ITunes on an external HDD

Owning only a MBP with an 80GB HDD, my 25GB iTunes library has been on an external HDD for quite some time. I recently purchased a portable 120GB external drive just for my iTunes library, but I can't seem to move iTunes from the one external drive to this new one. The library location is set to the new drive under Preferences > Advanced, yet it still uses the old library location and refuses to move to the new drive.
I just copied over the 'iTunes' folder from the one drive to another, all the data is there and it's exactly what I did to move it onto an external drive in the first place. If the old drive is ejected, iTunes refuses to open at all. I've even tried opening the iTunes library file in the new location while the other drive is disconnected... Nothing.
Anyone have an idea what's going on here? The location of the new library is currently pointed to 'Drive/Music/iTunes', and I've tried 'Drive/Music' and 'Drive/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music' to no avail.

Just had the same problem. I found the answer in other message threads. A solution would be to click on the option button immediately when you launch iTunes. A message box will pop up instructing you to select a library. This should allow you to choose the music library from the external drive. See the url below.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
It worked for me. Good luck!

Similar Messages

How do I use itunes from an external HDD on a new laptop?

This really does seem to be an unanswerable question but you guys have helped so many times in the past without me ever having to post.
Here is my set up when I first got iTunes way back I had it on my first laptop, we'll call this PC A, but the Hard Drive was so small I moved the library to my external HDD. I say I moved it, a friend did it for me.
For years this set up worked fine, iTunes was on the HDD and I would access it via PC A as long as the two were connected. If the HDD wasnt connected then I couldnt access iTunes, of course, as all of the library was stored on the HDD.
I dont want to sound like I am talking to you all like idiots but Ive explained this so many times and people never know what I mean.
So now I get another laptop. (PC B) but obviously I cant get to iTunes from it even when the HDD is attached.
For years I used to crank up old PC A and get to iTunes that way but now the old girl is on her last legs so I need to be able to access iTunes from PC B (this has been going on so long Im now looking for PC C).
I do have iTunes on PC B that my iPhone is synced to and they seem to understand that each other exists but if I plug my iPod that is synced with iTunes from PC A with PC B it wipes it
Please. Please. I just need to know what to do

Make a split library portable
Here are the typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
In the layout above, with the media folder (everything in the red box) inside the library folder, the library is considered to be portable. A portable library can be moved from one path to another without breaking the links between the library and the media and being self-contained is much easier to backup.
You can rearrange things to make a split library portable by taking a number of small steps which don't break the library.
Before you start any media files that are outside of the media folder will need to be consolidated. If the library is in the old style layout then it should ideally be be upgraded to iTunes Media Organisation (Library > Organise Library > Rearrange files in the folder <Media Folder>) to ensure that iPod Games, Mobile Applications etc. are brought inside the media folder.
The basic non-fatal manipulations are:
You can connect to an alternate set of library files by holding down Shift (Win) or Option (Mac) when starting iTunes.
You can move the library files to a new location as long as the media stays put.
You can move the library files and the media together if the media folder is a direct subfolder of the library folder. (I.e. in this form the libary is portable).
If you have already moved/copied the media content from a subfolder of the library folder to a different location then you only need to copy the library files for it to appear as if you have moved the entire library in the way allowed above. I.e. just copy the library files into the parent folder of the media folder.
You can rename the media folder to iTunes Media (if it isn't already) if the media folder is inside the library folder.
iTunes uses the name of the folder holding the library files as the window title. Having made a library "portable" you may need to take a final step of renaming the library folder to iTunes or, if the library files have ended up at the root of a drive, moving all of the library files and content folders into a new folder called iTunes.
After each change you need to open, test and close the relevant library before attempting another change. If a change broke the library, undo it or revert to using the previous set of library files.
In essence all you need to do to make your library portable is copy the library files into the parent folder of the media folder on the external/secondary drive and use the hold-down-shift/option-when-starting-iTunes method to connect to it. Other manipulations may be required to normalize the library so that the library and media folders have standard names.
If you are making the library portable in advance of migrating it from one system to another, don't forget to deauthorise the old computer if you're not planning to use iTunes on it again.

How do I move my iTunes library on external HDD to a new computer?

My iTunes library has always been on an external drive. It has moved from an eMac(10.4) to a Mac Mini(10.5) and I'm trying to move it to an iMac(10.8). How can I do this? I've set the preferences to the external HDD, but this point and play doesn't work. If I select an item via the folder and select open with iTunes, the item then appears in the iTunes listing.

Connect the external HDD to the iMac, launch iTunes while holding down the Option key. Choose the option to select library and navigate to the top level folder of the iTunes media on the external. Select it and click OK.

