Moving iTunes data to an external drive

My iTunes data is currenly 58gb. I would like to move it to an external drive. What do I need to copy to the external drive and how do I point iTunes to the moved files?

Do NOT copy the files yourself.
iTunes prefs -> Advanced.
Set the iTunes music folder location to the external.
Tick *Copy files to iTunes music folder location when adding to iTunes*.
Tick *Keep iTunes music folder organized*.
Then iTunes menu File -> Library -> Consolidate.
After it finishes, you can delete \Music\iTunes\\iTunes music\ folder. Delete ONLY the iTunes music folder.

Similar Messages

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

Moving iTunes Library to an external drive. My itunes cant connect to the library

I have tried to move my iTunes Library to an external drive. When I open the iTunes app i can not get the app to read the library on the external drive. I have gone into iTunes preferences and redirected the app to read the external file and I still look as though I have a "New iTunes program" with no music, apps, videos etc.
Thanks all!

If you moved the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder, hold "Option" and launch iTunes.
Select "Choose library" then select the iTunes folder you moved.
You do not need to change the iTunes media folder location in iTunes prefs > Advanced.

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.

Moving Itunes library to an external drive...how to?

I'd like to make room on my hard drive -- it's only 15GB. My Itunes and iphoto take up about 5gb by themselves. I'd like to move them to an external drive. I ain't the smartest cookie....is this easy to do?....moving the libraries that is?

I moved iTunes to an external hard drive a while ago. The move (using the above links) worked fine but the need to ensure the external drive was available whenever iTunes was launched was a major nuisance. I ended up keeping iTunes on the main hard drive and moving less critical stuff to the external drive. The same goes for iPhoto.
BTW, I recently upgraded my internal hard drive from 80Gb to 120Gb. Apple's Migration Assistant was brillant for doing this. I temporarily put the old hard disk in my external drive case and Tiger found the system and migrated apps and data with very few problems. I would recommend looking at this option for coping with ever-increasing iTunes storage demands rather than going to an external hard drive.

Moving iTunes folder to an external drive. How ?

My pBook 17" is bloated with iPhoto PICS and iTunes music store purchases. Moving the photo library, and running it off of the LACIE external FW 800 drive was easy. Not with iTunes. I moved the entire iTunes folder to the external, but every time I launch iTunes on the PBook it opens a blank library. How do I get iTunes to recognize the library on the external HD, without a lose of date added, etc. Apple Care was no help, and had no answer. BTW, after erasing the iTunes library from my PB HD, and moving the library back to the PB, everything works as normal. The iTunes library is 10 gB in size BTW.
thanks in advance, rick

It's not hard to overlook something obvious, happens to me too once in a while, so let's start from scratch.
Forget the KB article for know. I just performed all the steps in it on a 'test' account with a small (test) library, and could not detect any anomalies.
The article is OK, but might not be 100% clear (I second William's remark)
Steps to do:
• Quit iTunes (and other applications that use the EHD)
• Unmount and disconnect your external HD.
• Run iTunes and verify that you can play all music. If OK, then it has to be on the Powerbook. If you are presented with exclamation marks, it was already on the EHD.
• You've consolidated the Library a couple of times now, so it should be all together in ~Users/YourUsername/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music.
• Connect your EHD
• In iTunes, change the 'iTunes Music folder location' to the location on your EHD, where you want the music to be. To be sure, create a new folder.
• Now 'Consolidate Library...' again. iTunes will start copying the music. If it doesn't, I'll eat my hat (to be honest, I don't have a hat).
Let know what happens.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

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?

HT1364 If I already moved Itunes media folder to external drive and now music is not matching up in iTunes?

Dear Itunes Community~
This is my first time using glad you are here, but all the passwords!!
Question/Quandry:
If I already moved Itunes media folder to my external drive and now my music is not matching up in iTunes, what should I do? I have tried my solution !?, and now I have 17,000 songs, instead of 9,000!
Should I just uninstall Itunes, and then reinstall Itunes, and let it do it's thing, and then figure out how to move to the external hard drive later?
Help, I screwed it up all on my own!
Any/all help and Itunes educated suggestions appreciated!
Thank you very much,
Doris =:o
PS ~~ Is there anyway to easily delete duplicates?? Seems not?

