ITunes Music Files on External Drive

I have an iBook and am running short on internal hard disk space primarily because of a large number of music files (~24GB). I would like to move all my music files to an external disk to free up space on my internal HD. How would I do that with iTunes and make sure any music I import or download/purchase goes to my external hard drive?

Interesting thing happened when I moved all my iTunes folder files to the external HD. Even with the EHD connected, iTunes did not display my music library. I had to import the music files from the EHD. Then I found that iTunes had placed the Album Artwork, iTunes Library database file and iTunes Music Library.xml file in the default location on my internal HD even though the path in iTunes Preferences links to the EHD. Now when I open iTunes the library displays but the actual audio files are on the EHD. I'm wondering where a purchased, downloaded audio file will go. What's up here?

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I cannot download the update for itunes - music stored on external drive - download error state invalid "H" drive ? anyone have any ideas ? Cheers

I cannot download the update for itunes - music stored on external drive as computer got full up - download error state invalid "H" drive ? anyone have any ideas ? Cheers

See "Invalid drive X:\" install errors.
tt2

How can I put part od the iTunes music library of iTunes music on an external drive in order to free up disk space?

How can I put part od the iTunes music library of iTunes music on an external drive in order to free up disk space?

see this
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Peace, Clyde

ITunes doesn't find my music files on external drive anymore

I have some 15.000 music files on an external hard drive. I added them to my iTunes library and added also a lot of extra info (titles, genres, albums covers, etc.).
After a great New Year's Party, where several people "played" with my iTunes playlists, for some reason iTunes doesn't sees / recognises the music files on the external hard drive anymore.
What can I do? I don't want to import the music files all over again. Otherwise I loose all the info I added in the past year. And it is undoable to find the music files one-by-one on the external drive. That would take months.
Who can help?

Select one track in your library that is currently missing in action. Press CTRL-I to Get Info then look at the Where: entry on the Summary tab. You should get something along the lines of:
file://localhost/<path 1>/<Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<ext>
e.g. file://localhost/D:/iTunes/iTunes Music/Arcade Fire/Funeral/01 Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).mp3
The true path will be something else of the form:
<path 2>\<Artist>\<Album>\## Name.<ext>
e.g. D:\iTunes\iTunes Music\Music\Arcade Fire\Funeral\01 Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).mp3
Comparing the two paths should reveal what needs to be done to put music back where iTunes "expects" to find it. The examples show the different default locations before and after the upgrade to iTunes Media Organisation. I've seen problems before with the way iTunes manages this upgrade so that it occasionally reorganizes the files but then carries on looking for them in the old location. It is also surprising how easy it is sometimes to accidentally move a folder without noticing. Alternatively Windows may simply have switched the drive letter for your external drive. Windows Media Player is more resilient in these circumstances.
If you can give the two locations for a sample file I can probably suggest what will need doing to put things right.
tt2

ITunes Music on an external Drive

I am trying to setup Itunes on a PC using an external Drive. I'm using windows 7. I created the Itunes library on my office computer and in the preferences area I saved the folder to the external drive.
When I brought the folder home I directed Itunes on my home computer to look for the folder on the external drive but I can't get Itunes to read the library.
When I look at the folder on the drive I can see all the music but I just can't get Itunes to read the folder. I created the folder in windows not my mac and the drive was formatted for the PC not a mac.
Can anyone please tell me how I get windows to read the library from the external drive. PLEASE HELP.

File > Add folder to library and select the top level folder with music on the external.

ITunes, music files from external dr F to new computer dr C... problems?

I currently have a setup with an older computer and external hard drive, but will be getting a new computer in the near future. That is to say, I have not yet encountered a problem, but am anticipating one.
As it is, iTunes is installed on the old computer, and the library of songs and videos is all on the external hard drive.
I will be wanting to install iTunes on the new computer, and put the entire library on that computer as well.
I understand that moving a library between computers can be fairly simple, just as long as you keep the path the same. I expect that moving everything from C:\Program Files\iTunes on one computer to C:\Program Files\iTunes to a new computer would be quite easy. However, since the library currently points to files on drive F, the external harddrive, I am wondering if there will be a problem when I dump my library onto the new computer's drive C? If so, how can I get around this?
I'll try saying it another way;
currently, my directories are like so:
iTunes Folder - C:\Program Files\iTunes
Library - F:\iPod
and what I want, when I get a new computer:
iTunes Folder - C:\Program Files\iTunes
Library - C:\Program Files\iTunes\library

