I put all my itunes folder on external hard drive, now I want to put it back on the mac how do i do this

put all my itunes folder on external hard drive, now I want to put it back on the mac how do i do this.

Drag the entire iTunes folder back to /Music.

Similar Messages

Moved iTunes folder to external hard drive, now what?

I spent a long time to download my CDs into my laptop's hardrive for use in iTunes.
Ran into trouble on laptop - To improve my old laptop's ability to function, I moved the entire iTunes folder to an external hardrive. I've changed the iTunes pathway to the new hardrive location, but iTunes is not reading the library.
What can I try?
I have checked blogs and haven't found a solution. Some recommend launching iTunes while holding down an Option key for the dialog box. I can't figure how to do that - maybe that's available key on an Apple laptop, but not on this ancient PC.
Any suggestions would be very helpful.
Thanks

Hi andrewfromwaunakee,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. If you would like to create a new iTunes library and add the media into it, follow this article:
iTunes: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1589
You might also try re-creating the library:
iTunes: How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451
Cheers,
- Ari

I want to put all my music onto an external hard drive. But I can't get it to put music on my itunes. The music list is completely empty and so is my IPOD.

I want to put all my music onto an external hard drive. But I can't get it to put music on my itunes. The music list is completely empty and so is my IPOD. How do I do this? I have a PC with Windows.

You say the music is not on the external HD, the music list (iTunes?) is empty, and it is not on the iPOd. Then where is the music you want to move to the external HD?
You can redownlaod iTunes purchases by:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

How can i save my individual playlist on itunes on my external hard drive because i want to buy a laptop and install itunes and move all my music and playlist thats on my desktop to my laptop and almost all my music is from a bunch of cd's i own

how can i save my individual playlist on itunes on my external hard drive because i want to buy a laptop and install itunes and move all my music and playlist thats on my desktop to my laptop and almost all of my music is from a bunch of cds i own

Hello ryane84
The easiest and most efficient way to copy your music is to follow the steps under the External drive section. Make sure that you have organized the iTunes library first before you copy it over. Then put the copied iTunes folder in the same Music folder on your computer.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
Regards,
-Norm G.

I have all my movies on an external hard drive. I want to be able to access them without copying everything to my iTunes. How can I do this?

I have all my movies on an external hard drive. I want to be able to access them without copying everything to my iTunes. How can I do this?

I think DebinSC might mean using the movies without copying to the iTunes library?
Maybe the solution is to uncheck this box?
Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I have a macbook pro with only 128gb of hard drive. I have lightroom installed and all my photos on an external hard drive. Can I store my lightroom library on the external hard drive too?

I have a macbook pro with only 128gb of hard drive. I have lightroom installed and all my photos on an external hard drive. Can I store my lightroom library on the external hard drive too?

Yes. Find the LR catalog file by looking in Edit/Catalog Settings/General. Close LR and navigate to that spot. The catalog file is the one that ends in .lrcat - move it to wherever you want. Next to the .lrcat file is a subfolder called Previews.lrdata. You can move that over as well, but if you don't LR will generate new previews. Double-click on the .lrcat file in its new home and LR will open with that catalog. Set Preferences to When Starting Up Use Most Recent Catalog.

Hey guys, how can i password protect my files in external hard drive? I want to access those files both from mac and windows PC!

Hey guys, how can i password protect my files in external hard drive? I want to access those files both from mac and windows PC!

If you want a cross-platform solution that doesn't require the use of third-party software, use an external drive with hardware encryption. The device will have either a physical key or a numeric keypad. I don't have a specific recommendation.

My songs have all been duplicated. All my music is on external hard drive and I want it to stay there. Am using a new computer and thought I'd done all the required things for my library to show on iTunes 11.

I'm using a new computer. All my music is on an external hard drive and I want it to stay there. Before installing iTunes on the new computer, I followed turingtest2's instructions as to the layout of all the iTunes folders (Itunes folder, Itunes Media, Music, etc...). I also followed his instructions as to get all my music in iTunes on the new computer (but keeping all the media on the external drive). Now my songs are all duplicated in my library (I normally have about 15,000 of them). They all play when I click onto them. Also, I've lost all my playlists, and all the songs in the library are now ticked. I've already spent hours trying to sort this out, but can't seem to find a solution. Help please!

