Moving itunes from external hard-drive to another and using another comput

Hi,
This has probably been posted before but i couldn't find it.
My itunes works on another computer, with the library (Edit->Preferences->Itunes location as g:\itunes), this includes the xml files for the library.
I've now got a new laptop and external hard-drive and want to move the library onto the new hard-drive and use it on the new laptop.
I think i can copy the itunes folder from old hard-drive onto new one, then point the itunes install on the new laptop to the new harddrive and it should pick it up?
Any ideas?
Matt

Welcome to AD!
+this includes the xml files for the library.+
Does this also include the important itunes database file, the one with the ITL file extension?
If so, your idea should work. Use Windows Explorer to copy the ITL & music files/folders over to the new exHD.
Connect the new exHD to your laptop and make sure Windows sees it as drive G:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844
That is a very important step. Otherwise, iTunes will lose all the paths to the music.
Now start itunes on the laptop by pressing *and holding* the shift key. Tell it to use the ITL file on the G: drive. Then set your iTunes preoferences to have any future additions go to the G: drive music folder.

Similar Messages

  • Moving iTunes from external hard drive to new iMac

    I will be receiving a new iMac soon. Currently my iTunes is on an external hard drive.
    What are the steps I take to move the iTunes from my external hard drive to my new iMac's hard drive?

    The PC to MAC move complicates a few things, but this article seems to solve them.

  • HT1660 How do I run itunes from external Hard drive?

    How do I run itunes from external hard drive. I only have ssd on PC and media is too large to fit

    You do not.
    iTunes, like all programs is installed on the C drive.
    You can store the media on another drive.
    Assuming you are moving an existing library from another computer:
    Move or Copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder from the old computer to the new computer and put it where you want it.
    Install iTunes using the default options.
    Hold <SHIFT> while launching iTunes.  It will prompt to create a new library or locate an existing library.
    Select the option to locate an existing library.
    Point iTunes to the iTunesLibrary.itl file in the iTunes folder that was moved from the old computer.

  • How do I copy iTunes from external hard drive to iMac?

    How do I copy iTunes from external
    Hard drive to iMac?

    if your main library is on your external, then when not connected, you wont have access to it.
    so first decide, where do you want to keep the files.
    E.g. In my case, I keep my files on "C:\iTunes Music".
    I have a backup on external "Z:\iTunes Backup". If I format my laptop, this is how I restore everything.
    Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced.
    The iTunes music folder in selects as "C:\iTunes Music"
    I have checked Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized, and also Copy Files to iTunes Music folder when adding to ibrary". Click OK to save and close preferences.
    My iTunes list is now empty. I go to file, and select "Add Folder to Library". From that window, I select "Z:\iTunes Backup". iTunes then copies everything from the backup to "C:\iTunes Music". For me, backup is backup, I dont need it to play music.
    Now decide this. If you do not want to keep music on C:, but want to only connect the external to update music on your ipod, do this:
    In preferences, set iTunes Music folder as "Z:\iTunes Backup", and uncheck Copy files to iTunes Music folder, since they are already there. Then in files, select Add folder to library again to build and update the list.

  • Restoring itunes from external hard drive

    -I used WD backup program to store itunes on external hard drive
    -hard drive on mac pro crashed, replaced hard drive
    -trying to restore itunes songsa from external drive and when I copied songs from external hard drive to new internal hard drive which has itunes program, only song titles appear and track number for songs I ripped from CDs. All info is present for songs I purchased from itunes (why is there a difference in the way these two are restored???)
    -Can I restore itunes from external drive so that artist and album are associated with each song title I ripped from CDs?
    Much appreciate all assistance. Thanks.

    I know MP3 and AAC save tag data, and I believe AIFF does as well (if you want to keep them in full-quality but space-greedy format). I don't think WAV supports tagging which is why they were lost. Read:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9558241&#9558241
    This time make sure you have a complete backup of your itunes folder (which, in fact you may still have). That way you can recover your complete library and everything intact (as long as you keep your backups up to date).
    Here is a related topic
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9267109&#9267109

  • Moving songs from external hard drive to Itunes library

    I have a bunch of songs on an external hard drive, but my itunes library is on my pc.....I tried to add some of these songs to my library (i played the songs and they were automatically added to the library)....but when i inplugged the external hard drive from my pc and tried to play the songs from the library, it would not let me play them.....an error message came up that stated that the library could not find the device from which the songs came from....why is this?....is there another way to add these songs from the hard drive????

    why is this?
    The Windows version of iTunes doesn't copy content to the iTunes Music folder when importing from another hard disk by default. Connect the drive and choose Consolidate Library from th Library section of the File menu.
    (36713)

  • Is it really possible to operate iTunes from external hard drive?