Itunes library on external hdd for mac and pc

I want to store my my iTunes library on an external hdd and use it with a Mac and a PC. All changes made on the Mac should be recognised on the PC and all changes made on the PC should although be recognised on the Mac - one library for both.
I already tried to store my library from my PC on an external HDD and then started iTunes on the Mac, pressing "alt". But I wasn't able to open the library. When I choose library.itl, the Mac just opens iTunes without opening my iTunes library.
Any ideas, how I can put all my music, videos and podcasts on the external and then use it on Mac and PC?
Kind regards,
Matthias

The only format drive that will work with both a Mac and a PC without you using additional drivers is an older format called FAT. Disk Utility can create this. Otherwise if you use Windows' NTFS you need something like NTFS3G or MacFuse, and if you use OSX's HFS format you will need MacDrive on Windows (others may also work for both PC and Mac -- those are just the ones I could remember).
Theoretically the Mac should have been able to read the .itl on the Windows NTFS drive but maybe since it found it could not write to it, it reverted to default.
Note, if anything happens to the FAT32 drive you will need to repair it using Windows. I also assume you aren't usign this drive for huge files because FAT32 has a 4GB filesize limit.
You will have to completely erase the drive to partition and re-format it.
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.
Macworld - How to transfer iTunes libraries between PC and Mac - http://www.macworld.com/article/46248/2005/08/shiftitunes.html

ITunes on an external HDD and Airport Extreme BS

Ok, sorry to be boring, but I can't get this to work as I think it should.
I want to have a central iTunes library based on the USB-connected 1TB HDD, so that I can train all my Macs to reach for the files from the same place. So that I can access the same tunes and movies from my "MBP", "Intelimac" and "Intelimac2". I have copied the iTunes library from Intelimac 2 over onto the HDD, and in iTunes preferences told it to look for the files on my Airport-connected HDD - and it does. Mostly. I have 600 movie files on that HDD, but when I start up iTunes on the Intelimac and the MBP, there are only the 56 or so original movie files showing up in the Movies list. When I click on a random movie in that list, and ctrl click it, then "Show In Finder", it does indeed point to the correct folder way over there on the External HDD. So why doesn't the list in iTunes show ALL 600 movies available in that same folder?
Similarly, there are discrepancies between what shows up in iTunes lists, and what it SHOULD be showing, baring in mind there are hundreds of other media files available to be displayed and therefore played. It's as though iTunes is ignoring many of the tracks/playlists/movies in the same folder that it is indeed recognising and offering up to play...
What am I doing wrong?
Cheers for any help.
Chris
Message was edited by: ChrisRR

Just had the same problem. I found the answer in other message threads. A solution would be to click on the option button immediately when you launch iTunes. A message box will pop up instructing you to select a library. This should allow you to choose the music library from the external drive. See the url below.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
It worked for me. Good luck!

Former itunes installation from external hdd syncing with new installation.

Hello, i need some help!
My laptop has a severe mainbord damage, it's not economical to repair it.
so, i'm going to mount the 2,5" hdd in an external hdd case with usb.
in addition, i get a new iphone due to fluid damage.
so my itunes with the iphone backup is on the external hdd, to run the external hdd as a boot hdd is not possible.
how can i solve the problem to have my backup on my new iphone?
would be great to have any ideas!
thanks in advance

The iTunes library is not stored with the application - it is stored separately and accessed by the iTunes application so I'm not sure how installing an iTunes update or removing and re-installing iTunes would delete your entire iTunes library where all this data is stored. And you don't maintain a backup of your important data including music and video purchased from the iTunes Music Store? This is important regardless the platform but more so when using Windows with all the virus, adware and spyware concerns.
iTunes includes a preference setting to not automatically sync an iPhone automatically when any iPhone is connected. Be sure to select this first which doesn't require your iPhone being connected.
When your iPhone is connected, do not manually sync. At the iTunes menu bar go to File and select Transfer Purchases From - (the name of your iPhone).
This will transfer iTunes purchased content only from your iPhone to iTunes. Any music transferred to the iPhone from music CDs will not be transferred and the same for any movies transferred to the iPhone that were not purchased via iTunes.

How do I back up my iPhone through iTunes to an external HDD; my iTunes library is already on the external HDD

Hello, this is my first time posting a question to the apple support community.
I have a bit of a (possibly unique) problem. Due to space limitations on my internal SSD, I have moved my iTunes library to an external HDD. However iTunes still backs up my iOS devices locally (~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup). This is causing a problem as it is making my SSD very full, the only way to remedy this is to remove old backups manually. Is there anyway to backup these iOS devices to the external HDD where my iTunes library is?
Thanks very much!

