Moving iTunes library to ExHD causes DOZENS of duplicates

Hello,
i am sure this has been asked many times i just can not fid it in the forums i have looked at 54 pages...
i have moved my library twice now and every time i do duplicates are suddenly in mass!
i am getting ready to move my library one more time to a new ExHD and was hoping someone had a way of doing it without iTunes creating those duplicates.
i have a MacBook my library is stored on a ExHD firewire Lacie
thanks

Like i said i ejected the HD that held that file.
You didn't state the _iTunes folder_ was on the external. You said you moved the _iTunes music folder_ to the external.
Does iTunes need to know it was thrown out ?
That file is required by iTunes. You souldn't be getting rid of it.
This contains all the info for your music, including the location. Since it is on the external and you unplugged the external, iTunes cannot find it.
I suggest you copy the _iTunes folder_ (not the iTunes music folder) from the external to /Music/ on the internal and leave it there.
iTunes will use this folder for the iTunes library file and all the music will be stored on the external in th elocation shown in iTunes prefs -> Advanced - iTunes music folder location.

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Moved iTunes library to an ext hard drive to make space on my int drive... Followed steps from apple. Now I cannot access my music... It says: "File could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?"

Moved iTunes library to an ext hard drive to make space on my int drive... Followed steps from apple. Now I cannot access my music... It says: "File could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?"
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See Make a split library portable. Move all of the bits of the library together in the the correct shape and it should work. Or undo exactly what you did and then start over.
If you're a former Windows user don't try merging two folders together that have the same name by dropping one into the same folders as the other, as that goes badly on a Mac.
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HT203167 Moved iTunes library from one computer to another using external hard drive. Cannot play many files. Says they are missing but locates them in an archive file but still won't play them. Are the files themselves part of the .itl files?

Moved iTunes library from old computer (PC Windows 7) to new (PC Window 8) using external hard drive. Library listing shows all music but can only play a fraction of it. On the ones it cannot play it asks to locate, then refers to an archived version (an .itl file), and still cannot play them. Do I just need to copy the archived .itl over, or is that not where the actual media are (do the actual media files even exist on the new computer?)? Any advice or information on this would be helpful.

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I'm the same as you with this one.
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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?
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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 iTunes library to another hard drive

I followed the directions on the Apple website
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
to move my iTunes library to another hard drive. the instructions say to delete the original iTunes folder ...
now the library has been moved (the files are in the folder on the new hard drive) but iTunes has completely lost its catalog of my music (the screen is empty when I select library in iTunes) - what happened and how can I get the catalog back without importing everything?

You missed 'Point 14':
After the folder has been copied, locate your original iTunes Music folder, and drag it to the Trash or Recycle Bin. Note: Don't remove the iTunes 4 Music Library files that may be in the same location as the iTunes Music folder.
If you deleted the 'iTunes Library.itl' file from that folder, then you deleted the iTunes database file that keeps track of all your song references, Playlists and some attributes. See:What are the iTunes Library files?
Can you recover this file from the ExHD? Or maybe the Recycle Bin? Place it back into the 'iTunes' folder under the 'My Music' folder.
If not, you'll have to 'Rebuild' your Library from the ExHD's music files. It's a simple 'File=>Add Folder' from within iTunes, but you will lose your Playlists, Ratings, Play Counts and Last Played attributes.

Moving iTunes library from one computer to another

I am new to this list, but hope someone can help.
I had purchased quite a few songs from iTunes store and also had copied some from disks.
I saved my whole iTunes Music folder onto a portable hard drive.
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Now, each time I try to play something in my library, it tells me it cannot locate the file. If I browse to the connected portable HD, I can find it and play it, but it seems that nothing transferred when I thought I moved the music to my iTunes account. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks, Gremblay