First of all, about the moving the 'program files\itunes' directly: don't do it. Install iTunes properly.
Then do this:
Copy the contents of 'iTunes Music' within My Music to the same location on the new computer.
Then connect the external drive and start up iTunes. It should appear identical to the way it did on the old computer.
Then use these directions to move them to My Music or anywhere else you want:
MacMuse: Moving iTunes to a new drive

Windows 7 backup deleted music files on external drive

I did a Windows 7 backup to an external drive that also has my music library on it. My itunes folder still exists with all of the artist folders inside but all of my music files are now gone. Inside each folder are .ds_store files. What happened to my music files?

snives wrote:
Yes, annoying, wish it would just try to play the **** song whether it had an exclamation point or not.
It is trying to play the song, but it can't play it if it can't find it. If you were asked to get pasta from the top shelf and boil it, only to find the pasta wasn't where you were told it should be, you wouldn't be able to boil the pasta. Of course, you are a human so you could look on other shelves until you find the pasta, but a computer program doesn't know how to do this unless it has been programmed to do so.
Also, if you have your iTunes library database file on your internal drive, and the Media folder on the external drive, you will have the problem you described when the drive is disconnected. If you put all of the iTunes files on the external drive and keep the iTunes Media folder along with the database file, it won't forget the location of your media folder. Of course, you won't be able to open your library at all unless you have the drive connected.

Was able to transfer itunes music from an external drive to a computer, but cannot listen to it without external drive being connected. There are "!" next to the transferred music.

Was able to transfer itunes music from external drive to computer, but they won't play. There are "!" marks next to all transferred songs and a message reads "Unable to locate songs". How do i get the transferred songs to play without having the external drive connected.

Select a single song with a broken link, press CTRL+I to Get Info, cancel when asked to locate the track and take a look at the Summary tab. Post back where iTunes is looking for the file. It begins file://localhost
Where is it really?
Please post back both paths so that I can make suggestions. Full paths please, exact spellings, you can replace your user name with <User> if needed.
tt2

Undelete music files from external drive?

Quick version:
External drive got reformatted, but music files maybe still there. Know a good, and reasonably priced, software with best chance for recovery? Cannot affort to send drive to pros to recover. Thx!
Longer version:
I have an external/USB hard drive which had a lot of music for my iTunes library. Unfortunately a computer guru, working on my system, reformatted that drive. Using a free trial of some undelete software it appears the song files may still be there. But reviews of most software online are very mixed as to recovering music, versus other, files. Sounds like many of them cannot recover music files and may even corrupt them more in the process.
Does anyone know from experience a good and reasonably priced, or free wouldn't be bad, software I could use to recover these music files? I understand the files may be trashed, but I'm looking for my best shot at recovering them and cannot afford to buy several software apps trying to undelete these, or to send the drive off to a drive recovery service. Thanks in advance!!

thx for your speedy reply. Let me ask, was the recovery for general files or for music files? What I read was that many of the recovery programs do good jobs on basic files, like Word and Excel, but that music files are much harder to recover and software might be very poor at recovering them.

Moving iTunes music files from external to HD that already contains songs

Okay, here's my situation as best I can explain it:
I changed the location of my iTunes Music folder to be on my external hard drive a few years ago, which was where all of my iTunes music was until recently. A few months ago, I noticed that my iTunes Music folder on my laptop (my only computer) was starting to have songs in it again. I realized that with an update I did, iTunes changed the folder location back to being on my computer, so any song I had added since that date was now within the folder on my laptop's HD.
So now, I want to put all of my music back into the main iTunes folder on my hard drive to be the main folder and delete the one on the external. The problem is I can't use the 'Consolidate Library' option because I had to do a restore CD and have duplicate copies of multiple songs, and I don't want to have to go into iTunes and spend more time to fix this, which is why I've been working on this problem manually, adding songs I find on my hard drive that I want into iTunes one at a time. Point is, I don't have enough hard drive space on my computer to consolidate and then delete duplicates.
So am I going to have to create an entirely new folder and copy contents of both iTunes folders into that one? I did this so long ago, I can't remember how I did it. I know I can't just move the files to a new folder because the iTunes program doesn't recognize the new location unless you put them into iTunes directly, which is not an option because they are within folders and I'm not going to take the time to go one by one through my thousands of folders. Please help.

