Moving a music library from one external hard drive  / disk to another

My music library is already on an external hard drive and I want to move it to another external hard drive (along with the music filkes). I have follwed the standard setps of chaning the itunes folder location, keeping my itunes folder organised etc. When I come to consolidate my library it doesnt find anything or copy anything accross? Is it just looking on my MAC drive do you think? How can I get it to look on my 1st external hard disk?
Getting fed up with this now - must be the 4th time I've had to move libraries from one machine / disk to another and each time I always end up having to re rate music, or have lots of duplicates etc.

Hey,
There's a really good guide to moving your iTunes Library to an external hard disk on Lifehacker...
Here's the link... http://lifehacker.com/238296/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-ex ternal-drive
Cheers
Rosco
proposed | solution

Similar Messages

  • How to use one music library from one external hard drive on two different computers

    I have 57 gigs of music in my itunes library on my laptop (Windows Vista).  I backed up the library onto an external hard drive.  I would like to play the music on a second computer (Windows XP) without putting the music on the second computer, just keeping it on the external hard drive. 
    I have the latest version of iTunes and Quicktime installed.  In iTunes on both computers, under Advanced Preferences I changed the iTunes media folder location to the folder on the external hard drive and checked the boxes for "Keep iTunes media folder organized" and "copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library".  Also under the File tab, "Organize Library", I clicked on "Consolidate Files" and "Reorganize Files in the folder itunes music".
    On the second computer I tried holding SHIFT while launching iTunes until the prompt appears asking to create a new library or point to an existing library.  While attempting to point to the new location, I am only able to open the music folder, not set it as the location.  In advanced preferences when I click "change" for the itunes media folder location, I can locate the folder but the only button I can click on is "open" or "cancel".  "Open" will open the folder showing all my music.  I tried typing in the location.  It shows the correct location.
    I was able to see the songs in the library in itunes on the second computer but it won't play the music.  There are no exclamation points next to the songs.  I am also able to see the playlists but there aren't any songs in the playlists.
    There are no problems with itunes on the first computer.  Everything works as it should.
    Ideally I would like to use the same folder on the external hard drive for both computers if possible.  But for now I want to at least get the music playing with the playlists on the second computer from the external hard drive.
    Please help.

    See this post on making a split library portable.
    tt2

  • I transferred my iTunes library from one external hard drive to another and added more music on the same day. How do I get rid of my duplicate files without going through them one by one which would take forever?

    Please help. I have transferred my iTunes library from one external hard drive to another plus added additional music now I have duplicates of the same music in many albums. How do I delete the duplicates without going through them one by one which would take forever? I understand how to get the "show exact duplicate" feature up on iTunes but, because they were added to the library on the exact day I can't seperate them I'm that manner. So each duplicate is right next to eachother in the exact duplicate screen.

    My DeDuper script is designed to help clean up. See this thread for background.
    tt2

  • How do I move my iphoto library from one external hard drive to another?

    how do I move my iphoto library from one external hard drive to another?

    Drag it there in the Finder and then launch iPhoto with the Option key held down. Point it to the new instance of the library.
    (58012)

  • How to move mt itunes library from one external hard drive to another

    I would like to move my itun4es library from my external hard drive H to external hard drive M; how do I go about this? without losing items

    Short version: use the itunes consolidate command
    Long version: read this
    http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive/

  • HT1296 How do I transfer my music library from my external hard drive to my new PC?

    I saved all my music to an external hard drive so that it could be moved to my new PC.  All my song titles are showing up on the new PC, but whenever I try to play something, it says the file cannot be found.  If I plug the HD in, it will play the music.  As soon as I unplug the HD, I can no longer play anything.  My music library includes both items purchased from iTunes and music I added from CDs I own.  Please advise.  Thanks!

    you moved your music to an E-HD and connect it to a new computer
    ahdn when you play something it will only play when the e-hd is connected ?
    if so yeah sure thats the whole point
    if you want it on the new computer first copy the music to the new computers hd
    and then add it to itunes
    some of us wish to move our media to NAS's to save storage on our computers
    so if itunes would force the media added to the local hd of the computer we would become very upset
    though itunes does have settings to auto move added media to the local hd

  • Exporting an Apeture library from one external hard drive to another

    Whilst on the road I use a PowerBook G4 and I have my Aperture Library on an portable external hard drive. When I get back to base I would like to export this library from the portable to my main hard drive. Is this possible and if so can anybody please advise?

