HT1751 My iTunes won't drag to my external hard drive...any suggestions?

When I attempt to drag my iTunes library to my external hard drive, it will not transfer the folder. I am using a Mac osx and a free agent external hard drive. Any suggestions?

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

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ITunes won't recognize media on external hard drive

Hello Everyone....
So I have a 17" Macbook Pro, that was recently repaired under Future Shop's PSP that I purchased. They wiped it completely clean, so I essentially have a brand new computer again.
Luckily, I put almost all of my data and media onto my external hard drive before it went in. I have been operating with my iTunes media stored on an external drive for some time now with success.
Now that my computer is completely new, I did all the available updates, and then went to link my library to my iTunes, as it's "new again". It doesn't have my library attached anymore. I think I forgot to save the actual library files that I'm now reading about, and instead just saved the actual mp4 files. To be honest I didn't know there were library files and actual media files, seems weird...
I've changed my preferences back to the external drive folder where my media is located, and I've clicked "consolidate files" and nothing happens.
I've tried to hit the "scan for media" button that pops up when you have a wiped or new computer and nothing has happened.
I tried to physically click and drag everything from my external drive into my iTunes, and the little "processing xyz..." popped up with the blue and white striped progress bar, however when I woke up this morning nothing had happened. I'm not sure how that developed.
I can't seem to find anything on the internet to assist with this particular issue. I have all my media stored properly in the iTunes media folder but no actual "library" file. I guess I didn't realize they existed!
Any ideas? I am losing my mind. This mac is my second and has been in for repairs twice, and has given me nothing but problems. I am aware this "problem" is my own dumb fault but I feel like it should be much easier to recognize your existing media when it's right there in front of you.

Preferences does not scan for media, it only changes the storage location for new additions. The files have to be added to the library. It sounds like you tried this in one of your attempts but it did not work (I don't know why it didn't unless there is some detail I missed).
Where do you want your library? On the external or internal?
If the internal, start iTunes. Drag your media files to the "Automatically Add To iTunes folder. iTunes 9: Understanding the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder. - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3832 Or use the "Add" menu item to add files to iTunes, or drag them to the iTuens library in the sidepanel.
If somewhere else, start iTunes while holding down the option/alt key, select a library location. Add as above.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

ITunes won't fully recognize my external hard drive

I've installed itunes on my new pc but it won't recognize all of the music files saved on my external hard drive. I've set the media folder location under preferences to the correct file path but still no joy. What am I forgetting to do? For example, I have 12 Springsteen CD's in my media folder which I can see through windows explorer, but in itunes I can only see 3.

You must make sure that the external hard drive is mounted before launching iTunes. If you do that, you shouldn't have a problem. However, if you launch iTunes without the external being mounted and do anything in the program, it will change the library back to the default.

ITunes won't show library on external hard drive

I have just bought a MacBook Pro but I don't know how to get library on external hard drive to show in iTunes... Any suggestions please?

This is relevant portion of the support document with a bit of editing for clarity.
If iTunes is running, quit iTunes.
Using a Mac click the icon to open iTunes and immediately press and continue to hold down the Option key.
You should see the following screen:
If iTunes opens normally, close it and try again.
Once you've got that dialog you have two options. If your previous iTunes library database is stored on the external drive use Choose Library to browse to it and open it. If you only have the media folder on the drive then use the Create Library option to create a new iTunes library at /iTunes on the external, move the media folder to /iTunes/iTunes Media and then add it to your new empty library.
tt2

ITunes won't sync correctly with external hard drive

I have long kept my music on an external hard drive and had absolutely no problems with adding files to my iTunes library. Whenever I added songs to iTunes, they would automatically be copied over to my external device (a Seagate Freeagent 1TB USB External Hard Drive) everything would be fine. I could erase the song data remaining on my notebook without any problems.
But, after recently upgrading to Windows 7, I'm having some trouble keeping everything organized. I did a clean install so I had to reinstall iTunes, and upon doing so I specified for it to access my library from my external device like before. It does that just fine, but when I add songs to iTunes, they don't copy over to the hard drive, and when I consolidate the files, all of my songs get copied onto my notebook hard drive.
Is there a fix to this? Something I skipped when telling iTunes where to get/keep my music? I want to be able to add songs to the library and have them copy directly to my external device.

