ITunes Doesn't Delete Movies From External Hard Drive

I have all of my iTunes media on an external hard drive. However, when I just tried to delete a movie (from within iTunes), it removed the movie from iTunes, but the actual mpeg file is still on my external hard drive. Is there something I'm doing wrong, or am I going to have to manually delete content from external hard drive? Thanks.

When you delete an item from your iTunes library, iTunes will give you the option to delete the file too, but *only for items that are located in your iTunes Media folder.* So, assuming your iTunes Media folder is on your local drive, what you are seeing is the correct behavior.
The best procedure in this case is to right-click the track in iTunes, choose Show in Finder, and delete the file within Finder. Then go back to iTunes and delete the track from the library.

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Troubles deleting files from external hard drive!!

I had my external hard drive plugged into my Macbook but i cannot delete any folder or file in it! There is not 'Move to Trash' option from the drop-down menu! Does this have anything to do with 'Folder Action' thing? please help! sorry i jst switched to Mac from Window recently so still trying to find my way through! Thanks

Hi,
Mac OSX can read and write/delete files and folders on harddisks that use the FAT32 file system.
Mac OSX can only read and not write/delete files and folders on harddisks that use the NTFS file system.
Use Disk Utility to check what file system your HD uses.
To enable write access from OSX to NTFS drives, you can either use NTFS-3G http://www.ntfs-3g.org/ or buy Paragons NTFS for OSX http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
Regards
Stefan

How do i retrieve deleted data from external hard drive

I accidentally erased all my data from my external hard drive. Data included pictures, documents and movies. They are so important to me! Is there any possiblity for me to retrieve the files?!

So you deleted all the files and then emptied the trash already with them in there? Are they backed up anywhere for you to restore from?
There are 3rd party data recovery programs you can buy to try and restore the data, the success of the program recovering everything is not 100% and the program's success is decreased if you continued to write to the hard drive (by adding content) after the mass purge.
I've used Prosoft Data Rescue 3 with success in the past - http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
You can find it for as low as $75 on the 'net if you shop around. To put it into perspective, data recovery service will run you (potentially) 7-10x more.

Using itunes to perm delete files from ext hard drive

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.
the easiest way for me to clean this up would be through itunes, using the show duplicate songs feature, but i cant figure out how to clear a file from itunes and make that permanently delete the file from my external hard drive.
ive read some discussion in other forums about shift-delete vs ctrl-delete, but not enough consistent information to be convinced.
can anyone help me out here?
thanks in advance,
bob

Are you "clearing" songs from a playlist or the Library?
To remove (send to Recycle bin) songs from a playlist and the library, select the song(s) and shift-delete them.
I've had the podcast problem once with a few podcasts a while ago. I 'solved' it by removing the duplicates. Some time later iTunes stopped duplicating.
Never discovered the actual cause. Sorry, can't help you with that one.
M

Streaming Apple TV movies from external Hard Drives

I have my entire movie collection converted to mp4's and on external hard drives plugged into an Airport Extreme. I use my Macbook Pro as my main computer for my itunes media.
I just got the new Apple TV2 and I am having issues with the movies streaming. Basically what is happening is when I play the movie it stops and spools for a minute or two, plays for a few more minutes and stops and spools again.
Both My Macbook Pro and Apple TV are using WiFi do you suppose if I hard wired my Apple TV into my Airport it would help matters?
I wish that the Apple TV would load the entire movie first then play it rather than stream!
If anyone can ease my pain I would be grateful!!!
Thanks!

This problem is just one of many problem's that I have experienced and some of those seem to re-occur "especially" after updates from Apple. Can someone tell me why Apple would allow these issues to continually manifest. It makes me feel like im Beta testing "poorly written code" which is the reason I moved away from Microsoft Windows not to mention its taken the fun out of using my ATV2. I've been on the phone with TS and they have run me through the different options. The failing is the lack of control settings within the ATV and TS in the end just offered me "Polite Lip Service". Their is no "Automated" reconnection for movies on "drop out" and Screensaver is an issue, nor is there any "Buffer Setting" to control poor streaming issues. My solution after days of pulling my hair out was to load movies into TC, reference file on HD, Hd Wire "everything" Tc to ATV2 (Must) and then connect that to the Modem Router. Turn off Screen Saver of course and any other programs that may interfere. Checking console MAY shed light on the problem. & Gd Luck with the next updates.....