Take a look on this article: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive
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My C: HD ran out of space and my iTunes library was the biggest part so I decided to move it to an external HD. For reasons too complex to go into I have several. I followed the instructions in the "Help" feature of iTunes before I learned that there was a longer (and completely different) set of instructions on this website. I moved the contents (not the directory) as instructed from "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music" to "H:\NewMusic". I then changed the reference in Edit->Preferences->Advanced to the new location. I reopened iTunes and it was blank. No music, no playlists. I tried copying things back and reset the reference but nothing. As a safety measure I copied the music to another hard drive but no matter what I do, or where I point iTunes nothing changes.
I'm afraid to plug in my iPod for fear that the blank iTunes will clear the iPod rather than the other way around. Also not everything is on my iPod (most but not all) and I'd rather not lose things. How can I recover from this mess and get iTunes working again. I have all the files, but iTunes will not see them.
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I'm taking long deep breaths to keep from yelling and cursing. I read the article and found that nothing would work but putting everything (23 GB) back on my C: drive. I had to move other folders and finally put everything back. Then the original (I suppose) iTunes library seemed to work. Still I had to move and/or re-identify dozens of items. Finally everything worked. I then used the "correct" instructions and moved everything. All seemed okay. I tested everything and it worked. I then did the final instruction - to delete the original iTunes Music folder. Not the iTunes folder on C: - but the iTunes music folder. Now everything is GONE again. The lists in iTunes show everything but nothing will play because it doesn't know where anything is. I can only assume that the iTunes library was in the iTunes Music folder that the instructions said to erase. And no my Recycle bin is not active. several years ago I got tired of running out of disk space and having to erase everything twice. I have tried opening iTunes with everying iTunes Library file on every disk I have and nothing works. So I have to do everything all over again.
Not asking for advice. Not blaming anyone. Just saying.

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Hi Winston,
After 4 hours of futzing around and finally fixing, I found my answer on the iTunes forum. Simply mapping the external drive which now has the content to iTunes, is not enough. All that does is tell iTunes where to put new purchases. The library list is there, but when trying to play or sync anything, there is an alert exclamation mark. When you click on that it tells you that the song can't be found and asks would you like to find it. I knew something was wrong when none of the cover art was available. So I did a test and "found" 2 missing songs, and 2 TV shows. The exclamation mark then disappeared next to each, the songs played, and I tried to sync just the aforementioned content, and that worked perfectly.
So now I'm faced (since I didn't know how to do this, and frankly still don't have the easy answer) with "finding" every single piece of content manually. Yikes!. So I found on the iTunes forum the "add to library" command and everything shows up fine and plays fine except that I now have duplicates of everything. One each of the exclamation point and one of the real content. LOTS! 1000 plus songs, 2 dozen movies 100 plus TV shows, audio books, podcasts.
Here is where I don't know the easy solution, which you may know for future reference, once you've "added to library. What I ended up doing was deleting all the exclamtion points one by one. That part alone took and hour and a half of near midnight, very tired, bleary eyes. The good thing was if you happen to accidentally try to delete the real content as you go down the list you get a warning. I checked the trash when I was done, so nothing was accidentally deleted.
The sync took quite a long time, about 9 hours, because there is alot of video content, but it's all on the TV now. Everything! Phew!
Do you know of an easier way to do this when you put your library on an external drive? Or should this question be posted on the iTunes forum. I may do that anyway.
Many thanks for your help.
CD3

Question re: moving iTunes library to new computer where files have different file path?

Hi everyone-
I just got a new laptop and need to transfer my iTunes library to the new computer.
On my old computer, the hard drive was partitioned into a "C" drive and an "F" drive. The new laptop is just "C."
Since my iTunes library was on the "F" partition on the old laptop, the file path for all the files is going to change when I transfer to the new laptop.
I can find dozens and dozens of articles online about how to move iTunes to a new computer, but none of them seem to address the file path issue.
Does anyone know where I can find detailed instructions on how to make this work?
Thanks in advance.

Quit iTunes.
Move the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to the F: drive.
Hold Shift & launch iTunes.
Select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder you moved to the F: drive.
Everything should still work fine.
Now go to iTunes prefs > Advanced.
Set the iTunes media folder location to the iTunes folder you just moved to the F: drive.
iTunes menu File > Library > Consolidate library.
This will copy all your media into the iTunes folder (F:\iTunes\iTunes media\ folder)
Let it finsh.
Quit iTunes.
Then you can copy the F:\iTunes\ folder to the new computer.
If you copy it to /Music/ folder, just start iTunes and it'll work.
If you copy it elswhere (such as another drive) hold Shift, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder.

Moving itunes library to mobile hdd?

i moved the complete library to another place, and wnat itunes to recognize the new folder as the home folder. and the plasylists should also be recognized.
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cheers!

