard Drive OR a standard Large Desktop Hard Drive like Western Digital/Seagate/LaCie?

There is no benefit to the multi-media feature on the first drive you mentioned. If you are going to look at differences between certain drives, I'd look at the differences in reliability first.

How do I move my itunes library from my external hard-drive back to my MacBook Pro?

A couple of years ago I moved our itunes library to an external hard-drive to free up some space. I got a new MacBook Pro and would like to move the itunes library to it. I don't remeber how I moved it from my old laptop to the external hard-drive and have no idea how to move it to my MacBook.

See Restoring your iTunes Backup here...
Backup iTunes to an External Drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751

How do I move my iTunes library from my external hard drive back to my computer?

Just wondering how do I move my entire iTunes library from my external hard drive back to my computer? It was moved to an external hard drive a few years ago, and now I'm wondering how to move it back to my iMac to increase performance.
Where does it belong in the computer?
Any suggestions?

The library itself is the /Home/Music/iTunes/ folder in its entirety. Did you also change where preference files were stored? Normally, they would be in the /Home/Library/Preferences/ folder.

How can I move my iTunes library to an external hard drive?

Because I can only sync my iPhone with iTunes on one computer, I want to know how to move my iTunes library to a new computer when I get one.

Locate one of the song files on the old computer, go up the folder structure until you reach the iTunes folder, and move the entire folder over.
(63012)

How to move my itunes library to my other hard drive?

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