Moving Files to an External Drive

I need some help.... I just bought a new external USB drive. (1 TB) and I am now wanting to move some of the bigger files (all my iTunes library, iPhoto library, and iMovie library) to the external drive. I want to do it with the littlest amount of disconnivence possible. In other words, I don't want any messages showing up telling me that it can't find the files. So I suppose what I am asking is what is the best, and easiest way to go about moving files to the drive. Thanks

if you don't want to move your entire home folder, then the easiest way to do this is by using symbolic links.
Use my [post|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7044223&#7044223] for instructions. It explains how to do it for the Documents folder but you can do the same with your Music or Movies folders.

Similar Messages

Why doesn't my disk space free up after moving files to an external drive?

I have a 750GB internal HD but film a lot of movies. To free up space, I have moved my iMovie clips off to a secondary hard drive, but I have not seen my free disk space free up on my Macbook pro. Why is this? I moved, not copied the files. They only show now on the external hard drive.
I am looking at the free space in Finder > Get Info.
I have easily moved a few hundred GB off to the new drive, but my internal HD still shows as over 500Gb used.
Help!

Have a look Here...
Where did my Disk Space go?
And Here...
http://macmost.com/what-to-do-when-your-hard-drive-is-full.html

Moving LR files from one external drive to another

How do I move LR image files from one external drive to another external drive?

Move the photos using your operating system and then re-connect in Lightroom following these instructions: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders
Do not use this as an opportunity to re-arrange folders or move photos from folder to folder. Just move the entire "tree" of folders.

Moving LR files to an external drive

I know this has been answered a zillion times, but help me out.
My internal drive is filling up and I want to move some of my LR files to an external drive. How do I move them? Do I need to reindex? How do I do that? thanks

I suggest you move them within your library so that LR will keep track of them.

Moving Lossless files to an external drive

How do I move Apple Lossless files to an external drive & still have iTunes know about them?
When I started ripping my CD collection I encoded them with Apple Lossless. Then I converted each track to AAC.
Why? Well, on the basis that I wanted to have a high quality version of each track (you never know when it might be useful). Of course, I wanted the AAC version for my iPod.
Now my internal drive is getting full so I want to be able to move all the Lossless files to my Lacie Drive BUT not loose them from my iTunes library.
Any help and advice would be very much appreciated.

I think I've figured out how to do what you want. Here are some steps. The following assume that you don't use the "part of a compilation" option or don't care if this option gets reset.
1. Move all of your music to the external drive. To do this:
1.a. Open iTunes preferences, Advanced panel. Make sure "copy music into itunes library" and "keep itunes library organized" are checked.
1.b. Still in iTunes preferences, change the location of your iTunes Music Library (under Advanced) to the folder on the external drive where you will eventually want to store all of your lossless files.
1.c. Choose Advanced|Consolidate library, and wait while iTunes copies all of your music to the external drive.
2. In iTunes, select all of your lossy files (i.e. the files you want on your internal drive). Press Command-I to get info about these songs and then check the "Part of a Compilation" option. Press "ok". (iTunes may take some time to complete this step.)
3. In iTunes, select all of your lossless files, and un-check the "Part of a Compilation" option.
4. Re-open iTunes preferences, and change your iTunes library location back to the place (probably on your internal drive) where you'd like to keep your lossy files. If it asks you something about copying files to be consistent with your options, choose "no".
5. Now, open finder and find the folder you specified in step 1. Open it and the "iTunes Library" folder inside it. You should now have a folder for every artist in your iTunes library. There should also be a folder entitled "Compilations". Drag this folder into the "Library" icon in your iTunes window. Wait while iTunes copies all of your lossy songs back onto your internal drive.
6. If the "Compilations" folder you dragged in step 5 still exists, you should be able to delete it, as all of its contents should now be in a similar "compilations" folder in the folder you specified in step 4. (Check this before deleting, though!!!)
You're done. All of your lossless files are on the external drive. All of your lossy files are on the internal drive and you shouldn't have lost your ratings, etc. (At least, these steps worked for me, using the latest version of iTunes.) You can even change the "part of a compilation" settings as much as you please.
Good luck!

