Itunes - problems transferring to external drive

I just transferred my entire iTunes files off my Mac and onto an external drive. I copied the entire folder from my desktop to my external drive, deleted it on the desktop and then pointed my iTunes Media Folder Location window under Advanced Preferences to the new location on the external drive.
I also selected the "keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" button that was NOT selected before.
All my music showed up in iTunes again after the transfer, but many of my songs now have an exclamation mark beside them because "itunes can't find them" and I need to select the song and manually point iTunes to the write location (which is a subfolder of the artist and album name within the new iTunes folder on the external drive). It didn't happen to all songs, but definitely more than 1/2. Is there a quick fix, or do I manually need to point the computer to each and every song with an exclamation mark beside it?

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)

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I have transferred my itunes library to an external drive. I then attached the external disk to a new computer. I can now access all songs from the new computer. But I can't access playlists. I can still access all songs and playlists on the old computer

I have transferred my itunes library to an external drive. I then attached the external disk to a new computer. I can now access all songs from the new computer. But I can't access playlists. I can still access all songs and playlists on the old computer

If you right mouse and select Get info it will show you the Apple ID used to purchase these songs.
Usually the name of an apple id is based on the email. So knowing that you may have forgotten the Apple ID password.
You can request a new password here http://www.apple.com/support/appleid/

Apple TV sync problems when using external drive in iTunes

I have my iTunes library on an external drive in order to save HD space. Unfortunately the external driver some times get disconnected and I need to mount it again.
Since iTunes can not find the songs when the drive get disconnected, all songs are marked with an exclamation mark . So far no problem as the song will play immediatelly when i click on it.
The problem is now with the Apple TV. It seems that as soon as a song get an exclamation mark it get removed (!!!) from the Apple TV playlists. I would expect that the song is still available in Apple TV although in iTunes is marked with an exclamation mark, as this is only a temporary non availability.
The consequence is that one song in Apple TV may or may not be available for playing in dependency of the availability of the original song and its external drive in iTunes.
may be "its a feature", but a very annoying one..
Alex

I believe you created this problem at the very beginning by not letting iTune to manage your iTune folder. When this occurs iTune can only play songs when your external HD is connected.
You mentioned you want to save HD space. The better solution will be to put the most played songs in your HD and let iTune manage the folder and backup all the other songs to your external HD. Best way to find out is to check out the most played from your list and backup the least played to your external HD. Better yet, backup all songs.

HT1349 Hello, how to move the iTunes master file from C drive to an external drive and them iTunes stick with the external drive after on an on going basic?

My desktop C drive is full HD of 1 TB, I would like to move the current iTunes master file to an external 4TB drive and then iTunes stick with the external drive
Could this be done, if yes how to do it?
Thank you for your help
Henri

If it's the same as with a PC, the procedure would be to:
(a) Plug in the new external drive,
(b) Set your iTunes preferences such that the iTunes Music Folder is on the new drive,
(c) Use the iTunes "Consolidate Library" utility to copy your library to the new location.
(d) When the transfer is complete, check "Get Info" on some songs to verify their location.
The original files will remain on the old drive, so you'll have a way to recover should there be a problem. You may need to manually copy any iPhone/Touch Apps to the new drive since I'm not sure those are transferred with the Consolidate utility.

HT1373 How do I backup my itunes library to an external drive

My iTunes library is unstable. I have two questions:
1) How do I backup my iTunes library to an external drive?
2) Why am I constatntly prompted to add my computer to iCloud when I have done so multiple times?
When opening iTunes, I receive he error message: "Please Sign In Again, iTunes Match has encountered an error. Please choose Sign Out and he Sign In from the iTunes Store menu and try again."
I tried downloading and installing/repairing the latest iTunes. That did not correct the problem.
Also, I have sync'd to iCloud. Every time I select iMatch from iTunes, I am prompted to Add This Computer to iCloud. I have already done this multiple times.

Hello cijackson,
You posted your question in the iTunes for Mac Forum. You may get better results on the iTunes for Windows forum. Best of luck > https://discussions.apple.com/community/itunes/itunes_for_windows?view=overview

Moving iTunes library to an external drive converting to different format

I want to move entire iTunes library to an external drive. I've found several Mac 101's to help but those helps makes no sense. I should be able to move music to another drive and give iTunes the path to find it but that does not work.
All files are iTunes Plus including everything from Amazon but I want to convert everything to a mp3 or other format so all files are independent of iTunes. Lots of old music from CDs I imported and lots from iTunes as well as Amazon. I guess i could sit and burn everything to a physical cd but that would take months and hundreds and hundreds of cds. Can someone advise how I can convert these files and then move to an external drive?
I'm running mountain lion and version 10.7 of iTunes. Two external drives and 145 gigs of music. Any guidance will be most appreciated.
Thanks.