I am a bit confused now. I did the download and extraction of the junction utility. Now I want to backup my 32 gb iPhone 5 to the external, not the internal hard drive of my computer. I didn't quite understand the example of the path they wanted me to use. Should I physically just cut and paste the folder of my backup from Settings and Documents, etc., or how do you get the junction utility to do that? I'm not following and I'm usually excellent with computers.
I'm on a PC, running XP. Thanks.
Lori

Time Capsule and iTunes working with external HDD

Hello all.
I have a situation I would to share with you and see if there is a solution.
I have a PC and a Macbook Air. I had a Time Capsule which had my iTunes library but the drive failed and I lost everything. However when it was running things weren't going great. Because the Time Capsule was a bit clever, it only spun the HDD when TIme Machine was backing my MBA.
This meant that I had trouble accessing my iTunes library because it wasn't always available. So I would have to locate the library on most occasions and on even more occasions iTunes lost the links with my media files and had to go through the time consuming 'Find files' process.
I was wondering if an answer to my problem would be to store all my music and other media on an external HDD (like the GoFlex). The I could plug it into my PC, then my MBA and if I wanted to make it avable to both I could plug it into Time Capsule and it would 'broadcast' it to both.
I was wondering if anyone had tried this and how it worked, Would iTunes see the HDD plugged directly into the MBA as the same as the HDD being plugged into the Time Capsule?
I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Scipio7 wrote:
it shows 3GB out of 3GB instead of 3GB out of 40Gb total.
Where are you seeing those values?

ITunes content on external HDD.

I formatted my mid 2009 MacBook Pro yesterday but before doing that I transferred almost 200GB of iTunes content (movies, music, apps etc) to an external HDD. When doing this I copied over the entire iTunes folder.
Now that I've formatted my MacBook Pro I want to leave the iTunes content on the external HDD which is plugged in to an Airport Extreme.
My question is, how do I get iTunes to recognise where the content is?
I have tried going to iTunes Preferences>Advanced and changing the location under 'iTunes Media folder location' but that hasn't worked. Infact when I quit iTunes and restarted it this setting had returned to the default setting.
I have also popped in to my local Apple store and asked a genius there and he suggested what I have already done. When I told him I had tried that and it hadn't worked he told me to hold down the cmd whilst opening iTunes and that would give me an option to choose a library. When I try this my App folder is opening instead.
Any suggestions?

It should remember where everything is now, but if you'd migrated the library the way Chris suggested you wouldn't have had the problem. If the drive isn't ready when you start iTunes then it tells you that it can't find the library and you just quit, start the drive, and restart iTunes. With the library split as you now have it iTunes can reset the media folder back to the default location on the internal drive and you can end up with housekeeping to do. It is also harder to migrate the library to new hardware in future.
tt2

Moving iTunes to an external HDD - problems??

My iTunes folder resides on my C Drive and is gradually eating available space - if I copy the whole thing into my external HDD and then set the path to the HDD via Edit>Preferences>Advanced so that the path leads to the Ext HDD rather than the C drive, am I likely to screw everything up?
Alternatively, how does everyone reduce or mitigate the physical space used on their C drives?
Thanks in advance
Windows Vista

My iTunes folder resides on my C Drive and is gradually eating available space - if I copy the whole thing into my external HDD and then set the path to the HDD via Edit>Preferences>Advanced so that the path leads to the Ext HDD rather than the C drive, am I likely to screw everything up?
No, but you won't get the expected results. You will simply have an empty library.
Quit iTunes .
Copy the entire iTunes folder to the external.
Drag the original iTunes folder to the desktop.
Hold Shift while starting iTunes.
Select Choose existing library and go to the iTunes folder you just moved onto the external.
Once you are satisfied it works, you can delete the iTunes folder you put on the desktop (freeing up all the space on your C: drive.
The external must be online and ready BEFORE you start iTunes, else iTunes will revert to the internal drive.
If this happens, simply hold the Shift key to again select the library on the external.

ITunes and 250GB External HDD

I have a MacBook and a 250GB external USB HDD with a lot of music, as well as other files on there. Is it possible to play music straight off the HDD without copying it onto my mac hard drive, because I do not have enough space on there. The thing is, then I went into iTunes, it did not seem to see the HDD, so I tried to drag files from the external into itunes, but it gave me an error message saying it would run out of space. I'm bit confused, because I'm sure I've seen this done before.

