Importing music files from ext. hard drive to itunes

If I import all my music files (years of collections, unorganized about 90 Ggs some duplication) from ext. hard drive to itunes will itunes organize my music collection and be accessible?
Do you want it to do this?
You can leave it on the external and play it from iTunes. Nothing will be moved or organized. Everything will stay as it is.
Or you can leave it on the external and have iTunes organize it.
Or you can add it to iTunes and copy it to the internal and organize it.
what is the simplest way to transfer these files from ext. hard drive to itunes
This is two differnt things.
You can have these songs in iTunes and leave them on the external.

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Suncadia wrote:
Thank you!! This worked. It does seem there should be an easier way but this did work.
Dragging the files to "Automatically Add..." is pretty easy once you know where to look. Just make sure iTunes is running when you do it; otherwise the files will just sit there until the next time you open iTunes.
(Interestingly, the way you originally tried to do would have worked fine except for one little detail: you have to first go into Edit > Preferences > Advanced, and check the box for "Copy files..." If that is not done, iTunes will reference the files on the flash drive, which of course are not accessible once the drive is removed, as you saw.)
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Attached is a screenshot...

jasonkmtr
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A few more questions for now.
Taking your particular .avi files out of the equation, can you import any other format from Add Media/Files and Folders pointed to this external hard drive? What is the format of the external hard drive? NTFS or FAT32?
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You wrote
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hello. the ext hard drives that contain my music crashed some time ago, and most of the files were thankfully restored, but in a slightly messy fashion, so now there's a lot of duplicate files and folders.
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How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
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Faust575

I downloaded audio files from a CD to an external
hard drive. Now I would like to put those files in
Itunes. I tried click and drag and cut and paste, no
luck.
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ITunes 11 won't import .mov video files from external hard drive but will from internal.

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Many Thanks
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This might be worth a shot - basically seeing if Vista permissions could be the culprit.
Give yourself FULL control and ownership of the exHD, let's call it M:
How to Take Ownership and Grant Permissions in Windows Vista
Take control of the top level folder and ALL subfolders.
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I've imported an iPhoto library from a disc to my iPhoto 09 account, but I have to leave the disc in to view the pictures in full screen... Is there a way to import the files to my hard drive?

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Importing music files from ext. hard drive to itunes

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