Okay, I've done some reading and it seems consolidating is an option if I understand it correctly. So, if I choose consolidate, iTunes will ONLY copy music files that are currently within iTunes and not currently located in the library into the library folder, correct? i.e. It will not copy songs in my Public folder that I have not put in iTunes yet, or any duplicates, right?
So that way, I could do that which will put any songs from my external into the folder on the HD, and then I can delete the iT folder on my external so that there will be no duplicates, correct? Then I could go about fixing the rest of the random songs floating on my hard drive.
Has anyone done the 'Consolidate' option and then deleted their original files? There are no adverse effects right? Then I would be free to back up the iTunes library onto my external and all will be well...

Keeping music files on external drive, but import onto library?

I am a new mac user, and I used to have iTunes on a PC with all my music files saved onto an external hard-drive, but now since i got my Mac I want to be able to view and play my music on my iTunes while keeping the files on the external so as not to take up all my hard drive space. How would I go about telling iTunes to read the files from an exteral source?
Thanks!!

File > Add Folder to Library.
But first, go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced > General and make sure that "Copy Files to iTunes folder..." is NOT checked.

Computer has to relocate music files on external drive

all my music files are on an external drive. When I disconnect and then reconnect my external drive, I get an exclamation mark when I try to play music from library & have to relocate every time. Is there any way to avoid this happening?

snives wrote:
Yes, annoying, wish it would just try to play the **** song whether it had an exclamation point or not.
It is trying to play the song, but it can't play it if it can't find it. If you were asked to get pasta from the top shelf and boil it, only to find the pasta wasn't where you were told it should be, you wouldn't be able to boil the pasta. Of course, you are a human so you could look on other shelves until you find the pasta, but a computer program doesn't know how to do this unless it has been programmed to do so.
Also, if you have your iTunes library database file on your internal drive, and the Media folder on the external drive, you will have the problem you described when the drive is disconnected. If you put all of the iTunes files on the external drive and keep the iTunes Media folder along with the database file, it won't forget the location of your media folder. Of course, you won't be able to open your library at all unless you have the drive connected.

Itunes accesses files on external drive but not showing in finder

I'm running OS 10.6.8. I have an external NTFS drive that I read and wirte to using NTFS mounter. I have files that iTunes show are in a folder on the external drive. iTunes will even play the songs. When I navigate to that folder in Finder there are no files displayed. I connected the drive to a PC and navigated to the folder. Windows says the file (folder) is corrupt. How is it possible that iTunes can read the files? How can I get read & write access to my files?

You'll have to try to repair the drive on a PC.
How is it possible that iTunes can read the files?
Some things will still be readable when corruption occurs, the big problem is when writing occurs when there's corruption.

How do I back-up Itunes music onto an external drive?

I wanted to know how I can back up my Itunes onto an external drive. I tried to back up but it will take about 9 discs to burn it onto. Can;t I just drop and drag all the songs onto an external drive?

"Choose Consolidate Library from the Library section of the File menu in iTunes".
I started this process and a screen popped up advising me this was irreversible and was I sure I wanted to do it. I clicked no until I could get further advice. If I do this, what is the outcome/consequences and why would they warn me?

Moving iTunes media files to external drive broke connection

I recently moved my iTunes media files to an external drive. All other iTunes related files were left in my home folder. Everything worked great for about a month. Then, mysteriously, I went to access a movie and it said that it could not be found. I performed the search to my external and the movie played just fine. Somehow, my connection to iTunes has been broken. Incidentally, all media files in my external drive show up in the respective folders in iTunes. They just have exclamation points associated with most of them. Strangely, some of the files play just fine without having to search. Very confused. Can anyone provide a solution to re-establishing my link to iTunes? Thank you very much.
Bill

You had the drive plugged in and mounted before starting iTunes?
Sometimes a link will get broken, but then re-established, such as doing the aforementioned forgetting to start the drive first. When you double click the track it will try again and suddenly find it works again. It can be a nuisance having to test each track this way. You may find that Dougscript "List MIA" will help do this.
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/
I have not seen any successful automated way to re-form truly broken links. You have to either do it by hand or just add the media again. If you add the media again some things will be re-set such as date added (obviously), playcount, etc. I don't use any of those so it doesn't matter to me if I have to do this (and there are tricks to storing them in places where they will be kept).
Why they got broken? One reason mentioned before. Have you re-named anything or moved it? Have you ever had multiple drives with the same name plugged in?

ITunes Music Files on External Drive

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