    I just got back from a three week trip to Yellowstone and used my MacBook Pro and Aperture to process over 3000 images while on the road. Got home, got on my home network, exported the Yellowstone project from my laptop to a drive on my G5, shutdown Aperture on the laptop (can't run two copies of Aperture at the same time), fired up Aperture on the G5 and imported the processed project into my main library. Slick! Can't even come close to doing that in LR (yet). Saved me a ton of time in getting a lot of the editing done during down time on the road and the integration into the existing library was very straight-forward. Quick final edit, select some of the better images, smart web gallery and a very quick web output. One of the easiest trip outputs I have had in years.

  • How do I get iTunes Match to upload my music library from my external hard drive?  It only got some of the music and not a lot of it at that.

    I'm trying iTunes Match and not having a great time of it so far.  It only got a fraction of my music from my music library.  I contacted support and they told me that it would recognize my external hard drive and take all of the music.  My collection is all from CDs with the exception of a few from iTunes.  I just want more of my collection to be available.
    Can anyone help with that

    The issue is not related to the external drive. iTunes Match has difficulties matching tracks ripped fom CDs because they may differ slightly from the versions on sale in iTunes. You can try the match again. Otherwise do a search of this forum. There are already many discussions on this subject here that may help you.

  • I moved my itunes media from one external hard drive to another. How do I change the shortcut on my desktop to open to the new external hard drive?

    Ok, so i originally installed itunes on an external hard drive (G drive) and not my PC. So my itunes runs completely from my external and that how I like it. Well over time it got full so I bought and moved all my media over to a bigger 2TB external hard drive (D drive). I verified that all the media (music, movies, tv show etc) are all on the new drive and everything points to it. However the itunes shortcut on my desktop still points to the G drive external. If I unplug it and try to open itunes it gives me an error. So I have to keep the G external drive plugged in just to launch itunes and then use my new D external to get the media. How the heck do I change that? I tried moving the itunes.exe file over to the new drive but that didnt work. I want it to run exclusively off the new D external. Please Help Me!!! I am using Win 7 if that helps.

    My DeDuper script is designed to help clean up. See this thread for background.
    tt2

  • Taking HOURS to copy music files from one external hard drive to another...

    Am I doing something wrong? Have a about 5,000+ songs on an external hard drive (hooked to my pc). I have networked the PC through my mac mini and I'm now copying those files onto a new/fresh external hard drive hooked to the mac mini. It's successfully copying the files but, when I started, the time remaining said, "About 15 hours"! (Is this for real??) Am I doing this right? It's now...finally down to "About 7 hours". But, I have a LOT more music to copy over. Is it normal for it to take THIS LONG?
    PLEASE HELP!

    Just to explain a bit about how this data transfer is far more than simply moving 5,000 songs:
    To copy or move each file, the system has to chop the file up into a series of 'packets' and transfer each of those in order. If you imagine each file as if it were a plate of food heaped up, each 'packet' is about a single spoonful. Each spoonful then needs a series of extra data to tell the system what's in the spoonful, which spoonful it is in the order of things, and how many spoonfuls in that plateful to expect. Added to the spoonful is additional data containing information that lets the receiving system check whether the spoonful arrived is complete, out of sequence, damaged or even lost.
    Each spoonful has to be sent one at a time, and the receiving system has to signal back to the sending system that it arrived before the next one is sent. Once the first plate has been sent, spoonful by spoonful, the system then moves onto the next plateful, until all 5,000 plates of food have been moved.
    If any spoonful is lost or damaged, the receiving system has to ask the sending system to have another go before moving on to the next. Add to that that it is not just the spoonfuls of songs being moved around, but also lots of other spoonfuls of stuff to keep the network connection open and each system aware of the presence and identity of the other, and any other networked device that is also running at the time, and you have a pretty slow means to move data around.
    The above is a pretty crude representation of how it works, but it does mean that while moving data around a network is not really slow, it's nowhere near as fast as moving data to locally connected drive. As such DaddyPaycheck is right - it would be much quicker to connect the external directly to the Mac and then copy the files to it.