HI Limnos,
Thanks for the reply. Something I forgot (age) to mention, this quest to move the library is precipitated by the Mac drive is running out of space. While I still have about 50 gigs of room left, I was thinking I should just plan on opening up the space by moving the iTunes library.
The other reason is, I read an article about how upon ones death one can not bequeath ones digital music or book files to loved ones. IE; If all of the music was on LP's, tapes, cd's then this physical format can be left in ones final will. But according to what I read and trying to read the user policy by Apple, Amazon etc when one downloads music or a book or whatever that use policy says we don't own the material we only can read it or listen to it. When we die it dies with us. Several people in the article as well as myself believe this is crap. At one time I was purchasing content and then burning it. I stopped because I thought how silly to burn it, I have back ups on an external drive. Man was I wrong. If I have to I'll sit here in my last days and burn hundreds of cd's.
So realizing this, I want to take all my music files and save them to another drive as though this drive was hundreds of cd's. That way all those files in some other format can be played independent of iTunes or transfered to one of my kids PC's or a Mac if they get with the program. If the conversion process destroys the integrity of the file then I have no choice but to burn cd's.
In my estimation, I'm doing nothing wrong. I bought downloadable music just as if I'd bought cd's. I should be able to throw it away or give to my kids upon my death. The kids can decide what they want to do with it once I'm gone. I now no longer buy any music or books in a digital download. All content is purchased with a physical copy. That said, more content providers are moving towards downloads only or like Amazon and Apple towards the cloud and streaming. I realize all this gets into the fair use act but I think most people are unaware of this issue.

Itunes Library on An External Drive

Hi All,
I've been reading a few tutorials on how to setup an itunes library on an external drive and wish to ask a question that I haven't seen covered yet...
I have a desktop PC running win XP with which we connect 2 ipods to our library regularly to update (we both have laptops but are happy to let the home computer maintain our music collections). I have a few different external drives that I connect to this computer at different times. In addition I have a number of internal hard drives that I plug into my system when working on different projects or when I want to do backups. The end result is that the drive I wish to use for my music and (including itunes folders) is not always given the same designation (ie. M:drive) every time I plug it in due to other devices connected to the system.
Sooo my question is will I have to point itunes to the folder on the newly designated drive each time such a situation occurs? If so does that process take long or are there any alternatives I can setup in order to eliminate any problems.
I had considered manually designating the external drive myself using windows disk management snapin however this would be tedius and painful to teach others that want to use it.
Thanks for any advice given
Cheers
Matt

Thanks for your replies guys. I have gone ahead and tried to assign a drive letter to the drive I wish to use. Following the instructions here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844 on how to assign I get to stage 6 and find the "Assign the following drive letter " to be ghosted out. I can however change (as opposed to add) the drive letter without problem. After experimenting a bit I've found this drive reassigns itself to the new changed letter(Z:) after I unplug and plug it back in as well as after rebooting.
Would I be correct in assuming that this has done the same job and now regardless of what other drives I have attached to the pc at any time this drive will always be assigned Z:?
Thanks very much

I store my itunes library on an external drive shared between 2 computers and itunes on computer A isn't seeing or showing the songs I added using itunes on computer B.

I store my itunes library on an external drive shared between 2 computers and itunes on computer A isn't seeing or showing the songs I added using itunes on computer B. How to fix this?

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.

I wish to move my itunes media to an external drive.

i wish to move my itunes media to an external drive.
currently i am managing my own folder structure, but have decided to bite the bullet and let itunes organize my media.
i moved the media library location in advanced options to the external drive i would like iTunes to us, checked 'keep iTunes media folder organised' and copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library'.
approx a third of my music transferred. the remaining music is now greyed out. when i click on information on the greyed out tracks, the location is given as iCloud. how do i download these songs?

benefit: To move the library in the future you drag the whole iTunes folder to the new drive, hold down the option key while starting iTunes, point to new location, iTunes starts as if nothing happened. You can also use the library with a different computer. It's easy to back up when it's all together.
You cannot simply move a media-only folder to a new drive by dragging unless you maintain the folder structure exactly, and the new drive has the same name as the old one. Yes, there's fixes but it's not as fast.
The main disadvantage to having the whole library on an external is if for some reason you keep some media on the external and some on the internal. You can use iTunes with a bunch of broken links for media on an unattached external if you only want to play the files on the internal. Then, of course, you need the library file (library.itl) on the internal drive.
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

How do I move an iTunes library from one external drive to another?