Hi turingtest2,
Thank you for replying. I've been looking at your posts about setting up iTunes using an external drive. A bit of background info. My old computer broke down, so I got a new one from work. I've always kept my music files on my external drive (I have around 170GB of music). I didn't follow the suggestions in the "migrate iTunes library" post because my old computer died on me. However, I've looked at your posts about lay out of the iTunes folders. Before connecting to iTunes on the new computer, I had reorganized my iTunes folder on my E: external drive, and created an iTunes folder which contains an iTunes Media subfolder. The music files are in a Music folder, which is in the iTunes Media folder. I've also put the following files in my iTunes folder: iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Library Extras.itdb, iTunes Library Genius.itdb, iTunes Music Library.xml, as well as sentinel. I then followed the advice you gave bmw99 on 2 Nov 2013 at 9.58 (sorry, can't copy the exact answer).
Just to clarify: I'd like to keep all my music media on the E: external hard drive (the computer hard drive is too small), and I'm aware i might never have my playlists back, and that all the songs in my library might be ticked. However, I don't want my library to be duplicated.
I'm at work at the moment, but will be back home in about 10 hours, so I can be more specific about folders / files names.
I'm glad you picked up my message and greatly appreciate your help.
Patrice

Moving itunes folder to external hard drive

I moved my itunes to an external hard drive for Windows 7 using itunes 10. something. I lost all playlists and they are gone. Ive read somewhere you can get them back from your xml list in system but I'm a noobie on computers. CAN ANYONE HELP?

I moved my library from itunes folder i believe
What do you mean by "library"?
Which files/folders did you move?
Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/itunes/ folder to the external.
Hold Shift and launch iTunes.
Select Choose library and select the iTunes folder you copied to the external.
That is all you need to do.

ITunes won't locate iTunes folder on external hard drive....

My iMac crashed last week, and I picked it up this afternoon.
Prior to the crash, I had transferred my entire iTunes to an external hard drive. When I tried to connect the newly configured iMac, I opened iTunes, and followed the instructions as Apple recommended - at least I think that I did, but nothing happened.
Creating a new folder doesn't seem to be the way to go since all of my music is already on the external hard drive. I know that I'm missing a vital step; I'll appreciate some help.
Thanks.

Hi Ramón:
You wrote:
Creating a new folder doesn't seem to be the way to go since all of my music is already on the external hard drive.
Did you follow these steps: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748 They can be a little involved, but it should work. Try them again. Keep in mind that you're not really "creating" a new folder, so much as telling you iMac where to find the folder you've already created so it can locate your external drive and the music you have on it. And remember, as it says in the Kbase article: _Note: If you move your music library to an external hard drive, you will need to have that drive connected to access your files._
If you need a more detailed account of how best to proceed, take a look at this non Apple-produced article: http://www.tuaw.com/2006/09/19/how-to-keep-your-itunes-library-on-an-external-ha rd-drive/ A not very tech-savvy friend of mine used it to mover her itunes library to an external drive a few weeks back and said it helped her a lot. (Between you and me, the Apple ones worked did just fine for me, but whatever works, you know?)
If after following the linked instructions you still encounter problems, please post back and give us a better sense of what you did and what you mean by "nothing happened." ;- 0
Good luck!
JDee

Moved iTunes folder to external hard drive

I have a 40-gig iBook and wanted to create more space on the hard drive so I pick up a 160 gig external hard drive. I copied the iTunes folded onto the new external hard drive including the iTunes Library, iTunes Music and the iTunes Music Library.xml files. I then went to the iTunes reference folder and changed the location of the folder to the new external hard drive. My music shows up in iTunes but when I select a song I get the “The song “___” could not be found. Would you like to locate it” error message. How do I fix this problem without relocating each song?

OK try this. Warning, while I am hoping it won't this might lose all your ratings, playcounts, and playlists.
Exit iTunes. Go into the iTunes folder and make a copy of the two database files onto your desktop. These are the files that contain the ratings, playcounts, playlists, etc. If you don't care about those things, then skip this and go to the next step.
Now create a NEW iTunes library by following these instructions...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
Now, grab, drag, and drop the iTunes music folder where your music and other media already is, onto your new library. It should now add all the stuff to the library AND know where it is now. It may create a new copy of everything on your hard drive, so you need to have enough room to do this. When it is done, you can go ahead and delete the old location you just dragged and dropped if it was all copied into the new library's music folder.
Again, if you don't care about ratings, playlists, etc. you can stop here since you now have everything back in your library and working. If you want to try and save your ratings, etc. we can try this...
Exit iTunes. Go get those copies of the database files you put on the desk top. Move them and overwrite the ones that were created in your brand new library. Restart iTunes. Did you get them back?
Patrick

I just baught a new laptop as my old one packed up. I have all my itunes stored on external hard drive but when I go on Itunes everything is stored in icloud . I want to play song from my external hardrive please help!

I have a just bauht a new laptop as my old one was packed up. I use my external hard drive to store all my itunes music. I had baught a few albums on itunes . I attached my external hard drive and consoldated them to my external hard drive but my itunes is all in icloud not only that my ipod does not have the new tracks that I baught on it. What do I need to do. all I want is when I attached my external hard drive that itunes knows this and that they dont be in icloud and that my ipod puts my new albums on to it.

