Moving music files to external hard drive

I bought an external hard drive and want to free up my main C drive by moving my music, pictures and videos to it. One of the folders in My Music is "iTunes" which has the folder "iTunes Music" which holds all of the music that iTunes communicates with. The new external drive is the "H" drive. How do I tell iTunes that all of my music is now located elsewhere, without actually having to go down the list song by song, which would be impossible, time wise. Some sort of single bulk change from one drive to another. Thank you

Well, you never said that's what you wanted to do, so why don't you calm down and stop yelling at the people who are trying desperately to help you.
"How do I tell iTunes that all of my music is now located elsewhere, without actually having to go down the list song by song, which would be impossible, time wise. Some sort of single bulk change from one drive to another. Thank you."
All you asked for was assistance with moving your iTunes music. We provided instructions, which you chose to ignore.
Moving your entire My Documents folder is a completely different procedure and you could have saved everyone a lot of frustration if you just made it clear that you wanted to do that in the first place.
At the risk of complicating this thread any further, I am going to remove myself from it. Moving your My Documents folder is not something I feel comfortable helping with, as I am not a Windows user and I don't want to provide the wrong info for you and end up screwing up your entire machine.

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Moving music files via external hard drive-- Can you keep ratings/playlists

I keep all my music on an external hard drive in order to prevent it getting lost. Anyways... what I'm wondering is if I go to move my music from one computer (comp. A) to another computer (comp. B), is it possible to keep all the ratings and my playlists? I've seen the stuff for transfering with your ipod, but the problem is my 30Gb doesn't hold all my music, and I would reeeeeaaally hate to go through and redo all the ratings. If anyone knows maybe a file involved with itunes that might contain the ratings or playlists that I could store with the files themselves to transfer that would be excellent. Thanks to anyone who can help out. If you need clarification on any of the details just lemme know.

It looks like it should, thanks. One other bit that I'm wondering about is how do I load that Library list once I've installed itunes on comp B? Is it just a matter of going file>import or file>add new file to library? Thanks again

I moved itunes file to external hard drive and want to move the file on my pc to recycle bin. When I move i get an error message that it cannot delete ituneshelper.dll access is denied. Can I move that file to the recycle bin?

I am trying to free up space on my pc and moving itunes files to external hard drive. I have followed instructions and believe I have file copied to new drive, but I am having trouble moving file to recycle bin as the instructions say. I am getting the following error message: cannot delete ituneshelper.dll:access denied, make sure disk is not full or write protected and file not in use. I know the file is not in use when trying to move. Any help would be most appreciated. I am on Windows XP.

Yes. And you should not have moved that folder. Put it back. To move your iTunes library move the folder from User's Music.
tt2

My PC computer was wiped (virus) including itunes. How do I transfer the many playlists and music to the new re-installed itunes?? Ipod is synced to old itunes. I have all original music files on external hard drive. Please help?

My PC computer was wiped (virus) including itunes. How do I transfer the many playlists and music on my ipod to the new re-installed itunes?? Ipod is synced to old itunes. I have all original music files on external hard drive. Please help?
New itunes is trying to wipe the ipod. But have many many playlists (many hours making) which I want to save. Any help would be appreciated.

If you want to just extract the playlists from your iPod, plug it in iTunes. When it appears under devices, right->click on it and choose Export Playlists. Save them to a location such as your desktop and them import them into your library once you have copied and imported all of your music back into it.
See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
B-rock

How do I get iTunes to access music files on external hard drive?

We moved all of our music to an external hard drive. The hd is always on and I connect to it wirelessly. I don't know how to get iTunes to use the library that is on the hard drive, can anyone help me please.

iTunes expects to find its library in the ./Music/iTunes folder. To get iTunes to see music on another drive, you first have to create the library on your internal drive. Once you've done that, you copy the iTunes folder over to your external drive, and redirect iTunes to that drive, using an alias. (I originally did this in Tiger and it continues to work fine in Leopard. I don't know if doing it originally in Leopard would make any difference.)
Note: If your external drive library is already too large for your internal drive, simply use as much of it as you can to create the original library on your internal drive. You can add the rest of it once you've got iTunes looking at the external drive. In this case, remember to name any "iTunes" folder on the external drive to something else, so you don't erase everything in the following procedure.
Load up as much music as you can on your internal drive, making sure it appears in iTunes.
Quit iTunes and copy the iTunes folder from your internal drive to your external drive (be sure you don't erase whatever's already on the external drive). Copying that folder to the root of the external drive is OK.
On your internal drive, rename the 'iTunes" folder to something else (like orig_iTunes) -- or move it out of the Music folder.
Open your external hard drive to the directory containing your iTunes folder.
Cmd-Option drag the iTunes folder from the external hard drive to the internal hard drive Music folder, creating an alias in the internal drive's Music folder.
Launch iTunes. You should now see the music from the external hard drive. If necessary, you can now add back any missing music, and it will automatically create the necessary music and library files inside your iTunes folder on the external drive. Once you've got them all added, you can delete both the orig_iTunes folder, and the folder on your external drive that served as the source for adding your library back in.

