How to play my itunes library on my pc or external hard drive?

How can I import and play my ITunes library on my pc and external storage device?

Is the iPhone the only location or your media now? See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

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How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive?

How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive and keep the new iTunes library on the External Hard Drive. I have all the media and playlist and .xml .itl files, just want the iTunes to recognise the content.
I backedup my iTunes content by dragging to External Hard Drive. Formatted and reinstalled OS. My iTunes content is so large, that I wish for the Library and content to remain on the External Hard Drive. I have all the music files and playlists, I just cannot get the iTunes application to display all the content. Hoping to Not have to drag and drop all the content to be recopied into new iTunes organised files.
Troubleshooting this by researching other conversations on the web, I have come stuck for a solution. One Troubleshoot told me to hold down the Command key and then lauch iTunes and a dialogue box will appear to Choose a new library, however when I try this, no Dialogue box appear to give me the option!?

It sometimes has that funny switch symbol on it too.
tt2

Have copied my iTunes library back-up from my external hard drive (saved from my iTunes on my pc) onto my new Macbook and loads of the tracks have been duplicated, some four times some not at all?? any ideas guys?

Have copied my iTunes library back-up from my external hard drive (saved from my iTunes on my pc) onto my new Macbook and loads of the tracks have been duplicated, some four times some not at all?? any ideas guys?

Have copied my iTunes library back-up from my external hard drive (saved from my iTunes on my pc) onto my new Macbook and loads of the tracks have been duplicated, some four times some not at all?? any ideas guys?

If i previously had my iTunes library set up on an external hard drive, how do I get my iTunes on my new mac pro to operate off of the same hard drive?

I recently bought a mac pro. I previously had a macbook that I had set up for iTunes to run off of an external hard drive. How do I set up my mac pro to run off of this hard drive? I have been trying to figure it out for the last hour and have had no luck.
I have tried to move my itunes folder on my mac pro to my external hard drive but am having no luck. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

If you had the entire library running from the external drive it should be a matter of holding down option as you start iTunes and browsing to the library on the external drive.
If you'd followed the advice to move the media folder only then ideally you need to recover the library folder from your Macbook with a view to making the library portable on the external drive.
Otherwise you're going to have to simply import the content into a new library, losing rating, playlists, play counts. etc.
If you have any devices that sync to your library see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

How can I move my itunes library from pc onto an external hard drive for use on a mac

I have a large itunes library on my PC (roughly 200gb) and I want to transfer this to an external hard drive to then use on my new mac. I have tried this before using software which converts from NFTS to mac, but this didn't work properly (songs kept disappearing), so I also want the external hard drive to be mac formatted. Any suggestions? It seems much harder to do this than I expected.

Yes you can go to > Music > iTunes folder and copy the whole iTunes folder and drag the folder to your external and then on the new Mac click and highlight the iTunes folder and then in iTunes click on the button at the top (add folder to library) and you should see all your songs transfer from the external to the Mac and all songs start filling up in your iTunes library on the Mac.
This is the easiest method all songs and other media such as songs, movies, apps will be transferred over however you may not be able to keep ratings & last played counts using this method.
To keep all metadata including ratings & play count use the Apple method exclusively for this if you have to have your metadata, play counts and ratings saved.
I used scenario one above because it one of the simplest methods and I was just satisfied enough just to transfer all media over.

My itunes library is stored on an external hard drive. How do I set it up to be able to use with my work macbook pro? I do not want it stored on my laptop.

How do I store my itunes library on an external hard drive and access it on my macbook pro? I do not want to store my library on my macbook because it is a work computer and do not want to take up storage space there. I know it can be done because I had it that one on a previous laptop but I cannot remember how I did it and would really appreciate a quick step by step process. I do not mind if it seems elementary. I am admitting my lack of knowledge and would really appreciate basic instructions. Thank you for anything anyone can do to help.

iTunes>Preferences (Cmd+,)>Advanced
Choose the Ext HD (and the appropriate folder) as the location for your library.

How do I get iTunes to access music files on external hard drive?

We moved all of our music to an external hard drive. The hd is always on and I connect to it wirelessly. I don't know how to get iTunes to use the library that is on the hard drive, can anyone help me please.

iTunes expects to find its library in the ./Music/iTunes folder. To get iTunes to see music on another drive, you first have to create the library on your internal drive. Once you've done that, you copy the iTunes folder over to your external drive, and redirect iTunes to that drive, using an alias. (I originally did this in Tiger and it continues to work fine in Leopard. I don't know if doing it originally in Leopard would make any difference.)
Note: If your external drive library is already too large for your internal drive, simply use as much of it as you can to create the original library on your internal drive. You can add the rest of it once you've got iTunes looking at the external drive. In this case, remember to name any "iTunes" folder on the external drive to something else, so you don't erase everything in the following procedure.
Load up as much music as you can on your internal drive, making sure it appears in iTunes.
Quit iTunes and copy the iTunes folder from your internal drive to your external drive (be sure you don't erase whatever's already on the external drive). Copying that folder to the root of the external drive is OK.
On your internal drive, rename the 'iTunes" folder to something else (like orig_iTunes) -- or move it out of the Music folder.
Open your external hard drive to the directory containing your iTunes folder.
Cmd-Option drag the iTunes folder from the external hard drive to the internal hard drive Music folder, creating an alias in the internal drive's Music folder.
Launch iTunes. You should now see the music from the external hard drive. If necessary, you can now add back any missing music, and it will automatically create the necessary music and library files inside your iTunes folder on the external drive. Once you've got them all added, you can delete both the orig_iTunes folder, and the folder on your external drive that served as the source for adding your library back in.

