My itunes library is stored on an external hard drive. How do I set it up to be able to use with my work macbook pro? I do not want it stored on my laptop.

How do I store my itunes library on an external hard drive and access it on my macbook pro? I do not want to store my library on my macbook because it is a work computer and do not want to take up storage space there. I know it can be done because I had it that one on a previous laptop but I cannot remember how I did it and would really appreciate a quick step by step process. I do not mind if it seems elementary. I am admitting my lack of knowledge and would really appreciate basic instructions. Thank you for anything anyone can do to help.

iTunes>Preferences (Cmd+,)>Advanced
Choose the Ext HD (and the appropriate folder) as the location for your library.

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How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive?

How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive and keep the new iTunes library on the External Hard Drive. I have all the media and playlist and .xml .itl files, just want the iTunes to recognise the content.
I backedup my iTunes content by dragging to External Hard Drive. Formatted and reinstalled OS. My iTunes content is so large, that I wish for the Library and content to remain on the External Hard Drive. I have all the music files and playlists, I just cannot get the iTunes application to display all the content. Hoping to Not have to drag and drop all the content to be recopied into new iTunes organised files.
Troubleshooting this by researching other conversations on the web, I have come stuck for a solution. One Troubleshoot told me to hold down the Command key and then lauch iTunes and a dialogue box will appear to Choose a new library, however when I try this, no Dialogue box appear to give me the option!?

It sometimes has that funny switch symbol on it too.
tt2

Have copied my iTunes library back-up from my external hard drive (saved from my iTunes on my pc) onto my new Macbook and loads of the tracks have been duplicated, some four times some not at all?? any ideas guys?

Have copied my iTunes library back-up from my external hard drive (saved from my iTunes on my pc) onto my new Macbook and loads of the tracks have been duplicated, some four times some not at all?? any ideas guys?

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My iTunes library is on an external hard drive; how do I set it so other users (accounts) on my imac, will also have the same library, with the same playlists

my iTunes library is on an external hard drive; how do I set it so other users (accounts) on my imac, will also have the same library, with the same playlists

Quit iTunes.
Sign into another user account.
Hold Option, launch iTunes.
Select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the external.
Do this for all users.
NOTE: You must quit iTunes when switching users as the library can only be opened by one user at a time.

How can I move my itunes library from pc onto an external hard drive for use on a mac

I have a large itunes library on my PC (roughly 200gb) and I want to transfer this to an external hard drive to then use on my new mac. I have tried this before using software which converts from NFTS to mac, but this didn't work properly (songs kept disappearing), so I also want the external hard drive to be mac formatted. Any suggestions? It seems much harder to do this than I expected.

Yes you can go to > Music > iTunes folder and copy the whole iTunes folder and drag the folder to your external and then on the new Mac click and highlight the iTunes folder and then in iTunes click on the button at the top (add folder to library) and you should see all your songs transfer from the external to the Mac and all songs start filling up in your iTunes library on the Mac.
This is the easiest method all songs and other media such as songs, movies, apps will be transferred over however you may not be able to keep ratings & last played counts using this method.
To keep all metadata including ratings & play count use the Apple method exclusively for this if you have to have your metadata, play counts and ratings saved.
I used scenario one above because it one of the simplest methods and I was just satisfied enough just to transfer all media over.

HT1751 Can I consolidate my iTunes library and transfer to an external hard drive while my computer is in safe mode?

Laptop died, only works in safe mode. Am wanting to transfer everythign to an external hard drive and do a reset to if I can save it.

See this migrate iTunes library post. Depending on the layout of the library you may simply need to copy the entire iTunes folder using Windows Explorer without ever firing up iTunes.
tt2

Can I put iTunes library and iPhoto albums on external hard drive?

How can I, if there is a way put my iTunes library and iPhoto albums on my external hard drive to free up space on my internal hard drive? If this can be done what are possible issues and do I just access them through my external drive when I need them. Can I sync my iPod to the external drive in order to deal with daily pod casts etc?
thanks,
Bill

You might find these articles useful:
iLounge - Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive
iPhoto: How to move the iPhoto Library Folder to a new location

How to play my itunes library on my pc or external hard drive?