If you are running iTunes 6,, see:
iTunes: Moving Your iTunes Music Folder
IMPORTANT: do not delete the iTunes folder or the preference files it contains from your boot hard drive; delete ONLY the tracks themselves (i.e. the contents of the old iTunes Music folder).
If you have iTunes 7, then you can just drag the entire iTunes folder to your desired location. Then hold down the Shift key while launching iTunes. You'll be given a dialog box where you can select the iTunes library you want to use. Navigate to and select the iTunes folder in it's new location.
In either case, don't delete the tracks from the old location until you've confirmed that they're working correctly from the external drive.

Two users/same pc (win7) and itunes library on external HDD

I've been running my itunes library off an external for ages now and everythings been fine. That was until my wife bought herself an iPhone and now I need to find a way to share my library with her and have it automatically reflect any changes that I've made without moving my library collection (2.25TB) to the PC's HDD. At the moment I have just setup her library so that it points to the same location as mine but the major pain is that if I add an album to my library, I have to then close itunes, logon as her and re-open itunes and add the album again. This seems a little tedious and has to be a better way. All the forums I've read about sharing the library between users, want the music moved to the shared music folder and I've tried everything to get around this... Any help is greatly appreciated

The only format drive that will work with both a Mac and a PC without you using additional drivers is an older format called FAT. Disk Utility can create this. Otherwise if you use Windows' NTFS you need something like NTFS3G or MacFuse, and if you use OSX's HFS format you will need MacDrive on Windows (others may also work for both PC and Mac -- those are just the ones I could remember).
Theoretically the Mac should have been able to read the .itl on the Windows NTFS drive but maybe since it found it could not write to it, it reverted to default.
Note, if anything happens to the FAT32 drive you will need to repair it using Windows. I also assume you aren't usign this drive for huge files because FAT32 has a 4GB filesize limit.
You will have to completely erase the drive to partition and re-format it.
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Quick answer if you let iTunes manage your music: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option key held down and guide it to the new location of the library.
Macworld - How to transfer iTunes libraries between PC and Mac - http://www.macworld.com/article/46248/2005/08/shiftitunes.html

ITunes Library: Keep 2 external HDDs in sync with same music files

I am trying to run iTunes with 2 external HDDs, keeping in sync with each other. One large one for my desktop and a second portable one to take away from home when I need to travel. What is the best way to do this?
What I have done so far is changing the location of my media library via iTunes advanced preferences to the other ext HDD and then consolidating my library, but I noticed that it tries to re-copy the entire library or at least part of it so I end up with music files like:
Back in Black.mp3
Back in Black 1.mp3
I'm sure this has been thought of before and an obvious solution should be available, but I've never been able to find one, so I'd be really glad if someone could tell me how to do this!

Jef Van der Voort wrote:
There are lots of sync and backup solutions but they always require the 2 hard drives being connected at the same time.
did you have a look @ ChronoSync ?
JGG

Problems Backing up Itunes to External HDD

I am having issues moving my Itunes to an external HDD. I get errors from the Finder saying it can't find the files to move (only for 2-3% of them but with a 1000 folders it gets annoying), but I can easily find the files in my Itunes through Finder and my Itunes app plays them just as easily.
Is there a way via the Terminal to just force my Mac to move my Itunes files to the external HDD?
Message was edited by: nadohawk

Did you follow these instructions CLOSELY:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Don’t delete or move .itdb or .xml or any other files till it is working on your other location.
Hope this helps,
ken

How do I use iTunes stored on a HDD on my new Macbook?

I have always had laptops with windows and have stored itunes on an external HDD. When I got a new laptop each time I would follow these instructions from a question I asked last year. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4025922
So, now I want to do the same thing but this time I bought a MacBook. How do I do it now then?

That should be fine. Either install an NTFS write driver or copy the whole iTunes folder to a drive on the Mac. If you copy the iTunes folder into <User's Music> it should "just work".
You may need to manually reconnect iTunes to your iPod Games and apps as your library is still in the pre iTunes 9 shape. Select one of each in turn, Get Info (CMD+I) and if prompted locate the relevant .ipg/.ipa file. With luck after correcting one iTunes will offer to fix the others automatically.
Once it is working delete both .xml files, iTunes will recreate one of them depending on where you've chosen to locate the library.
If you're interested in bringing the library up to date use File > Library > Organize Files > Rearrange files in the folder "iTunes Music". This will move music files into a Music subfolder inside the media folder and move iPod Games and Mobile Applications into the media folder too. When that is done, close iTunes, rename iTunes Music as iTunes Media then restart iTunes. The media folder preference should be automatically reset (but you can correct it if not) and your library will then be in standard form.
tt2

ITunes on an external HDD

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