    The internal hard drive on my Mac Book Pro is full and most of it is music for iTunes. I have been told that it is possible to operate iTunes from a library on an external drive but it hasn't worked for me. I have moved the iTunes folder on to my external hard drive. Then I did two things...First, I opened iTunes while pressing the "alt" key. Then I clicked on "choose library" and directed it to the iTunes folder on the external hard drive. Second, I opened Preferences>Advanced>iTunes Media Folder Location and then clicked on "Change" and directed that to the iTunes folder on my external hard drive. It should work right? Well, it worked the day that I did it but the next day I had "!" beside every song in my library of nearly 10,000 songs. It says that it can't find the location of the song file and asks if I would like to find it. When I show it where the file is it works but it will take me forever to do that with each individual song. Can this really be done successfully?

    One question. What is NAS?
    Here is a link http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751 . I did it exactly this way the first time I tried, including consolidating and the organize library part but it made a mess of my iTunes folder. Luckily I had it backed up on another partition of my hard drive using Time Machine. So, I deleted the iTunes folder and started over.
    I dragged the iTunes folder over last night to the partition on my hard drive that I want to operate iTunes from. It took about an hour or so to copy the files over but the iTunes folder looks organized the way it should be again. Then I Alt>Clicked on iTunes in the dock and picked create library. Then I directed it to the new iTunes folder. Next I chose preferences>Advanced>Change media folder location and directed that to the new Itunes folder. Then it asked me if I would like iTunes to organize the folder(or something to that effect). I can't remember exactly but I chose "No" or "Cancel" this time, I didn't the first time. It has been working ever since but I am waiting for something to go wrong. Because, it worked last time for a day and then stopped.

  • Moved iTunes to external hard drive, iTunes can't find location of music

    I recently moved my iTunes and library to an external hard drive as my laptop was running too slowly.
    Suddenly I can't play any music (only some podcasts) directly from my iTunes. Those selected in my iPod Selection folder will play on my iPod.
    There is an exclamation mark icon in the column next to the name. I've looked in the library and all the songs are there in .m4a format.
    Does anyone know what I can do??????
    Cheers
    Kate

    Windows will change the letter of the external drive you moved your stuff to inadvertently. If you go into control panel, computer management and drives. you will see the drives listed. Try changing the drive letter back to the original drive letter when you moved the files, right click on the external drive and change it back to f: or g:, making sure to unplug any other usb sticks/memory sticks drives you might have used since the last time you moved your files to the external drive. Do this a couple of times if it happens again and xp will remember to reserve that drive name for you.

  • How to get batch recognition of (!) on some tracks after moving library from external hard drive to new iMac (with terabyte hard drive)?

    I'm using Lion 10.7.2 and iTunes 10.5.2
    I have moved my iTunes music from an external hard drive onto my new iMac (with a terabyte hard drive) with music folder organized - when I try to play some tracks I get the iTunes can't locate warning and so I follow through and show iTunes the track - they are all in the music folder on my iMac hard drive - they all copied over and they all appear in the iTunes library list - so far as I can tell out of a 500 gigabyte music collection - but there are so many giving me the error - many other tracks function as they should too, some work others don't - So I'm looking for a way to get all the error tracks fixed in a batch correction way. Doing this individually with each track just isn't realistic.
    Can anyone suggest how I might fix this issue?
    Also, after I show iTunes the song location and it plays, I get a find files prompt that looks like it wants to find other files, but that just causes the process to jam and I have to force quit iTunes and then it doesn't remember what I last showed it next time I open iTunes.
    Also I'm trying to avoid the use of the consolidate function because that would copy a whole other set of music - not in iTunes - that is in the process of being edited (audio hijack pro and fission tools being used to put vinyl and tapes to mp3) But all that other music just means the consolodate function across my whole computer would be too much.