How can I import and play my ITunes library on my pc and external storage device?

Is the iPhone the only location or your media now? See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

How can I use my external hard drive on both pc and mac, but also being able to use it to back up my mac data?

I want to be able to transfer some of my files from my laptop to my macbook, but not all of them. I have a NTFS external hard drive and I have heard about reformatting it so that it can read/write across both systems, but can I still use this hard drive to back up the data on my macbook? If I can, how should I go about reformatting the hard drive?

FORMAT TYPES
FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
Maximum file size: 4GB.
Maximum volume size: 2TB
You can use this format if you share the drive between Mac OS X and Windows computers and have no files larger than 4GB.
NTFS (Windows NT File System)
Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X, here are some alternatives:
For Mac OS X 10.4 or later (32 or 64-bit), install Paragon (approx $20) (Best Choice for Lion)
Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard and Lion, but is not advisable, due to instability.
AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
Maximum file size: 16 TB
Maximum volume size: 256TB
You can use this format if you routinely share a drive with multiple Windows systems.
HFS+ ((((MAC FORMAT)))) (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Don't use case-sensitive)
Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! backups of Mac internal hard drive.
To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
Maximum file size: 8EiB
Maximum volume size: 8EiB
You can use this format if you only use the drive with Mac OS X, or use it for backups of your Mac OS X internal drive, or if you only share it with one Windows PC (with MacDrive installed on the PC)
EXFAT (FAT64)
Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
Not all Windows versions support exFAT.
exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
Maximum file size: 16 EiB
Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
You can use this format if it is supported by all computers with which you intend to share the drive. See "disadvantages" for details.

When I plug a LaCie external hard drive into my new Mac mini, [os 10.9.1], to use with Time Machine it effects the performance of my internet and email. Turn off Time Machine and unplug the hard drive and the internet and email are working normally again

When I plug a LaCie external hard drive to work with Time Machine into my new Mac mini, [OS 10.9.1] it drastically effects the performance of the internet and email, turn off Time Machine, unplug the hard drive, internet and email go back to normal. Why?

Maybe:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/usb-3.0-hard-drives-can-cause-wi-fi-inter ference

I have a LaCie external hard drive. I cannot locate all of my pictures once I download them from my Macbook Pro. How do I find them on the LaCie ar25u3?

I have over 5,000 pictures that I put on my LaCie external HD. When I open the LaCie I can only find some of my images. Where exactly would I find them on my hard drive?

That's a very open-ended question. You say that you put them on the LaCie. What do you mean by that? Did you drag-and drop them onto the LaCie icon or use some other method? If you put them on the LaCie then they will be right where you left them unless the drive is failing. Have you seen all the pictures there in the past and they are gone now?
To correct any problems the drive is having:
1) Click "Applications" > "Utilities" > "Disk Utility"
2) Select your LacCe's name on the left sidebar
3) Click "Repair Disk" button (lower right).
If there are minor problems then Disk Utility will repair them. If it lists major problems with the disk then you may need a more advanced repair utility like DiskWarrior.
Let us know some details and someone will try to help you.

My iTunes library is on a 2T ex. hard drive. I want to install on new PC w/o losing playlists,

My current iTunes library is on a 2T external hard drive, using a PC with Vista. I am wanting to move the entire library HD to a new PC running Windows 8 without losing my playlists, date added, last played, # of plays, etc. However, when connected to the new PC, only the purchased tunes from Apple show accurate data of date added, etc. 99% of my library is self-added/burned. I would like my new set-up to mirror my old set-up exactly but now I have double and even triple downloads of songs and albums in my iTunes library display and my computer files, and only one of 4 library files on the hard drive. What am I doing wrong or forgetting to do?

Gordon,
There's a solution to your problem but first it's time for a little lecture. (If it makes you feel any better, I don't like this any more than you do.)
I hope you take this as an opportunity to learn a very important lesson: Back up your iTunes library as soon as you can after resolving this situation because right now you are only one glitch of your iPod away from losing your music entirely.
Many people come to the Discussions having lost their music in just such situations and, believe me, it's not a happy time for anyone.
If you place any importance on your playlists and the data they depend on, you will want to include your iTunes Library files in your back-up regimen as well.
Anyways, that's the lecture. The answer to your problem should be found in this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=797432#797432
Good Luck! But once your music is back on your computer, remember:
Your music is valuable - please back it up!