But, after recently upgrading to Windows 7, I'm having some trouble keeping everything organized. I did a clean install so I had to reinstall iTunes, and upon doing so I specified for it to access my library from my external device like before. It does that just fine, but when I add songs to iTunes, they don't copy over to the hard drive, and when I consolidate the files, all of my songs get copied onto my notebook hard drive.
Hmmmm. By any chance, do you have 4 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA USB EHCI chipset on the Fujitsu? If so, perhaps see the following Microsoft document:
[You encounter problems when you move data over USB from a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer that has an NVIDIA USB EHCI chipset and at least 4GB of RAM|http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976972]

ITunes won't recognize folders on external hard drive

Moved my network hosted iTunes library (Drobo) from PC to Mac (via http://t.co/jfyX9PB). Got most of metadata (ratings, playlist, comments, etc) to port over. However I have a 100 or so songs that iTunes cannot locate. Tried to manually locate them in iTunes and found that the root problem is that iTunes won't even recognize the folder. I can go to Finder and see that the folder is indeed there.
The only solution I've figured out is to open the missing file in Finder where iTunes creates a second duplicate of the missing song. However, once iTunes adds the new duplicate song the old song works. I can then delete (and "keep" the deleted song) so that the old "unlocated" song works and I don't corrupt the date added of my library.
Was just curious if you've ever run into this and know why iTunes doesnt recognize folders? Or if you know if there is a quicker batch fix instead of the tedious method above?

kaze1sd wrote:
Or if you know if there is a quicker batch fix instead of the tedious method above?
what do you think of this script:
_*Music Folder Files Not Added v2.0*_
This application will list the file paths of the files in your designated "iTunes Media" folder which are not in iTunes' library. Additionally, you can select a different parent folder and its contents will be compared to the iTunes library. Options to Add a selection of found files to iTunes or move them to the Trash.

Why won't itunes find my library on my external hard drive? All that shows up are the purchased songs in the cloud?

Why won't itunes find my library on my external hard drive? All it shows are my purchased songs in the cloud.

See also this migrate iTunes library post or Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

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

Saving iTunes Movies/TV Shows to an external hard drive

I need to free up space on my dell laptop so I would like to move my iTunes movies/tv shows to an external hard drive while keeping my music on my internal hard drive. So I would like to have two different libraries, one for music on my internal and one for movies/tv shows on my external. What is the simplest way to do this without wiping out my movie collection?

You can create multiple libraries with a shift-start of itunes.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesWin/8.0/en/15502.html
Press AND HOLD the shift key while starting itunes, and create a new library on your exHD.
Name it something like Movies - don't take the default itunes1 name which will not make sense later.
The new library will be blank. Before you do anything, change the itunes preferences > Advanced tab.
The "Copy to itunes Media Folder" and options needs to be turned ON.
You need to change the itunes media folder location to your exHD.
Now, go to your internal HD to the Movies folder using Win Explorer. Drag that Movie folder and drop it onto iTunes (the source list over on the left, onto the word LIBRARY).
Another way to do it is itunes menu > File > Add folder to library
Repeat for the TV shows folder.
This will copy the files to your exHD, since you already changed the preference to "Copy to itunes Media Folder"
Make sure you can play a few seconds of several movies/TV show to satisfy yourself that it all went well.
Double-check the file locations in iTunes by doing a right-click > show in Windows Explorer.
They should be on your exHD.
The files will still be on your internal drive. You can either delete them using itunes or Win Explorer.
If you use Win Explorer, you'll get ! file not found marks in your original music library.
Things to remember about using multiple libraries:
1) iTunes always uses the last library it opened. You have to remember to shift-start between libraries.
2) Every time you do a shift-start, double-check the iTunes preferences advanced to make sure the "itunes media location" and "copy to itunes" is set how you want.
3) It is easy to forget which library you last had opened, so train yourself to always use a shift-start.

Erasing all music from iTunes and starting over from an external hard drive

Hello,
I tried moving all my media to an external hard drive to make room on my MacBook Pro and just be able to run the media (ie music movies etc) from the external hard drive when it was connected.
Well this backfired big time probably because I did not follow any sort of instructions.
1st I backed up Finder > music > iTunes > iTunesMedia folder to two seperate external hard drives just in case.
2nd I think (this was back in March 2013) I decided to cut/delete the folder Automatically Add to iTunes and moved it to one of my external hard drives (this folder for some reason contained mostly everythiing that was in the iTunes Media folder).
3rd I finally decided to erase content from iTunes Media Folder
4th I deleted the iTunes Media folder because I felt it was stupid to have a "iTunes Media folder" and "iTunes Music Folder" in the same place but not actually have anything in the iTunes Music folder (probably really stupid of me in retrospect)
5th I unchecked the box under iTunes > Preferences > Advanced "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library"
6th I believe I changed the location of "iTunes Media folder location" in the Advanced area under Preferences thinking this should be pointing to my external drive
I then believe I tried to run iTunes and play my content, but when I did all it did was copy my music/media back to my MacBook Pro hard drive but I did not realize it was doing this until later the next day when I tried to play some music and realized I had 3 copies of everything in my iTunes program (ie music movies podcasts tv shows etc) however, I could play all three versions of whatever it was I selected there was no "error message" saying that iTunes could not located that file, would you like to try and locate.
So I checked Finder to see if there were 3 copies of everything (by the way at this point I stopped connecting my external hard drive for the sake of making more copies on iTunes) but there wasn't??? So I tried to go through Option+View > Show Exact Duplicate Copies and delete all but one of the items. When I would delete them and it asked if I wanted to move them to my Trash Bin I clicked yes and all the 2nd and 3rd copies were gone!!! Yeah, so when I played those songs/movies that remained they would play!!!!!
Than I realized that my Internal Hard Drive was almost full and went looking around for things I could delete to help make my MacBook run better, and realized that my Trash had a large amount of data in it and that emptying it would significantly reduce space on my Internal Hard Drive, but when I went back to iTunes and selected music or movies to play it placed the infamous "!" next to that track or movie and it could not locate those items anymore?
Long long long story short hopefully, can anyone help me set up iTunes so that it only can play content/media off of my external drive and not take up space on my internal hard drive? Is this even possible to do that or will always start to copy those files from the external hard drive back onto the internal hard drive? and second is there anyway to use the Apple router external hard drive to use as the source for all my media?
PS I am running Mac OS X Lion version 10.7.5 and iTunes 11.1.3 (8) 64-bit