Help - moved itunes folders to external drive and now my itunes is totally

A few months ago, in order to free up space on my c drive, i had to purchase an external drive - everything i installed via itunes since that date has been on the hard drive and everything was fine.
Last night i needed more room on my C drive so i stupidly moved the remaining itunes folders from my C drive to my F drive - unfortunately, when i opened itunes it was blank.
i've tried a few things - including adding the folder from the F drive - and that retrieved about 80% of my music/videos and the last playlists i had - however, they were all missing songs - even if all the songs that should be included remained on my itunes
i began the tedious process of manually adding files back in but soon realized this doesn't help itunes consider this the same ipod as what's still on my actual ipod.
*What I'd like to do (if possible) is to wipe itunes clean and somehow restore everything on my ipod into itunes so that i retrieve not only the songs and videos but also the playlists that i've spent way too much time building. At this point i fear that the various components to my ipod are in too many files on my external drive to be easily restored another way (though if i'm wrong please let me know)*
sadly (as this story might suggest) I am borderline computer illiterate - I've read a few posts suggesting some sort of software online (something the apple help line also made an "off the record" remark about) - but I can't for the life of me figure out which i would use or how to do this without risking the contents of my existing ipod (which has the playlists and songs/video I want to reestablish).
*Can anyone possibly suggest how to best handle this and walk me through it in painstakingly basic and specific detail? I would be forever grateful.*
Thanks

iTunes uses the iTunes Library files - in particular the iTunes Library.itl file - to keep track of where your song files are located as well as playlist and related information.
Most likely in moving your folders around iTunes has been confused to such an extent that it created a new Library file. With a bit of luck you might still be able to find the old file which would restore your old Library.
So the first thing you want to do is look around your computer and make a note of any iTunes Library.itl files you can find. Generally speaking you'll find them in the iTunes folders on your system and depending on how you've been moving the folders - i.e. whether you "cut" them or "copied" them - you may still find at least one one on your F: drive and some on your C: drive.
Having noted where they are you know want to check each of them out as described in this article in the Apple Knowledge Base. In following those instructions you want to select the Choose Library option and use the pop-up window that appears to zero in on the various .itl files you've located.
Remember that each Library file will show a different Library in iTunes - perhaps slightly different, perhaps completely different - and if the first one isn't what you're looking for you'll have to close iTunes and repeat the procedure by selecting one of the other .itl's.
Post back for any clarification.

Trying to backup one of my iPhoto libraries I keep getting a error message that basically says that the file could not be backed up because there is another file on the external drive with the same name, etc. There is no other file.

While trying to copy one of my iPhoto libraries to an external hard drive I get the following error message "You can’t copy “iPhoto Library old” because it has the same name as another item on the destination volume, and that volume doesn’t distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames." There is no other file on the external drive with this name. I have asked this question before and was told that there are some duplicate photos (files) in my library and I needed to go to "show file contents" and look at certain files to find duplicates and delete the duplicates. I did all of this and the library will still not copy and always stops copying in the exact same place on each attempt. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You've been deleting your actual Photos.
Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things, deleting them or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.
Best way forward now is to recover the surviving Originals from this library and start over from scratch.
Regards
TD