Hard Drive Crash--Restoring music files from External Hard Drive

My hard disk crashed, but I think (at least I hope) that I'm backed up. I had copied all of my Itunes music onto an external hard disk before the crash, although I'm not sure I copied everything that you are supposed for a full backup (i.e. all files in the Itunes folder). I'm uncertain as to the process to get everything restored.
Right now, Itunes is not installed on the new hard disk. Obviously I need to download and reinstall Itunes, which I'll do. But from here I'm confused, and I haven't seen a straightforward explanation of the next steps. Is it then as easy as copying all the old music from the external hard drive into the new Itunes music folder once Itunes is reinstalled, then synching? Or, do install itunes, then reopen it while the external hard drive is attached, and "consolidate" the old library into the new? Or do I first have to plug in the Ipod, authorize the new drive, and move the purchased music from the Ipod to the new drive through the manually managing music process that I've read about? Is there a relatively straightforward "step by step" process someone can point me at?
I'd appreciate any guidance anyone can provide, or any directions to some materials that I can read. Thanks very much.

If you copied the entire iTunes folder to the external, then all you have to do is install iTunes like normal, then start up with these instructions and point it to your backup on the external...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
Assuming that works, you can either leave everything as is and continue to use it directly off the external. Or close iTunes, then again copy the entire iTunes folder back to your internal drive, then reopen iTunes with those instructions again and re-point it back to your internal drive's copy.
Patrick

Moved my files to external hard drive, now files not found. Help?

My Itunes folder having outgrown my memory, I moved all the files to my external hard drive, following the directions in Itunes. I was able to play the songs as long as the hard drive was connected. However, I opened Itunes mistakenly without the E: Drive connected, and it opened blank, with no files in place. I closed, hooked up the hard drive, and opened Itunes again, holding down the shift key and choosing the library on E: (the xmp file). The files now show up, but when I try to play them, I get a message indicating that the file isn't found, do I want to find it? I can, but I don't want to go through 5000 files and add each one individually. If I try adding or importing the folder again, the file is simply in itunes twice. I can always import everything again, but I don't want to lose all my ratings, last-played, etc. It took a lot of time to listen to and rate all those songs. Any help would certainly be appreciated. Thanks.

I am having the same problem. I moved my itunes library to an external drive to free up the space on my notebook and now I "get files not found do you want to search" If I search I can find the song in Windows but have to find each song individually, I have 2600 songs I burned from my CD collection, it would take way too long. I have tried copying the file to the same drive, I have reintalled itunes multiple times. I have checked Apple and my computer is "authorized". Is there any way out of this? Otherwise I will be limited to just having the music I already have on my ipod and being unable to add any more, and if that ever bocomes compromised I would be unable to restore it. None of my music is purchased from itunes, it is all burned from my CD's.

Need help moving music collection from external hard drive to Macbook Pro

     I just bought a Macbook Pro today after my Windows desktop was bricked a few weeks ago. Luckily, I didn't lose the most important files on my pc, my music, because it was all on my Zune, as well. So, I borrowed an external hard drive, copied all of the music from my zune onto a friend's pc, and then copied it again from their pc to the external. Finally, I just plugged the external into my new mac, copied the folder within it holding my music, and hit "paste item" in the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder. Initially, everything seemed to work perfectly, however, after transferring a little over 7 of my 54gb of music, an error message appeared saying that the operation was ending because it could not transfer all files.
     I then tried playing a file off of the hard drive, a wma, and received a prompt that the file was incompatible with Quicktime player, the default for no apparent reason. I tried then opening it with iTunes, and nothing happened, as far as I could see. Naturally, my next step was to google how one would transfer wma files to a mac, and, to make matters even more confusing, all of the results seemed to tell me that iTunes should automatically convert wma files to mp3, which does not seem to be happening in my case.
     I'm still not sure why this isn't working, as I'm sure more than 7gb of my music collection is non-wma, so that doesn't even seem to be the sole issue. Any help with importing my collection would be hugely appreciated, as I'm enjoying my mac so far, but will have to return it if I can't get music on here.
     Thanks.

One problem is that iTunes for Mac can't handle WMA files, iTunes for Windows will convert them, but not iTunes for Mac. When you add unprotected WMA files to your iTunes library (Windows only), iTunes converts them to new files that iTunes can play, based on your import settings. See if you can use your friend's PC to do this. If the borrowed PC has iTunes, create an alternate iTunes library so you don't mess up your friend's library. This explains how: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1589
This support document might be helpful: iTunes: About the Add to Library, Import, and Convert functions, http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1347

Moving iPhoto files to external hard-drive

Hi everyone,
I've seen versions of this question asked many times but felt the need to ask myself before I go into the Genius bar to have someone help me. I take A LOT of high quality photos and they are currently taking up 60GB on my tiny 150GB hard drive. I need to move these files off my hard drive to free up space because the computer is prompting me to delete things, the hard drive is full! I downloaded iPhoto Library Manager a few months ago and created a back up copy of my library and put it on an external hard drive. But now - I want to move all of them OFF my hard-drive. I know how to make a copy... But how can I move all of these files so they are just on the external hard drive?
Thanks for your help in advance!

Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
LN

Moving iTunes files to external hard drive -- error message

Trying to copy iTunes files from iBook G4 to a nearly empty 320 GB FreeAgent Pro external hard drive. When I attempt to consolidate the files, I receive an error message saying "there is not enough room on external hard drive to copy files". I have a very small internal hard drive on the laptop and not very much music so the message doesn't make sense to me.
The external hard drive appears in Finder, and says the format is "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".
Any tips on where to go from here? I'm about out of room on the laptop and desperately need to move files to an external hard drive to free up space.
Thanks,
Brendan

If you follow the steps in this article, it should work.
Just delete everything from your exHD and start over.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Also - naming your exHD a letter far down in the alphabet is a good idea.
E: F: and G: are frequently used by other USB devices, and if your exHD letter changes, you'll get all the ! marks again.
So name it K: or Q: or W:, something another USB is unlikely to use.

How to keep music files on external hard drive

My laptop is only 80 gigs. My external hard drive is 500. I want to keep my music on the external drive because I have over a hundred gigs of music. I would like iTunes to just reach into the external drive and play the tunes without bringing them into my laptop, yet whenever I add the files to my library, they are brought into my laptop, filling up all the space. How do I get them into the library without bringing them into the laptop? My favorite way of playing music is by Shuffle.

Turn off the preference setting for "Copy Files to iTunes library"
Choose Edit > Preferences and click Advanced.
Uncheck the "Copy files" checkbox.

Accessing music files on external hard drives with Home Sharing

I use my iMac as a computer and music server. I have it connected via USB and SPDIF to my audio system, and access my music files with the Remote app on my iPhone. It works fine except when the Remote app occasionally wants to take a brief break. The problem is that I have a LOT of high-res music files, and my IMac's hard drive is filling up and slowing the processor down. Is there a way to access music files located on external hard drives (I have two) AND the files located on my iMac using Home Sharing and the Remote app on my iPhone. I'd like to move some of the files off of the iMac's HD to free up space. Thanks.

The best thing to do is to get an external drive that is large enough
and has sufficient room for growth and move your entire iTunes
folder to it.
Then start iTunes holding down the option key and when the dialog
box comes up, select choose library and navigate to the new iTunes
folder location.
This way, nothing will be lost, confused, or otherwise messed up since
the entire library will be intact.

2 CD Music Files in External Hard Drive

I remember you told me how to file my iTunes music folder into my existing one in my external hard drive (EHD).
When I slide the one from my PC directly over the iTunes Music File in my EHD it copies and updates everything fine. However, when I look in the iTunes Music folder file on the EHD to see all the songs, there is another iTunes music folder with all the same songs in that one too.
In other words, I have two of the same folders on my EHD that read 'iTunes Music folder." Understand what I'm saying?
So should i delete one of them since they are apparently the same?

Go to File -> Add then naviage to and pick your new location where your songs are. They should all be added to the library and hopefully have the right information. You may still need to go in and delete the older pointers which now have the in front of them.
Patrick

Moving Picture Files to External Hard Drive

I have been using PE3 on my desktop computer for about a year. I am now scanning several thousand photos from slides using my laptop and a Windows file structure and will soon incorporate them into PE3 with my other photos soon.
Given HD space limits on my desktop computer, I plan to begin storing all my photos on an external hard drive.
1. What is the best method to move the existing PE3 files to the other drive? I understand that some methods lose the file structure that exists. Is that true?
2. What is the best method to incorporate the scanned photos into the PE3 system? I guess I can copy the files into the new HD structure and then inport the photos into PE3.
I would be interested in inputs from someone who had made such a change.
Please help,
Doug

Doug
Just to add to Gary's answer
Can you clarify if you are using the Organizer or not. You say "a Windows file structure." Is this a folder based system and you use Windows Explorer for file management-renaming, moving, deleting, etc.
If this is the case, you can simply move the photos without any trouble.
If you use Organizer and have images tagged or built into collections, you should move the images inside of Organizer. Otherwise the underlying MS Access database does not get updated and this is when photos "get lost" in Elements.
A second option would be to move your pictures outside or Organizer and then do a File>Reconnect>All Missing Files. If the only change is a different drive letter, it should find them on the new drive. You'll have to "accept" these changes.
Either way, I would recommend doing the moving/reconnects in batches. Sometimes Access gets "confused", especially if you throw a huge number of files at one time.

ITunes transferring SOME!!!! (not all!) music files to external hard drive

How do I transfer SOME music files NOT ALL to an external hard drive. Is there some sort of systematic way I can do this, such as highlighting a selection of items and then transfering them?

You can transfer purchased content ONLY! Unfortunately, you have no choice as to what gets transferred. Here are some work arounds
1. Delete off iPod Touch/iPhone/iPod then transfer
2. Transfer all content then delete from computer

Moving music files to external hard drive

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