Can't delete file from external hard drive

Hi,
There is a permition problem with my external hard drive (no time mashine on it!) - can't delete certain files.
I copied my documents on my external hard drive from previous computer with windows and later with linux system on it and there had been changed icons at certain folders previously. I mention this, becouse what linux did was that it locked the changed icon files and I couldn't delete them until I unlocked them manually. But at least it showed me that i don't have permition and i could change it. Well, now I mounted the disk on my new macbook and wanted to delete some files and it seems that there is the same problem with permition, at least it seems to happen with the same files. When I want to delete them, the system asks me for admin password, I give it allright, it makes the sound as if the folder was moved to trash but that's all. the folder is still there even after dismounting and restarting. I already checked the permitions and it says in the info that i can read and write with the file so it looks as if my rights were ok...
Please help, I desperatly need more space for new backup and can't get rid of the files I don't need any more...
Thank you for any sort of simple-ish advice
Message was edited by: brevon

Thanx for such qucik reply!!! The pages were great, it had an answer for my problem, but unfortunately it also involved me dealing with it only on the MacIntosh HD itself, not on mounted external drive I suppose... So it didn't work they say that there is an icon in the left corner indicating locked folder - I don't see any icon on it. It says you can untick the box to unlock the folder - there is no tick to be unticked. Finally, they say that if I don't have permition or rights I cannot delete it. But how do i change permittion which already says that i can read and write in it? So everything appears to be normal only I cannot delete it. there is not even any warnig telling me I don't have enough rights, it just requires the password and after me typing it in it makes the sound of scraping paper but does nothing more. I aslo had some problems with emptying Trash after being seemingly succesful with one file and had got so far to have them appear in the Trash (no clue how this one actully got there though..) I followd the advice and emptied the Trash with Terminal. The Folder is still there but it shows 0 Kb... So far so good BUT: It is still on the external drive, so I obviously only managed to copy it into the Trash!!! Phew, innit a bit too tight to poor owners, this macbook?? I want my rights back!

Can't delete files from external hard drive

So here's an interesting problem that I've never run across. I have a Western Digital hard drive plugged in and I was deleting some files off it today when suddenly it started saying that there were some files in use and it couldn't delete those. I hit "Continue" which usually does the trick but it just deleted everything else and left a bunch of folders with these weird empty files in them. So I quit all programs and tried again. Same thing, "Cannot delete, file in use." Tried rebooting both my computer and the external, again "Files in use." Did a google search, followed numerous suggestions, terminal sudo rm -r +file name, a force delete app, secure delete, holding down the option button while deleting... No dice. When I try the sudo rm thing in terminal it tells me that the folder doesn't exist AND that it isn't empty and won't delete it. (I love computers) When I do a right click->Get info on it, it says that I have read-write permissions but that the files are locked but won't let me unlock them (I'm the system administrator). When I look at the files in finder, it says they're actually aliases. What's really weird is that the file names are all messed up and have asian characters and stuff in them. I didn't create these aliases or have files with those characters in them. Soooo... Any suggestions? Cause I've read the threads and tried just about everything. I'm concerned this drive is headed for a crash or maybe just needs to be wiped and then put my stuff back on cause it's gotten errors over time. I don't know, I've never had this happen before and I'm pretty good with computers. If it was a windows computer I'd be doing a scan disk and defrag on it but I don't know how to do that on a mac to an external hard drive. I honestly don't know if this is a hardware or software problem. Any help would be appreciated.

Oh... well this is interesting... disk utility is say that it IS formatted MS-DOS (FAT32). Is that what's causing these errors? This thing has been running with my mac beautifully for years. So do I pull my stuff off, wipe it and reformat it for a mac? Or since it is FAT 32 can I hook it up to a windows computer and fix the problem? Since I had the wrong format, I can delete the files but if I don't fix the format this will keep happening?
Volume repair reported:
Verify and Repair volume “750GBEXT”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Preparing FAT
** Phase 2 - Checking Directories
/.../SpryAssets/_NOTES has entries after end of directory
Truncate? yes
/..../My Work has entries after end of directory
Truncate? yes
** Phase 3 - Checking for Orphan Clusters
95906 files, 181003968 KiB free (5656374 clusters)
***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
Volume repair complete.Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
And thanks!

Itunes doesn't see library on external hard drive

I've been using itunes on my laptop (dell inspiron 2200) with an external hard drive to store my music files.
About a week ago, suddenly, itunes won't "see" the music there. Both my music and my playlists are blank.
I can "see" the external hard drive through "my computer" and my itunes preferences still say to look there for my music, but no go.
Help

If your pluging your hard dive in via USB you may have the same issue I have once and while with my external dive I put all my iTune files in. My hard drive has to USB plugs to get enough power to the hard drive. If I use only one and on battery power iTunes does not see it. But you said you can see it via my computer so you may have to check the place iTunes is putting your files again. In iTunes go to the edit tab on the top of the iTunes window pan down to Prefernces then go to the Advanced tab and at the top make sure your iTunes Music File Location is to your external Hard dive file you have for iTunes.

(Error code -36) Can't delete files from external hard drive

So as I was copying files to my hard drive (Seagate Backup Plus Drive) my Macbook Pro went flat, and so the files obviously didn't get to finish copying. Now they're greyed out in my folder and when I try to move the files to the trash it comes up with this message:
"The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “-----” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)"
Does anyone know how I can fix this? I've tried a couple of different things and nothing has worked, and I don't wanna stuff around too much in case I lose everything.

Presumably you are using the Seagate as an external HD.
"my Macbook Pro went flat" means the MBP shut down or powered off suddenly for some reason?
If your Seagate was not properly ejected that would cause problems. You should run Disk Utility and Verify and Repair the Seagate, if needed. Then you should be able to deal with the uncompleted files.