2012EVOL wrote:
Hello,
I tried moving all my media to an external hard drive to make room on my MacBook Pro and just be able to run the media (ie music movies etc) from the external hard drive when it was connected.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to the external. Don't only copy the iTunes media folder.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the external.
This is all you need to do.
Everything for iTunes (except the application) is on the external.
2nd I think (this was back in March 2013) I decided to cut/delete the folder Automatically Add to iTunes and moved it to one of my external hard drives (this folder for some reason contained mostly everythiing that was in the iTunes Media folder).
Make a shortcut to this folder on your desktop.
Nothing should be in this folder. When you put a file here, it will get moved by iTunes and added to the library.
The reason it had files in it is because you moved it.

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

ITunes music is stored on an external hard drive. How do I play...

I just transferred all of my music onto an external hard drive to save space on my computer.
Is it possible to set iTunes so that it uses the external hard drive as the source of the iTunes music library. iTunes seems to only want to have the "iTunes Music" file on the C drive so that it can access it automatically as iTunes opens.
How do I switch it from looking at the C Drive to a specific folder on my G drive?

I followed all the instructions for consolidating my music into one folder on my external hard drive. (I'm struggling with this because my ext HD was renamed when I synched my iPod shuffle last night. The "E:" drive has now become the "F:" drive and all my songs have those dreaded exclamation points next to them. Exploring my computer, I found "My music" folders in two place on my C: drive and one place on my external hard drive... and the song list in each place is different.
Argh.
So... following the directions in the article reference here, I attempted to consolidate all of my songs into one folder on my external hard drive.
But.. I checked the song list when the "consolidation" was complete... and MANY songs are missing. They're still on the C: drive, but don't appear to have been copied to the new folder on the ext HD.
I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks so much!
Edit: I tried to reassign the ext. HD a permanent letter, but my Control panel does not appear to offer the option of Administrative tools. Is there an easy way to get to this, as this seems to be the root of the problem?
Thanks.
Message was edited by: hbdivegirl

HT1923 hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can i remove iTunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space and then just run it from the hard drive. instead of taking space on the mac? even if the mac no longer has enough to accommo

Hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can I remove itunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space?...and then run it from the hard drive instead of the mac,even if the mac no longer has space to accomodate the size of the library?

Yes.
Copy your music iTunes Library folder to the external drive and change the Advanced settings in iTunes to point to this new location.
Once you're happy with these changes you can delete the same Library from your User account to free up space on the internal drive.

I have my iTunes music folder stored on an external hard drive. I recently purchased a new Mac. After attaching the external hard drive, all the songs imported without any problem except my Playlists. Any clue about where they are or how to revive them

I have my iTunes music folder stored on an external hard drive. I recently purchases a new Mac. After attaching the external hard drive, all songs imported without a problem except my playlists. Any clue about where they are or how to revive them for use on my new Mac?
Thanks!

Rysz wrote:
To retain your playlists, artwork, play counts, etc, you need to move the entire iTunes folder, not just the music files..
Correct.
After that just select the new folder location in iTunes> Advanced settings.
Incorrect.
Hold Option and launch iTunes.
Select Choose library and select the iTunes folder.
This will read the iTunes library.itl file in this folder and the library as it was previously will be opened.

After moving my iTunes and iPhoto libraries to an external hard drive and deleting the originals i found i still had no space on my mac.help

i moved my itunes and iphoto libraries to an external hard drive to free up space on my mac.
after i had moved them and checked they could be found i trashed the originals and checked again that the could be found on the external hdd.
all seemed to be ok.
when i checked the disc utility it did not show i has made any more free space than i had before.
any help please as i am loving tje mac but i am still quite new to it.

Did you empty Trash?

HT1751 My iTunes won't drag to my external hard drive...any suggestions?

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