Itunes folder on an external drive is missing.

I am getting the following error:
An iTunes library file could not be found in the folder "itunes music". please choose a different folder.
I have an external hard drive that has all my music... which is backed up by another external hard drive. The primary drive which iTunes plays from is called Itunes Music - Maxtor (brand of HD). Today when I opened itunes I could not find any of my songs... however could see the drive on my desk top. So when I clicked the drive went to a song double clicked the song the song played in itunes. Meaning the folder is there and the content is still there but itunes won't locate the folder. Also the folder is set up correctly in itunes. meaning in preferences itunes is set up to use the external drive... any suggestions?

hi,
the message you got isn't related to iTunes not finding your music files but to iTunes not finding your library files which is called "iTunes Music Library".
only you can find this files that may have been moved by mistake or may be simply located also on your external drive. if you tried to open iTunes at a moment where your external drive wasn't available, iTunes will give you this message.
simply find your "iTunes Music Library" file location using Spotlight or the Finder. then start iTunes and select the option to locate your library and browse up to your file. if your songs are stored on an external drive, it is a good practice to keep also your "iTunes Music Library" on your external drive.

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

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Back up your iTunes library by copying it to an external drive
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Sorry for so many questions, but they are all related to backing up and restoring iTunes. I am not very tech savvy if you cannot tell

It would be a good idea to look into a bigger hard drive. They are not that expensive any more and can save a lot of headach. This is even more important if you are buying music from the iTunes music store. If you lost those files they are gone.
The point of having it on your PC and iPod is to have a backup. If the iPod fails, or you need to go back to the DVDs and find they are scratched, or just can not be read you have lost days of work converting and organizing all of those songs.
Or the iPod could hard drive could fail and then you will have to try to bring all of those files back from DVDs. You end up with a mess since some songs will probably be on multiple DVDs, have different names ect. Trying to reorganize it all can be a pain.

Moving iTunes folder to an external drive. How ?

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It's not hard to overlook something obvious, happens to me too once in a while, so let's start from scratch.
Forget the KB article for know. I just performed all the steps in it on a 'test' account with a small (test) library, and could not detect any anomalies.
The article is OK, but might not be 100% clear (I second William's remark)
Steps to do:
• Quit iTunes (and other applications that use the EHD)
• Unmount and disconnect your external HD.
• Run iTunes and verify that you can play all music. If OK, then it has to be on the Powerbook. If you are presented with exclamation marks, it was already on the EHD.
• You've consolidated the Library a couple of times now, so it should be all together in ~Users/YourUsername/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music.
• Connect your EHD
• In iTunes, change the 'iTunes Music folder location' to the location on your EHD, where you want the music to be. To be sure, create a new folder.
• Now 'Consolidate Library...' again. iTunes will start copying the music. If it doesn't, I'll eat my hat (to be honest, I don't have a hat).
Let know what happens.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

How do I get iTunes to use the iTunes folder on an external drive? Windows 7

I have used iTunes on an external drive on a Windows XP machine. I moved the drive to a Windows 7 computer, authorized it with Apple. However, when I go to preferences/advanced and try to change the Media folder location,the location is changed but the music is not recognized in Itunes. Help!

I experimented and discovered the solution by trial and error. I don't understand why this is not documented in a way that a naive user would understand. It is step 2, below, that is not obvious. Unless you know that there is this thing called a library and that you must import it, you would be at a dead end. I originally assumed that when I point iTunes to the folder on the external drive where iTunes was located it would recognize everything from there.
1. When installing iTunes, if music iTunes Library is on another disk, In iTunes Go to Edit/Preferences/Advanced - select the iTunes media on the other disk.
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This will bring in the songs, albums and playlists.

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Did your backup include the iTunes Library.itl file that is the core of an iTunes Library, and if so have you restored it either to the default library location for your profile, or to another folder and then redirected iTunes to look to that folder for a library? Normally all you need do is backup the entire iTunes folder from the old profile's Music folder, then restore the iTunes folder into the new profile's Music folder.
tt2

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Close iTunes. Click the icon to start it, then press and hold down the left shift key. Keep holding until asked to choose or create a library. Choose the iTunes folder on your external drive. That should bring back all your playlists, ratings, play counts etc. You may have to settle for removing and reloading the media onto the device again. That's not too bad, but what you don't want to have happen is your apps being removed and reloaded as then you can lose settings and data. If that looks likely backup and then restore the device rather than sync it.
If for some reason rebuilding the library the way you did has moved files around then the restored library may have trouble finding things. If so post back and I'll explain what to do...
tt2

How do I move my iTunes Library to an external drive and retain everything?