Copying Files To/From External Drive: Error -36

I recently purchased a WD 700 GB drive that I'm using as a network drive using AirportExtreme. Today, while trying to copy files from either of my internal drives to the WD drive, I get error -36 messages. If I'm copying a folder of files and click on the option "skip" after receiving an error message for a particular file then the entire copy transaction aborts. I have taken the following steps:
1) Disconnected WD from netywork and connected it directly to my G5.
2) Ran Disk Utilities and got 1 error on 1 of the 3 partitions which was repaired.
3) Re-ran Disk Utilities and got no error.
Tried moving folders of files and groups of files from WD to G5 and received same error -36 message.
Tried moving folders of files and groups of files from G5 to WD and received same error -36 message. Cannot move even a single file - of ANY size - w/o getting error -36 message.
4) Checked permissions and "ignore ownership" settings on volumes concerned then logged in under root.
Same problem continues. Tried moving files between my internal drives - no problem. Now here's the thing: the only files I have moved to the WD drive thus far are my music files. The iTunes Library on my G5 is pointed at an iTunes folder with these files inside. Last 2 weeks or so there's been no problem.
I NEED TO GET THESE MUSIC FILES OFF or COPIED or BURNED to another disk. In that vein I tried:
5) Unsuccessfully creating an image file of the files on the WD but always ended up with a much too small and empty .dmg file.
6) Burning files to DVD - same error -36 messages.
7) Repaired permissions on my G5 - just 'cause. No help.
8) Re-ran Disk Utilities on WD: repairs not needed.
9) Re-booted; error -36 messages continue to pop up.
I'm at a loss as to what to do and am especially peeved because I bought the WD at the suggestion of a clerk at the Apple Store even after I pointed out to him that the WD was getting very mixed reviews on Apple's site. I'm not angry with the clerk but at myself for purchasing the WD even with my misgivings.
How can I copy to another disk the ONLY copy of my music files from the WD drive so I can either reformat or return it?
Dual 2 GHz G5, 17" MacBook Pro, MacMini, Apple iPhone Mac OS X (10.4.10) 2 Apple 20" Cinema Display, Proview 17" display, External Acomdata Disk Drive

A couple of ideas:
1. Do you have an iSight camera or an iPod connected to another Firewire port? If so, unplug them so that the only Firewire device is the drive.
2. Unplug everything except the keyboard and mouse and download and reapply the 10.4.10 COMBO update. Make sure no other program is running when you apply the update, and do nothing whatsoever until the update finishes.
3. Have you tried plugging the drive into another computer to see if it works? If so, copy files off on the other computer and burn them from there.
4. Does your iTunes work and access the files? Have you tried creating CDs from iTunes?
If all else fails and you have a spare drive slot in the G5 that will take the type of drive in the enclosure, you could always try removing it from the enclosure and putting it into the G5 and see if it works there. The problem could be the innards of the drive enclosure rather than the drive itself.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Moving iTines to an external drive

I want to take iTunes and move it in its entirety to an external drive. So far, I've only been able to copy the program and my music, not move it. Any ideas?

The iTunes applcation must be on the boot (C:) drive.
To move your iTunes files to an external drive...
Quit iTunes.
Move the entire iTunes folder (My Documents/My Music/iTunes on XP and /Music/ iTunes on Mac) including music to the external drive.
Click on the iTunes icon to start it, then immediately press an hold the Shift key in Windows, Option key in Mac.
iTunes will ask to Create new library or Choose existing library. Select Choose existing library and select the library in the folder you just moved.
Move the old iTunes folder to the trash but do not empty it.
Restart iTunes normally and verify the songs work. If they do, empty the trash.