I need to move my iTunes library from one external disk to another, because the original disk is about to fail. So, I went into iTunes Perferences --> Advanced, and set the library to a new, empty folder on the new drive.
Nothing changed. I expected all my music to vanish from iTunes, so that I would have to re-import it. However, all the music remained, still on the old disk. At this point, if I were to recreate the library on the new disk, I would have all of my music twice.
Is it possible to move an iTunes library from one external drive to another, or am I stuck with my original choice until I buy a new machine? If I can move it, can one of you clever folks explain how it could be done?

Paul Seymour1 wrote:
However, those are all dealing with old versions of iTunes that still contained the Advanced --> Consolidate Library command which is no longer part of the app. (I'm on iTunes 10.6.1.)
Consolidate is still part of iTunes.
It is in iTunes menu File > Library > Manage library > Consolidate.
The article you linked to is old and it is (and was) a hacky way of doing it.
Just copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to new location, hold Option (Mac) or Shift (Windows) when launching iTunes.

How can I download my iMac iTunes library to an external drive and reload the library to iTunes on a PC?

How can I download my iMac iTunes library to an external drive and reload the library to iTunes on a PC?

Hi Niel. Can you be move specific for those of us not tech savy? 1 - Can you provide steps to back up the library? 2 - How do you organize the library? 3 - When you move the entire iTunes folder, does it include iTunes paid for music along with downloaded music from CDs? Thanks

Should I have my iTunes library on an external drive?

Just curious if I'm better off running all my iTunes music on an external drive as opposed to on my internal C drive? Same thing with iMovie project files? I thought it would be easier for the computer to access if it's on the internal drive, but someone told me I should put everything on an external. I'm confused. My external drive is USB 2.0 but whenever I try to access it after it's been dormant for a while I get the spinning beach ball until it's up to speed so I didn't know if that drive would slow things down. So I'm assuming that would be the case with iTunes music. But I know it's silly to assume. Anyway, all thoughts on the matter are appreciated.

I don't think it really makes a difference speed wise if you run your itunes off an external hard drive. Just be careful that you update your directory for itunes to point to the external. If you download any updates to itunes it will automatically reset your folder to point back to your c-drive. The best thing to do is to uncheck to selection to automatically update itunes software so you are not caught off guard with the updates resetting your itunes folder directory.

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.
To clarify; I want to move/relocate my iTunes Library folder to an external drive (FW800 two-disk RAID1) to free up my system drive and have a backup. Do I redirect iTunes to the new location and use File>Library>Consolidate Library, or, can I just move or copy the 'iTunes' folder to the external drive and then change the iTunes 'music folder location' to the new location? Will this now save all subsequent imported/purchased music, movies,,..etc to the external drive and retain all my library details?
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

How do i get my laptop to access the itunes library on my external drive hooked up to my desktop via my home network?

How do i get my laptop to access the itunes library on my external drive hooked up to my desktop via my home network?

If you are willing to pay $24.99 per year for iTunes Match you can put your library in the cloud provided you don't have more than 25,000 tracks.
iCloud- iTunes Match
iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match Availability
iTunes Store- Troubleshooting iTunes Match
iTunes- How to add a computer or iOS device to iTunes Match

Moving iTunes library to an external drive.

My startup disk is full so I would like to move my iTunes library to an external drive to fee up space. What is the best way to do this?

Our iTunes guru Terence Devlin advises the following:
1. Quit iTunes
2. Drag the iTunes folder from your internal hd - located in ~/Music folder - to your external hd. DO NOT delete the original one from your internal hd... yet!
3. When the transfer is complete, press and hold the Option(alt) key and fire up iTunes.
4. A "Choose iTunes Library" window will come up. Click on the "Choose Library" button.
5. Navigate to where the iTunes folder is located in the external hd.
6. Within the iTunes folder, select the iTunes Library file and click Choose...
That's it. iTunes will now display all your playlists, songs, movies, podcasts etc. At this point, should you wish, you can delete the iTunes folder from the internal hd to free up space.
More info:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
Or if you prefer a more complicated explanation:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

Itunes - problems transferring to external drive

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