I have a very similar problem. Hope I don't confuse people trying to help us since the solutions may be different.
I had my iTunes path directed to a 2nd internal hard drive. Everything was working fine - except I found that purchased Apps were still being downloaded to the Mobile Applications folder on my main hard drive instead of the 2nd internal drive. I decided to retry directing the iTunes path to my 2nd internal drive, hoping that might get iTunes to save my Apps there. Big Mistake. Suddenly, there were no Apps showing in my iTunes Library Apps window at all. I verified the downloaded apps are still in my main hard drive's Mobile Applications folder, but I cannot get iTunes to display them in my Apps Library window anymore.
I decided to try downloading a new app and, sure enough, iTunes once again downloaded it into the very same Mobile Applications folder on my main hard drive, where all my (now orphaned) original apps are, but the only one iTunes will only display in my Apps window is the new one. I read you can redownload purchased apps, but my apps are not missing. iTunes just won't display them in the Apps window anymore.

Moving iTunes library to an external drive that already has music on it?

I want an external drive that contains music to be designated as my iTunes library. How do I do it?
Note: I do not want to move an existing library to the external drive, just start fresh with the library on the drive.
Thanks!

pbay wrote:
I want an external drive that contains music to be designated as my iTunes library. How do I do it?
Note: I do not want to move an existing library to the external drive, just start fresh with the library on the drive.
welcome to the discussion area, pbay !
1) launch iTunes with the option key pressed. choose to create a new library when prompted.
2) in preferences > advanced make sure iTunes is pointed to the external drive and that +keep iTunes media folder organized+ and +copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library+ are checked.
3) from the iTunes file menu, choose +add to library+ and start populating iTunes with the tunes you want.
when you have added all tunes to your new library, make sure they play fine. right-click on random files and +get info+. look at the summary tab and check if the path leads to the correct location (your external drive).
when satisfied, the original files can be deleted.
happy computing ...

Moving iTune library to an external drive

Now I'm sure this topic has been covered many times before and I am aware of FAQ file on the Apple Web site about this subject. The problem is the instructions there don't work on my system. So here's what I want to do... I have a 500 GB Lacie usb hard drive connected to my iMac (1.83 intel dual core, 2 gigs ram running 10.4.11) I want to move my entire iTunes library, which is almost 11 Gigs in size, from my internal hard drive to the Lacie, delete it from the internal drive to free up space there, and then have iTunes access it and write to the external drive from now on. I want all my current settings including the various play lists to remain intact. In short I want nothing to change except that the current and future files are located on the external drive instead of my internal drive. How do I do this? (Assume that I'm really stupid) Thanks

You might find this article useful: iLounge - Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive

Moved itunes library to an external drive, what about apps folder?

This weekend, I decided to move my iTunes library (music, movies) off of my Macbook's hard drive to free up about 80GB. The new locaiton is an external hard drive that is connected via Airport Extreme. My media files on the Macbook were stored in a "Music" folder, not a "Media" folder, since I've been using iTunes for some time. I followed Apple's posted instructions. The relocating/copying all went well (playback from the new location works), but I have a question. I noticed that all music, movie, book, and other media files copied over to the new location except for my iPhone/iPad apps. Should I copy that Apps folder over from on the old location to the new one too? Please explain why and what you think might have happened. Thanks

Use File > Library > Organize Library > Rearrange files in the folder <Media Folder> to put the files in "new" (post iTunes 8) standard layout.
Note that if iTunes starts up and can't find the external drive it will reset the media folder to the original location. You may find this recent post useful.
tt2

How can i get to itunes to store all data on an external drive

how can i get to itunes to store all data on an external drive rather than the drive ITUnes run off. I can get photos and music off but my apps and movies seem to go to the drive where itunes is run from?

See if this helps:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364

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. .

Moving the iTunes library to an external drive

I followed the Apple article and successfully moved my iTunes library to an external drive. BUT, is the Album Artwork supposed to stay in the original location (internal drive)? Mine did, and I had to redownload album artwork again. HOWEVER, I don't have all my artwork since the transfer and since the redownloading of it.
Is it safe to drag the album artwork folder to the external? I don't want to mess anything up.
Thanks.

I followed the Apple article and successfully moved my iTunes library to an external drive.
which article (post a link) did you follow and what exactly did you move to the external ?

HT203167 Moved huge music library to external drive...now iTunes cannot find it

My massive music library was taking up all the room on my hard drive, so I moved everything to an external drive. I then deleted the library from my hard drive.
The music is located in a folder named "iTunes Music" on my external drive. iTunes cannot locate the songs now.
I've changed the media folder in preferences to: volumes/externalharddrive/iTunes Music and it still won't play the songs.
I've also tried selecting "Get Info" by right-clicking on a song, then manually directing iTunes to song. It will play that individual song, and asks me if I want to use the folder to find other songs. I click "Yes", but it's still not working.
Any ideas? I've searched these forums and I'm stumped.
Thanks!

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

Moving iTunes data to an external drive

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