  • How can I have iTunes read my music library from an external hard drive?

    I am trying to use an external hard drive with more memory to store my iTunes music and movie library.  How can I get iTunes to read this external hard drive?

    Move the library to the external drive in its entirety.
    Then in Perferences > Advanced for iTunes in the box labelediTunes Media foler location point iTunes to the location of the library on the external drive.
    Allan

  • How can I back up an IPhoto library from one external hard drive to another?

    Hey Folks, WIth your help I have consolidated my IPhoto libraries using IPhoto Library Manager. I'm storing it on an external hard drive because I have run out of space on my Macbook Pro. Now I'd like to back it up. I have another large external hard drive that is set to perform Time Machine backups on my Macbook. Is there a way to ALSO use it to perform occasional backups of my IPhoto library which, as I mentioned, is not kept on the Macbook itself?  Thanks in advance, David

    I do not understand your question
    The basic answer is that TM backes up everything that is not excluded - it backsup to the TM backup - it can not backup any files that are on the TM backup volume - only those on other volumes
    To remove an item form the excluded list select the item and click the "-" button
    See te FAQs for many more details - http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    Se the Apple article for basic set up and details - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
    LN

  • Moving iTunes library from one external hard drive to another, playlists

    Here's my question. I keep my iTunes library on an external drive. My 250GB extrernal drive is full, so I'm moving my entire library to a new 500GB hard drive.
    What do I have to do so my hundreds of playlists (most mixes with dozens of songs) still function once I've moved the music over?
    Do I delete everything from my old drive, then use the 'add to library' function on the entire new drive? If I do that, will iTunes be able to find the tunes in each playlist?
    Thanks!

    I DON'T MIND DRAGGING THINGS OVER; TH PROBLEM IS, WHEN I TRY TO PLAY PLAYLISTS AFTER MOVING STUFF TO THE NEW DRIVE, EVERY SONG WILL ASK "FILE NOT FOUND--WOULD YOU LIKE TO LOCATE IT?" WITH 50,000 mp3s, it will take forever to rebuild all my playlists. Is there a way to have iTunes search a new drive and recognize the songs as being the same as the ones on the old drive, so you don't have to do this manually?
    Also, if I do use the 'consolidate library' approach-- what happens if I drag all my other music folders into my itunes folder manually on the old drive, then try consolidate--will it copy EVERYTHING over to the new drive, or only the stuff that was in the iTunes music folder on the old drive from the beginning (since everything else I used "add to library' but not 'copy to itunes music folder'.
    iTunes should have some more built in utility options to allow it to find everything in the library when it moves to a new drive, even if one chooses to keep music in a different format than the 'itunes music folder' approach. .

  • How do I transfer/copy my itunes library from 1 external hard drive to another one?

    How can i transfer/copy my itunes library from 1 external hard drive  to another one?

    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449

  • HT1473 Help I just moved my music files to a external hard drive and am using the new crappy version ( i know my opinion) of itunes and cant add the files to my libray it gives me the add file to library option but not the add folder to library option wha

    Help I just moved my music files to a external hard drive and am using the new crappy version ( i know my opinion) of itunes and cant add the files to my libray it gives me the add file to library option but not the add folder to library option what am i doing wrong?

    In iTunes 11 uncheck the preferences setting in in the iTunes Preferences panel "Advanced > Copy Files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library"

Maybe you are looking for