I'm sure this is a common [stupid] question, but I couldn't find a clear answer and I want to be sure I'm doing it correctly.
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Message was edited by: Sakahara

Hello, Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Below you will find more information about your options of relocating iTunes Library and backing it up.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
How to back up your media in iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1382

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Hello,
I currently have my entire iTunes Library (Music, Movies, TV Shows, etc.) on an external hard drive.
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mattfromallston wrote:
I have a new Mac arriving tomorrow, to replace my current one. What is the easiest way to get my entire Library into iTunes on my new Mac?
From your OLD computer...
Copy your ENTIRE iTunes FOLDER to an External Drive... and then from the External Drive to your New Computer..
Full Details Here > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
An Added Bonus is that you will have a Backup of iTunes.
Also... Have a look at these 2 Videos...
http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-library.html
http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-media-to-an-external-drive.html
NOTE:
It is important that the External Hard Drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled).

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I walked into a store today. They recommended that I save all my existing play lists by exporting as M3U files to my desktop. Deleting all the songs that didn't come through properly by album or artist and dragging them back in from the correct location (this is faster than going song by song). When all the songs are in there again, I can import the playlists and all should be good. Will try tonight with fingers crossed.
(if you don't export and import the playlists, you can fix all the songs, but they'll be deleted from any playlist they were on)

HT1751 I copied my iTunes folder to an external HD and now I cannot delete it. When I try to move it to the trash it displays The item "iTunes" can't be moved to the Trash because it can't be deleted.

I copied my iTunes folder to an external HD and now I cannot delete it. When I try to move it to the trash it displays: The item “iTunes” can’t be moved to the Trash because it can’t be deleted.

Close iTunes. Click the icon to start it, then press and hold down the left shift key. Keep holding until asked to choose or create a library. Choose the iTunes folder on your external drive. That should bring back all your playlists, ratings, play counts etc. You may have to settle for removing and reloading the media onto the device again. That's not too bad, but what you don't want to have happen is your apps being removed and reloaded as then you can lose settings and data. If that looks likely backup and then restore the device rather than sync it.
If for some reason rebuilding the library the way you did has moved files around then the restored library may have trouble finding things. If so post back and I'll explain what to do...
tt2

ITunes Media Folder Renameable on External Drive (mac)

I have a 1TB collection of music in a folder on an external drive within a folder that is NOT called iTunes Media, but which until now had behaved as if it were.
I just switched to a clone of my old 1TB drive on a 1.5TB drive. After 11 hours of locating my 157000 tracks, I was able to find and use every track. However, when I added a new track, apparently I lost the ability to add new music tracks within the Music folder. Instead, a new iTunes Media folder was created within the folder which SHOULD have been called iTunes Media.
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Thanks
Mac OSX 10.6.8, iTunes 11.4

I am getting a bit lost on what was done and exactly why you did it that way. It looks to me like you use iTunes with standard preferences settings and you didn't so much move your media folder to the external drive as your whole iTunes library (everything in the top level folder including all the media files). This should have been done simply by copying the iTunes folder from the old drive to the new one, renaming the AllMyiTunesMusic folder if you so desire, then starting iTunes while holding down the option/alt key and selecting that folder as the iTunes library to now start using. Apart from the copy time when you could go away and drink a pot of coffee the actual labor time would be about 2 minutes. I think you must have done something different which has kind of messed up your library and resulted in duplication of files. Some of those folders such as Movies and the neighboring Music folder should be in the media folder, but don't move things about in Finder or iTunes may lose track of them and things will get worse. If you can go back and do things properly then I recommend you do so, otherwise we can see what we can work with here.
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 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.

When I have my iTunes library on an external drive, but I forget to connect my external drive before opening iTunes, so then iTunes creates a library taking up room on my MacBook Air, can I just delete the iTunes library folder on my MacBook Air?

So I have a MacBook Air, but it doesn't have a lot of storage inside of it. So I set iTunes to sort all media files (it copies things as I add them and puts them in the iTunes folder) and I set the iTunes folder to my external ntfs drive. This has been working fine, but I find that sometimes iTunes starts adding stuff to the folder on the Air itself. I don't know if this is me adding files to iTunes when the external wasn't connected, or what, but is it OK to just keep deleting that library on the Air? Otherwise it keeps building up multiple GBs. Or will just deleting it do something bad with my lecture videos and music when I sync an iOS device? I'm really worried about doing something wrong with my large collection and have iTunes delete it or not sync with my iOS device and I won't be able to figure out how to set everything up again.
Also, should I format my drive to HFS+ rather than ntfs? The ntfs hasn't seem to be causing any problems, but I've always wanted to know. I keep everything on my external and sometimes it needs to interact with friends computers or school computers.

I don't know if this is me adding files to iTunes when the external wasn't connected
it is.
is it OK to just keep deleting that library on the Air?
i wouldn't - at least not until i
mount the external
point iTunes media folder location back to the external via preferences > advanced
consolidate my library via file > library > organize library
The ntfs hasn't seem to be causing any problems, but I've always wanted to know.
in order for your Mac to write to NTFS drives, it needs some help by installing e.g. the NTFS 3G driver. apparently that or something similar is installed on your Mac already. preferably, it would be formatted for Mac but then windows machines would need to have e.g. MacDrive installed to recognize the drive.

Itunes folder on an external drive is missing.

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