    Some details seem to be coming into focus - I have started scrolling through the main library list A to Z repairing tracks individually (there are thousands, but it's what works so far) - as I work through, it appears the problem occurred on tracks where album artist metadata was different than song artist metadata, predominantly. I'm not sure that is 100% the case in every instance, but that is what it's looking like. I don't why that happened, must be some technical glich I guess.
    Also, I tried running Doug's Scripts - the one titled, iTunes Track CPR v1.3 - it is supposed to fix exactly the kind of issue I'm having - I bet it would work for some people with a similar issue - but for my case it only identifies the 'de-linked' tracks and doesn't repair them - that is at least helpful as I scroll though to fix them - I can see exactly which tracks have the issue quickly after running that script - but iTunes doesn't remember that warning symbol after a log-out, so it's only worth running the script on a set of tracks I intend to review and fix in any given session at a time.
    If you are interested, Doug's free scripts can be found at
    http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=itunestrackcpr
    there are other interesting and useful iTunes scripts there too...
    also, unrelated to the issue I'm having, I found a lot of really useful and time saving metadata fixing free scripts at - hubi's iTunes scripts - the page isn't English, but the script download is easy to find -
    hubi's scripts work for batch selections of tracks - so if you import an album and find the metadata screwed up somehow, you can select the whole set of screwed up tags at once (even across a series of albums), run the easy to use script, and watch it all be fixed automatically while you sit back and relax...
    http://hubionmac.com/wordpress/category/softwareschmiede/applescripting/itunes/
    just for reference, here is a sampling of what hubi's scripts can do...
    there are other useful scripts out there - the tough part can be finding the one that helps you...
    01-(un)capitalizes
    01-(un)capitalizes
    This script changes.... THIS TEXT into This Text... or this text
    01-Delete spaces
    Sometimes invisible blanks are behind an artist name or album name...this script deletes these blanks behind or infront of the strings
    01-Delete x first-last chars. of Title
    A Name like "01--Ray Of Light" will be changed to "Ray Of Light" and the01 will be entered in the tracks tracknumber id3 field =)
    01-fix combined Artist-Title
    Sometimes Tracknames look like:
    "Madonna---Ray of Light" and in the artist field you see something like"Ripped by Me"... this script puts Madonna back to the right field... all youhave to do is to enter the right delimiter ("---" in this case)
    01-switch Artist<->Title...
    Switch ID3 field a with ID3 field b (not only Artist with Title any more =)!
    01-z_filename ->Title
    Sets the ID3 field Title to the track's filename)
    01-z_trackNr-Filename->ID3
    When a track's filename look like "01-Madonna-Ray of Light.mp3" andyou don't have the track's tracknumber stored in the ID3 Tag... this Scriptcan do this for your =)

  • Problem running Itunes from external hard drive- Please Help!

    So, last night I transferred my entire music folder over to an external hard drive. It copied all the files and I then proceeded to tell itunes where my new music folder was located. The problem I ran into was when I actually deleted the music files from my internal hard drive my library won't automatically find the files. When I click on a song it comes up with an error message saying, "original file cannot be found, would you like to locate file?". If I tell it yes, I can then manually tell it where the file is, and it will play. I'm really hoping there is an easier way around this issue because going in and doing this for every song in my library would take years. Should I clear out the library and then drag it from the external hard drive? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.
    Sean

    I am experiencing a similar problem. I already had all my files on an external drive, where I had transfered them a few months back, and everything was working fine. I have now moved them, again, to a larger external drive, did everything the same, but now receive the message "original file cannot be found, would you like to locate file?" I was advised to use the "add to library" button under "FILE" in the menu bar and all the music was finally imported into iTunes, but the problem now is that the new data on the music files is missing all the metadata, and I am still stuck with all the original files with the "!" in front of each file that is going to have to be manually deleted one file at a time, all 30,000 of them. I would like a way to start over and get it right the first time. Anyone have any solutions? I have found a program, "Super Remove Dead Tracks" which should solve the problem of eliminating the "!" tracks, but so too all the metadata. Ideally I'd like to be able to locate the original files with all the attached metadata and get back to where I was 24 hours ago.

  • Moved itunes to external hard drive - Keep getting ipod recovery/ restore

    I moved itunes to an external hard drive and have had problems ever since. My itunes application seems to be fine but it keeps telling me that I cannot use itunes until I restore the ipod. I've followed the instructions to both restore AND change drive but nothing is working. Any suggestions anyone? Thx!

    Thanks so much for taking the time to help me. I followed the instructions in the post, and was able to recover a substantial part of my library in iTunes. But now I'm worried that when I synch my iPod to iTunes, it will reduce the content on the iPod to match iTunes. I searched more in the discussions, and see that I might be able to use 3rd party software to copy from iPod to iTunes. any advice if I go that route? Thanks again!

  • Moved iTunes to external hard drive, now library is empty

    I moved my iTunes ver 7 from my full hard drive to an external hard drive. It worked fine, was able to synch iPod. Then I upgraded to ver 8.0.2 and when I open iTunes the library is empty. I changed the "path" in the Preferences/Advanced window but it didn't help. I know my music is still there- the folder shows 38.0 gb, but how do I get iTunes to find it? Thanks for any help.