Viewing movies from external hard drive in MOV format.....help!!!

I just has some 8MM reel movies converted and stored on an eternal hard drive. My brother makes movies and asked them to be put into MOV format. He is out of the country for a while. Need help getting them opened so I can view them

As a first step, right click on one of the MOV clips and select OPEN WITH...QUICKTIME PLAYER.
After you have done this, click WINDOW/INSPECTOR in QuickTIme Player and tell us everything that the Inspector tells you.
You should also be able to hit the play button in QuickTime Player and watch the clip.

Cannot delete file from external hard drive (error code 36) in Finder, but Terminal is ok

I have a relatively new Macbook Pro Retina 15" and have a Western Digital 1 TB Passport. I've been using the passport for about a year now without any problems on older Macbooks in my house. I used to be able to read and write to this drive no problem. I am using the Paragon NTFS for Mac software in order to read and write to the NTFS drive. When I navigate through the drive in Finder, if I try to create a new folder, I do not have a problem. If I try to delete that folder I just created, I get this error:
The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “untitled folder” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)
The folder has nothing in it whatsoever. I just created it. But if I go to Terminal and I run
rm -rf "untitled folder"
This works fine. Why is Terminal acting different than Finder? This does not happen on my other Macbooks. Thanks in advance.

Thanx for such qucik reply!!! The pages were great, it had an answer for my problem, but unfortunately it also involved me dealing with it only on the MacIntosh HD itself, not on mounted external drive I suppose... So it didn't work they say that there is an icon in the left corner indicating locked folder - I don't see any icon on it. It says you can untick the box to unlock the folder - there is no tick to be unticked. Finally, they say that if I don't have permition or rights I cannot delete it. But how do i change permittion which already says that i can read and write in it? So everything appears to be normal only I cannot delete it. there is not even any warnig telling me I don't have enough rights, it just requires the password and after me typing it in it makes the sound of scraping paper but does nothing more. I aslo had some problems with emptying Trash after being seemingly succesful with one file and had got so far to have them appear in the Trash (no clue how this one actully got there though..) I followd the advice and emptied the Trash with Terminal. The Folder is still there but it shows 0 Kb... So far so good BUT: It is still on the external drive, so I obviously only managed to copy it into the Trash!!! Phew, innit a bit too tight to poor owners, this macbook?? I want my rights back!

I backed up my itunes folder to an external drive, then deleted it from the hard drive, then restored to the hard drive, but now can't see the files, playlists

I backed up my itunes folder to an external drive, then deleted it from the hard drive, then restored to the hard drive, but now can't see the files, playlists

Was the entire folder copied including the iTunesLibrary.itl file?

Can't permanently delete song file from external hard drive

Hi Guys,
I want to be able to delete actual song files from my external hard drive as well as from my iTunes library in one easy, lazy step, via the iTunes window. I am not interested in finding and manually deleting the files through my external hard drive.
When I hit delete it only deletes the song from my iTunes library but not the actual destination music file aswell (from my external hard drive). I am aware this is because my external hard drive is not the original "Music\iTunes\iTunes Music" destination that the apple crew have designed and so I am not offered the option of sending the file to the recycle bin or "trashing it" when I hit the delete key (this permanently deletes the file).
I am also aware that I can find the music file destinations and delete them through the iTunes window by hitting "CTRL & R" or by the "show in windows explorer" command. I am not interested in these options either.
Basically, I have 20,000 songs to clean up and don't want to have to take my laptop with me to my grave...
I suspect there is some way of changing things around, possibly via some particular parameters to be set in the "Edit" > "Preferences" > "iTunes Music Folder Desintation" command area but still haven't been able to crack it.
Any help would be welcomed with open arms.
Cheers.
Labia.

Camoracer,
You are right. Pardon me. The majority of the music that I was trying to delete off my external hard drive was in a separate folder (on the external hard drive), not in the directory specified in my iTunes preference settings.
Problem solved!!!
This should also be a lesson to those who believe a one step delete function (from iTunes library and actual music file) is not possible when the music files are stored on an external hard drive (or other storage medium for that matter). I have read a host of other forums who say a one step delete function is not possible without additional software.. Perhaps these posts were from the authors of the software trying to make a $.
Cheers.

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.

HT1660 How do I run itunes from external Hard drive?

How do I run itunes from external hard drive. I only have ssd on PC and media is too large to fit

You do not.
iTunes, like all programs is installed on the C drive.
You can store the media on another drive.
Assuming you are moving an existing library from another computer:
Move or Copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder from the old computer to the new computer and put it where you want it.
Install iTunes using the default options.
Hold <SHIFT> while launching iTunes. It will prompt to create a new library or locate an existing library.
Select the option to locate an existing library.
Point iTunes to the iTunesLibrary.itl file in the iTunes folder that was moved from the old computer.

ITunes Doesn't Delete Movies From External Hard Drive

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