How do I copy iTunes folder which is on my external hard drive to my iTunes folder on my mini mac?

I am new to Apple computers. I have just downloaded an iTunes file from my pc onto an external hard drive and I want to know how I copy this file into my iTunes folder on my imac.

Connect the external hard drive to your iMac.
Open iTunes, go to the File menu, then select the item "Import into Library" and select your song in the file chooser that will appear. Press the ok button.

Can I put iTunes library and iPhoto albums on external hard drive?

How can I, if there is a way put my iTunes library and iPhoto albums on my external hard drive to free up space on my internal hard drive? If this can be done what are possible issues and do I just access them through my external drive when I need them. Can I sync my iPod to the external drive in order to deal with daily pod casts etc?
thanks,
Bill

You might find these articles useful:
iLounge - Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive
iPhoto: How to move the iPhoto Library Folder to a new location

New ipod touch gen. 4 .. need to transfer itune library to new computer using external hard drive. help

New ipod gen.4... itunes on old computer with windows xp... comp. wont recognize ipod touch... when plugged into usb port... put music on external hard drive ..... now must transfer to laptop...with windows vista home premium... help

Type "move itunes library" into the Google search bar.
Type "ipod touch not recognized by itunes" into the search bar at the top of this page by "Support"

How can I access iTunes; the songs are on an external hard drive?

I have had an iBookG4 for almost 4 years now, and I recently had to get it updated to Leopard because the operating system was so out of date. Now though, my computer has no spare memory because the hard-drive is full with Leopard. So I have to keep my iTunes files on an external hard -drive. The problem is that when I want to play songs though iTunes, the file copies itself to my hard-drive, which I have no space for. Either that, or iTunes tells me that the files can't be found. In store when I got the operating system updated, I was told to press 'alt' before opening iTunes, so that the songs would play through the hard-drive, but this doesn't seem to work. Is there any way of being able to play the music through iTunes and the external drive only? This is very annoying because I recently got an iPod, and I can't seem to put any music onto it.
Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks very much for that!
I have an extra question. While I was on the advanced settings, I changed the location of my iTunes folder from my computer harddisk to the external drive, so I could avoid having to go through my hard disk at all. Now when I have looked at my external hard drive, the folder with my music has disappeared, and I don't know where it is. Also, some song files aren't there any more because my computer only had room for the majority, but about 700 are still missing. However, all the songs seem to be playing through iTunes. What has happened?
Many thanks,
C

HT1751 Can I consolidate my iTunes library and transfer to an external hard drive while my computer is in safe mode?

Laptop died, only works in safe mode. Am wanting to transfer everythign to an external hard drive and do a reset to if I can save it.

See this migrate iTunes library post. Depending on the layout of the library you may simply need to copy the entire iTunes folder using Windows Explorer without ever firing up iTunes.
tt2

Moving iTunes library from macbook pro to external hard drive

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

Drag it there, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, and choose it.
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My iTunes library is on a 2T ex. hard drive. I want to install on new PC w/o losing playlists,

My current iTunes library is on a 2T external hard drive, using a PC with Vista. I am wanting to move the entire library HD to a new PC running Windows 8 without losing my playlists, date added, last played, # of plays, etc. However, when connected to the new PC, only the purchased tunes from Apple show accurate data of date added, etc. 99% of my library is self-added/burned. I would like my new set-up to mirror my old set-up exactly but now I have double and even triple downloads of songs and albums in my iTunes library display and my computer files, and only one of 4 library files on the hard drive. What am I doing wrong or forgetting to do?

Gordon,
There's a solution to your problem but first it's time for a little lecture. (If it makes you feel any better, I don't like this any more than you do.)
I hope you take this as an opportunity to learn a very important lesson: Back up your iTunes library as soon as you can after resolving this situation because right now you are only one glitch of your iPod away from losing your music entirely.
Many people come to the Discussions having lost their music in just such situations and, believe me, it's not a happy time for anyone.
If you place any importance on your playlists and the data they depend on, you will want to include your iTunes Library files in your back-up regimen as well.
Anyways, that's the lecture. The answer to your problem should be found in this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=797432#797432
Good Luck! But once your music is back on your computer, remember:
Your music is valuable - please back it up!

I lost my iTunes library on my pc when the hard drive crashed. None of the data on the drive was recoverable and I did not have a backup. How can I get the music that resides on my ipod nano (4th generation back onto the new hard drive on my pc.

I lost my iTunes library on my pc when the hard drive crashed. None of the data on the drive was recoverable and I did not have a backup either locally or on the cloud. Much of the music is from old vinyl and podcasts which are no longer available.
How can I get the music that resides on my ipod nano (4th generation) back onto the new hard drive on my pc.
I have been reluctant to install iTunes on the new hard drive out of fear that I will lose all the contents on the ipod if I try to synch to the new hard drive.
Help!

No backup is a huge mistake.
You can redownload some itunes purchases in some countries:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store ... - Apple - Support

How to play my itunes library on my pc or external hard drive?

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