    Thanks so much for taking the time to help me. I followed the instructions in the post, and was able to recover a substantial part of my library in iTunes. But now I'm worried that when I synch my iPod to iTunes, it will reduce the content on the iPod to match iTunes. I searched more in the discussions, and see that I might be able to use 3rd party software to copy from iPod to iTunes. any advice if I go that route? Thanks again!

  • Running Itunes from external hard drive

    I have transferred my itunes to an external hard drive. I have changed the save to loaction in the preferences, advanced window. When I connect my IPod to the computer, it tells me that it is synced to another and asks if I want to erase and resync. When I tell it yes, it says that the lib. is empty and all songs will be erased off of the IPOD, do I wnat to continue. Can any one help.

    I have a similar situation.
    I had over 6000 songs on an original 20" iMac, and I had the entire library backed up on an external HD. The iMac is currently in the repair shop, from which it may never emerge in working condition.
    I removed the entire iTunes library from my MacBook Pro (which contained no music because the computer has only a 120 GB HD) and I can get to the backup on the external HD (press Shift while starting iTunes) and see all the music. However, when I try to play any song for the first time I first have to migrate to the specific file in the Finder. Thus, it is totally impractical to attempt to manage a 6000 plus song collection in this way.
    Is there an automatic way to locate each of the songs or is this manual process the only solution?
    Thanks for your help.
    Barrie

  • Moving music from external hard drive to i-tunes

    Please I need some help with moving music on an external hard drive to my i-tunes library. I think that I have cut and pasted it to i-tunes from this hard drive but once the hard drive is disconnected...i-tunes can not find it. I would appreciate a step by step run down on how I might do this

    Rosanne Maitland wrote:
    Please I need some help with moving music on an external hard drive to my i-tunes library. I think that I have cut and pasted it to i-tunes from this hard drive but once the hard drive is disconnected...i-tunes can not find it. I would appreciate a step by step run down on how I might do this
    I am having the same problem, only with music I import into iTunes from a CD. The tracks will import, and will synch to my Ipod, but will not play in iTunes unless the original, source CD is in the computer. It seems to me that once iTunes "accepts" imported tracks, it should play them, whether the source CD is present or not.
    I suspect that iTunes will be able to "find" all of your songs, and play them, provided the original source (hard drive) is hooked back up to your computer.
    But you shouldn't have to do that. iTunes will play most imported tracks without requiring the source to be present. Puzzling.

  • Mp3 files wont import into itunes from external hard drive

    I just switched from PC to Mac and have the new aluminium mac book.For my PC I had all my music stored on my external hard drive.I have begun transferring most of it to itunes,but some of the files since hooking my external hard drive to my Mac book have turned into 'Apple Files' which appear to be document files as opposed to music files.Is there a way that i can convert them into the itunes format?
    Message was edited by: KatesM

    WMA is not supported directly by iTunes. In iTunes for Windows, you can convert (but not play) these files, as long as they're not copy protected, to an iTunes-supported format.
    Short of running Windows on your new Mac and handling this with iTunes for Windows, or using another (your old?) PC to convert the WMA files to another format (I would suggest using Apple Lossless, as otherwise you will lose some sound quality unnecessarily--unless the WMAs are WMA Lossless...), your only other option would be to play the files with software for OS X other than iTunes. In that case, you might consider VLC, which is handy for almost countless other audio and video files anyway.

Maybe you are looking for

  • File not found

    Hi folks, I have created the logical filepath and the physical file. DESCRIBE TABLE REFUND (itab) LINES COUNTK. IF COUNTK GT 0. SORT REFUND BY SSN. CALL FUNCTION 'FILE_GET_NAME'    EXPORTING       LOGICAL_FILENAME = 'Z_XYZ'     WITH_FILE_EXTENSION =

  • Installing additional ram memory

    I am trying to install memory in my Mac Pro, but some of the risers come upon the hardware configuration panel as empty.  I have moved around the memory modules and they all work, but just not when they are all installed at once.  I have two sets of

  • PRS-T1 stuck in infinite reboot loop after failed firmware update

    Hi, I tried to update the firmware, but failed when updating to version 1.0.07.05070. Tried to 2 times. The first time it failed I simply tried again. The second time, it took a lot longer to reach the failed to update message, but it did cause the e

  • Problem at startup with all CS3 products

    hello it's a couple of day that i'm not able to open any program of CS3.. I work on a MacBook (black version) with Tiger 10.4.11 Is someone having the same problem? I think that maybe this can have something to do with the OSX update I installed on S

  • TX2-1275dx has Blank Screen

    I have a TX2-1275dx.  Screen is now blank all the time & I get no image to an external monitor.  Is the graphics adapter on the motherboard or separate?  The buttons light up on the screen's bezel but that's it.  The tablet appears to be boot up but