If you moved the files outside of iTunes, then iTunes will lose the references, Playlists, Ratings and other matadata.
You'll need to move the files back to where they were originally, then transfer the files to the ExHD using iTunes. See the correct process below.
If you want to make another drive (direct or portable) on your PC the main music location for iTunes, move all song files there, as well as any future imported music from CDs, here is one method (see the links below):
You will maintain your playlists, ratings, comments, etc. This will only move your music folders location, NOT your iTunes program files. It is my opinion that programs (i.e. – iTunes) work better when installed on your main hard drive. At the very least, it makes it easier to manage all your programs if they are centrally located on one hard drive (the Windows default standard).
See these links for some step-by-step info:
iLounge: Moving your iTunes Library to a New Hard Drive
MacMuse: iTfW: Move iTunes music/Library to new drive
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
If you are moving the music to an external hard drive or network drive, after the transfer (and to work correctly), the drive must be running prior to your opening iTunes. If not, iTunes will reset the location of your music folder location to the default location (usually: ‘C:\...My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music’). If this happens, you need to manually change the path back to your external location, or future CD ‘Imports’ will be deposited on your internal HD.
Also make sure that the new drive always loads as the same Drive Letter, otherwise you will lose the references within iTunes.

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I'm running iTunes 7.1.1 on a new Vista PC and I followed the instructions on this support site for transferring the library using an iPod.
All songs (with artwork) are showing in the new PC's iTunes library, BUT all have a '!' symbol to the left and refuse to play. It offers to let me find them, but this would take hours for the thousands of tracks. I've tried consolidating but to no effect. All the music files are in the iTunes library folder, so why can't iTunes access them?
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I'm running iTunes 7.1.1 on a new Vista PC and I
followed the instructions on this support site for
transferring the library using an iPod.
All songs (with artwork) are showing in the new PC's
iTunes library, BUT all have a '!' symbol to the left
and refuse to play. It offers to let me find them,
but this would take hours for the thousands of
tracks. I've tried consolidating but to no effect.
All the music files are in the iTunes library folder,
so why can't iTunes access them?
Can anyone help?
hi i to have a similar problem, i moved my music file for another problem i had and now it has removed all my files from itunes, albums and playlists as well, they are still on the pc and i have moved them back but i seem to have to start again, this will take weeks to do, i hope someone can help us.

Moved iTunes library, but iTunes can't find it

I followed the online instructions and moved my iTunes library from one external hard drive to another. The music is all there on the new drive, but iTunes is looking in the wrong folder and the music doesn't show up in iTunes.
I tried changing to the correct folder in Preferences/Advanced, but that doesn't change anything.
Everything I find online is about how to make iTunes COPY all your files to a different drive and then access it there. How can I make iTunes recognize files that already exist in a different location?

If you see a file called library.itl in the folder on the other drive that means it is likely your whole library is there. Copy that entire folder (do not import, do not export, do not change preferences, do not...) to the other drive. Start iTunes with the option key held down and guide it to the library file on the new drive.
If you do not see a library file there then the library file is in the iTunes folder on your computer and just media were on that first drive. Dealing with that is a whole different set of instructions.
Yes, many, many, many sites confuse a library with media files. It is not the same. It's like confusing a pile of random books in a vacant lot with an organized library building.
This is the one you probably needed to follow, except it is confusing:
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music [library] to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 - a somewhat bewildering and not always easily understandable set of options.
Do not confuse moving your whole folder and library with moving just media files as in
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Moved iTunes Library to External Hard Drive - having trouble - HELP!

I have had quite the ordeal...upgraded my Mac iBook G4 from os 9 to os x 10 Tiger.
Bought an external hard drive to back up my 30 GB of music
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Is there any way to do this globally for the entire library???
What else should I do to ensure I free up hard drive space, without jeopordizing my precious music files?
Thank you!!!

With iTunes 7.x you can transfer iTS purchases from the ipod back into iTunes.
To prevent your iPod from syncing - hold down the 'option' and  keys at the same time when plugging in your iPod. Keep the keys held down until the iPod show up in iTunes.
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tonybassplayer wrote:
Thank Chris I have just done that. How do I now get them in to Itunes ?
If you simply copy the iTUnes folder to /Music/ and launch iTUnes, everythign will be there. No need to import anything.
This will work the same with iPhoto.
Simply copy the Photo library to /Pictures/ folder and launch iPhoto.

Moving iTunes library to ExHD causes DOZENS of duplicates

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