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

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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 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

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.

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

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 ?

Moving my library to an external drive.

It is time to retire my G5 and move everything to my MacBook Pro. I moved my iTunes library to an external drive and can use it on the G5 but I'm not sure I can use it on my MacBook Pro. I'm afraid to try. If I followed the support directions for moving my iTunes music folder should I be OK to try?

It should be Ok, just make sure your library is backed up.

Why can't I access my itunes library on an external drive?

Hi -- I successfully moved my itunes library to an external drive a few months ago, and all was going well - I added content to it several times. For some reason now I can't access it, and when I tried to burn a CD into itunes, it created a new library that is on my hard drive. I have done the thing where I go into preferences and select the external drive as the library, but I still can't get to the external drive.
This is particularly urgent because I have a 2-week old baby and I am trying to burn one of those awful "soothing sounds" CDs so I can play it on my ipod while he is sleeping. Thank you!

If the iTunes Library.itl file is also on the external drive, try launching iTunes while holding down the Shift key, and when the dialog window opens that allows you to create a new library or open an existing one, choose to open an existing one, navigate to the folder that contains that library file and select it.
If that works, note for the future that if you launch iTunes when that external drive isn't mounted, iTunes will default back to the normal location on the internal drive and you'll have to repeat the Shift-launch process.
Hope this helps.

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

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

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.

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