Did you put the library on the external drive, or just the media folder. See this migrate iTunes library post for the way this ought to be done and recovery tips for when it is no longer possible.
tt2

I've moved iTunes to an external hard drive now have massive duplication of albums

Recently moved my iTunes folder to an external hard drive. Used the Itunes preferences to transfer the itunes folder to a new location. Didn't transfer it manually or by drag and drop! Followed this - I hope correctly - by using the iTunes/File/Library/Organise Library tool. May have got this bit wrong....
Result?.........
Here we see, in the second column, that I have both an 'iTunes Music' folder and a folder simply called 'Music' (Highlighted in red). You'll have to take my word for it but these folders have different amounts of music in them. Some is duplicated, some albums are split across the two folders. Howwever, most empty folders are in the 'iTunes Music' folder, whereasost complete folders are in the 'Music' folder! In addition, There's a 'Compilations' folder within the 'iTunes Music' folder (highlighted in blue with a red arrow) which has a small number of compilations most of which I've never selected as compilations.
Note the repetition of folders called 'Automatically add to iTunes' in both the 'iTunes' folder and the 'iTunes Music' folder. There's another one of these in the 'iTunes Media' folder.
Going further in.....
Here we have the 'Music' folder in the 'iTunes' folder. It has its own 'Compilations' folder which is even larger and more irrelevent than the previous one. It also has way more album folders than the 'iTunes Music' folder itself.
If I use the iTunes/File/Library/Organise Library procedure the splash screen that comes up allows me to choose the first optiuon but the second one is greyed out.
One of the results of this is duplicated albums on my iPhone, another is randomly missing tracks in my collection. In addition, my iTunes screen saver now has duplicate album covers and many album covers that I know I've downloaded at high resolution have just gone missing making my iPhone look like its been populated by a chimp! (no offence to our cousins) Where I've discovered a missing track I've used the 'File/ Add to library' procedure. In one case it copied an album folder from the 'iTunes Music' folder where I found it into the 'Music' folder on another occasion exactly the same procedure left the album precisely where it was.
BTW, I have another iTunes folder on my Mac with all the normal stuff in it but only music that I had to add whilst nopt connected to my hard drive.
How can I remove this massive duplication safely?
How can I consolidate my files efficiently without having to go through each folder separately?
How can I remove all these albums from 'Compilations' and prtevent other albums being added?
How can I get all my album artwork back in sync?
Phew!
Thanks!

The folders and files are all normal to a basic iTunes library. They would be there even if you didn't have a single media file. Until you start up with the option key held down, iTunes will keep on looking for your library on the internal drive and will repopulate that folder with those basics if you delete them. You should have a similar folder with contents on your external and that is the one you want iTunes to use. As long as you keep it all intact while copying from one drive to the other, iTunes will be internally consistent and you won't even have to change preferences.
Preferences window
iTunes Media folder location: Just that; where iTunes keeps media. This is not necessarily where the library files (which are what ties the whole thing together) are to be found.
Keep Media Folder Organized - put all your files in folders according to type and name and album etc.
Copy Files to iTunes Media Folder - put it this way, if you didn't have that checked itunes would leave the files wherever you had them when you added them to the library. this one makes sure there is a copy (though not necessarily the only one, but the only on iTunes uses) in your media folder.
What actions take place when itunes "consolidate library" is used?
When you consolidate iTunes looks at all the files you have listed in iTunes and puts them in the location indicated by your media file preference. I don't think it hunts around your drive looking for things that aren't in the library, it just places a copy of those that are innto your media folders. If you want a searching tool you'll have to use a script that does that kind of job.
Your original images are not showing for me so I can't tell what exactly you are seeing.
Again, what I would do given what you have told me is I would make sure iTunes is using the library on the external by holding down the option key while starting iTunes (you only neeed to do that once). If you find there are files on your internal drive that are not in the library on the external then add those and iTunes will place a copy on hte external if you have that "copy files..." preference checked. You'll lose a few things such as playcounts, ratings, on those. If you absolutely must keep those there are a few tricks that can be performed but that's another very long post.

I just transfered my Iphoto Library of 40k pictures to an external hard drive. I want to put them on a new desktop, how do I do that?

I just transfered my iphoto library of 40k pictures to an external hard drive. I now want to put them onto a newer desktop. How do I do that?

Drag the iPhoto Library from the External to the Pictures Folder on the newer machine.

How do you update iTunes folder on external hard drive?

Would anyone happen to know if there is a way to update an iTunes folder on an external harddrive without transfering the entire file from scratch? Is there a simple way to update the folder so only new information is transfered?

Would anyone happen to know if there is a way to update an iTunes folder on an external harddrive without transfering the entire file from scratch? Is there a simple way to update the folder so only new information is transfered?

I put all my itunes folder on external hard drive, now I want to put it back on the mac how do i do this

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for