Copying large file sets to external drives hangs copy process

Hi all,
Goal: to move large media file libraries for iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie to external drives. Will move this drive as a media drive for a new iMac 2013. I am attempting to consolidate many old drives over the years and consolidate to newer and larger drives.
Hardware: moving from a Mac Pro 2010 to variety of USB and other drives for use with a 2013 iMac. The example below is from the boot drive of the Mac Pro. Today, the target drive was a 3 TB Seagate GoFlex ? USB 3 drive formatted as HFS+ Journaled. All drives are this format. I was using the Seagate drive on both the MacPro USB 2 and the iMac USB 3. I also use a NitroAV Firewire and USB hub to connect 3-4 USB and FW drives to the Mac Pro.
OS: Mac OS X 10.9.1 on Mac Pro 2010
Problem: Today--trying to copy large file sets such as iTunes, iPhoto libs, iMovie events from internal Mac drives to external drive(s) will hang the copy process (forever). This seems to mostly happen with very large batches of files: for example, an entire folder of iMovie events, the iTunes library; the iPhoto library. Symptom is that the process starts and then hangs at a variety of different points, never completing the copy. Requires a force quit of Finder and then a hard power reboot of the Mac. Recent examples today were (a) a hang at 3 Gb for a 72 Gb iTunes file; (b) hang at 13 Gb for same 72 Gb iTunes file; (c) hang at 61 Gb for a 290 Gb iPhoto file. In the past, I have had similar drive-copying issues from a variety of USB 2, USB 3 and FW drives (old and new) mostly on the Mac Pro 2010. The libraries and programs seem to run fine with no errors. Small folder copying is rarely an issue. Drives are not making weird noises. Drives were checked for permissions and repairs. Early trip to Genius Bar did not find any hardware issues on the internal drives.
I seem to get these "dropoff" of hard drives unmounting themselves and other drive-copy hangs more often than I should. These drives seem to be ok much of the time but they do drop off here and there.
Attempted solutions today: (1) Turned off all networking on Mac -- Ethernet and WiFi. This appeared to work and allowed the 72 Gb iTunes file to fully copy without an issue. However, on the next several attempts to copy the iPhoto and the hangs returned (at 16 and then 61 Gb) with no additional workarounds. (2) Restart changes the amount of copying per instance but still hangs. (3) Last line of a crash report said "Thunderbolt" but the Mac Pro had no Thunderbolt or Mini Display Port. I did format the Seagate drive on the new iMac that has Thunderbolt. ???
Related threads were slightly different. Any thoughts or solutions would be appreciated. Better copy software than Apple's Finder? I want the new Mac to be clean and thus did not do data migration. Should I do that only for the iPhoto library? I'm stumped.
It seems like more and more people will need to large media file sets to external drives as they load up more and more iPhone movies (my thing) and buy new Macs with smaller Flash storage. Why can't the copy process just "skip" the parts of the thing it can't copy and continue the process? Put an X on the photos/movies that didn't make it?
Thanks -- John

I'm having a similar problem. I'm using a MacBook Pro 2012 with a 500GB SSD as the main drive, 1TB internal drive (removed the optical drive), and also tried running from a Sandisk Ultra 64GB Micro SDXC card with the beta version of Mavericks.
I have a HUGE 1TB Final Cut Pro library that I need to get off my LaCie Thunderbolt drive and moved to a 3TB WD USB 3.0 drive. Every time I've tried to copy it the process would hang at some point, roughly 20% of the way through, then my MacBook would eventually restart on its own. No luck getting the file copied. Now I'm trying to create a disk image using disk utility to get the file from the Thunderbolt drive and saved to the 3TB WD drive. It's been running for half an hour so far and appears that it could take as long a 5 hours to complete.
Doing the copy via disk image was a shot in the dark and I'm not sure how well it will work if I need to actually use the files again. I'll post my results after I see what's happened.

Moved iTunes media to external drive but...

Hello all,
I followed the instructions for moving my iTunes media folder to an external drive (it had taken up most of my mac book's memory) and at first I was able to access the DVDs and CDs I had ripped but no longer. I can go into the external drive and they are still in their respective folders but only the music and movies I have purchased from the iTunes store show up in my library. Does anyone know how to get my iTunes to accept these into my library without re-importing the into my hardrive?
Thanks much,
Nick

Which instructions? There's lots out there and some are flat wrong.
Close down iTunes. Turn on the external drive and start iTunes again. Does it work? If not try to play a track. When it asks you to find the file it should play, find that file on the external drive. It should ask if you want it to find the rest.
I suspect you have omitted details in describing the situation. Normally iTunes does not lose links to external files unless the drive is not on when iTunes is started. Even then trying to play a file will get it to do a second check and find the drive is really there. You probably have to do something such as renaming the drive, or have a completely corrupt library in order for it to lose track of the media.
Unless you have to keep only media on the external drive it is much better to keep the whole library together. Make a split library portable

Problem while transferring files within my external drive

Hi!
I hope you can help me with my problem. Here's what happened:
I just copied a bunch of files from my MBA to my external drive and it went flawlessly. Then i tried to copy one file in the external drive to another folder when i was prompted that "the operation can't be completed because an item with the name " " already exists." I was puzzled, so i checked the folder, there's no such file in it. So i dragged the file again to the folder and assumed that it was transferred successfully because the file disappeared from the root folder, but there was no "transferred sound" when it was "moved." I tried with another file, same message. Dragged it again to another folder and i was prompted with an error but the file disappeared from the root folder. So again i assumed it was transferred. A few minutes later i opened the folder again but my file was nonexistent. I tried "unhiding" hidden files using Terminal, and yet it's still nowhere to be found. It is not in the Trash bin either. Is there some way that i could retrieve/recover this file? I fear that it might have been deleted permanently from my external drive! The file is very, very important for my work. Thanks very much to anyone who could help me with this. xx
Some important info:
Device: Macbook Air late 2013
HDD: Toshiba 1 TB (NTFS) -- I have Paragon v10.0.2 installed

Tuxera eh, you went from bad to worse. That program brings new definition to the slang 'iffy'
Did you keep your resident file on your Air's SSD ?
never operate on a single backup #1
secondly, ext. HD are cheaper than dirt, purchase a couple and format them for your Mac, and unless its a necessity, dont use as a constant communication software for NTFS drives.
if you need a HD for PC / Mac, format one on your PC for EXFAT for read /writes / transfers to and from your PC and Mac.

How to trasfer Iphoto pictures files into an external drive

My Mac book pro version of OS X 10.8.5 is running out of storage space, and is working very slow. I would like to maximize my files nto an external Drive, I have a seagate 1TB portable, and I would want to move the Iphotos and all my pics in it. I don't know if it make sense. I have only 44. GB avail out of 332. and I don't know how to maintain my main Hard drive back up and create a new external moving only the pictures there. is it even possible to have an outer disk as resource for you IPhoto? or should I take all the photos out of Iphoto? and is yes how?
I appreciate anybody that could give me a clue!
Thanks ,
Jade

Assuming you're using the default Managed Library:
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

Moving iTunes Library to External Drive

Hey there,
I would like to free up 25GB of space on the hard drive of my computer by moving my music library to my external drive.
I tried once to have iTunes consolidate the library onto the external drive, and by doing that iTunes had difficulty locating the music on the hard drvie and the external drive. I had iTunes reload all of the songs off of my main computer and in doing so, I managed to lose all of the information from each song. Album art, lyrics, comments, some dates and genres were all wiped out. So now I had a huge collection of tunes that had none of that information and they all had the same date of being aquired. I have since repaired the blank-out by readding all of the information. I would still like to have my music folder on the external drive and I want to keep all of the information as well.
I currently have the music files on the external drive as back up incase something happens to my computer. I just dragged and copied the I Tunes music folder onto the hard drive icon.
I am wondering if there is a way that I can have my music library on the external drive, without the danger of having all of the additional information wiped out?
Thanks for your time with helping,
IslandB
Cicero Windows XP

iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
The above article includes moving the folder to an external drive.
Patrick

Video + music missing after moving iphoto + itunes to external drive

There is probably a really obvious answer to this but I have tried searching without success. I have just moved my iphoto and itunes libraries to an external drive to free up space on my HD. Do I have to do the same with imovie in order for the music and iphoto video clips in my existing projects to work properly? Or can you redirect iMovie 09 to look for these files on the external drive (as you do with iphoto and itunes)?
At the moment in imovie the iphoto video icon still appears under my HD even though I have moved the library and the iphoto video clips and itunes tracks I've used in my projects are now labelled missing with yellow exclamation marks. How do I fix these broken links? I understand I can drag events over to the ext drive but my iphoto videos are not listed as an event.
Many thanks!

UPDATE! According to Apple support, there is no way to re-link those assets. They suggested two options, 1) recreate the folder structure with the missing music on HD1. I tried that but was unsuccessful. 2) Place the music again into the project. I have a lot of music with edits and did not want to use this time consuming approach, but surprisingly after replacing the first song, all the songs updated. Unusual workaround. HTH, Scott

Moving Files to an External Drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for