If i previously had my iTunes library set up on an external hard drive, how do I get my iTunes on my new mac pro to operate off of the same hard drive?

I recently bought a mac pro. I previously had a macbook that I had set up for iTunes to run off of an external hard drive. How do I set up my mac pro to run off of this hard drive? I have been trying to figure it out for the last hour and have had no luck.
I have tried to move my itunes folder on my mac pro to my external hard drive but am having no luck. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

If you had the entire library running from the external drive it should be a matter of holding down option as you start iTunes and browsing to the library on the external drive.
If you'd followed the advice to move the media folder only then ideally you need to recover the library folder from your Macbook with a view to making the library portable on the external drive.
Otherwise you're going to have to simply import the content into a new library, losing rating, playlists, play counts. etc.
If you have any devices that sync to your library see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

HT1329 My large iTunes library is on an external hard drive. Can I set up iTunes on my new Macbook Pro and copy the library to it or are there any pitfalls?

I have my large iTunes library on an external hard drive. Can I set up ITunes on my new Macbook Pro and transfer/copy this library to the internal hard drive or are there any problems I should be aware of?

ITs an old Iomega 100gb external HD that has about 90gb of music on it. The Macbook has a 500gb HD. I would like to put the iTunes library on the internal HD so I have room to expand.
Phil0124 wrote:
You can copy it to the internal hard drive as long as it fits on it. How big is your library, and how big is your internal HD?
The only thing you do not want to do is over-stuff the internal hard drive. The OS needs some space to operate correctly, so if your iTunes library uses up more than say 80 to 85% of the internal HD's available space it may not be a good idea to transfer it over.
With that said, the internal HD will provide slightly faster access to the library than the external would, but other than that, you can point iTunes to the external drive just fine.

Erasing all music from iTunes and starting over from an external hard drive

Hello,
I tried moving all my media to an external hard drive to make room on my MacBook Pro and just be able to run the media (ie music movies etc) from the external hard drive when it was connected.
Well this backfired big time probably because I did not follow any sort of instructions.
1st I backed up Finder > music > iTunes > iTunesMedia folder to two seperate external hard drives just in case.
2nd I think (this was back in March 2013) I decided to cut/delete the folder Automatically Add to iTunes and moved it to one of my external hard drives (this folder for some reason contained mostly everythiing that was in the iTunes Media folder).
3rd I finally decided to erase content from iTunes Media Folder
4th I deleted the iTunes Media folder because I felt it was stupid to have a "iTunes Media folder" and "iTunes Music Folder" in the same place but not actually have anything in the iTunes Music folder (probably really stupid of me in retrospect)
5th I unchecked the box under iTunes > Preferences > Advanced "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library"
6th I believe I changed the location of "iTunes Media folder location" in the Advanced area under Preferences thinking this should be pointing to my external drive
I then believe I tried to run iTunes and play my content, but when I did all it did was copy my music/media back to my MacBook Pro hard drive but I did not realize it was doing this until later the next day when I tried to play some music and realized I had 3 copies of everything in my iTunes program (ie music movies podcasts tv shows etc) however, I could play all three versions of whatever it was I selected there was no "error message" saying that iTunes could not located that file, would you like to try and locate.
So I checked Finder to see if there were 3 copies of everything (by the way at this point I stopped connecting my external hard drive for the sake of making more copies on iTunes) but there wasn't??? So I tried to go through Option+View > Show Exact Duplicate Copies and delete all but one of the items. When I would delete them and it asked if I wanted to move them to my Trash Bin I clicked yes and all the 2nd and 3rd copies were gone!!! Yeah, so when I played those songs/movies that remained they would play!!!!!
Than I realized that my Internal Hard Drive was almost full and went looking around for things I could delete to help make my MacBook run better, and realized that my Trash had a large amount of data in it and that emptying it would significantly reduce space on my Internal Hard Drive, but when I went back to iTunes and selected music or movies to play it placed the infamous "!" next to that track or movie and it could not locate those items anymore?
Long long long story short hopefully, can anyone help me set up iTunes so that it only can play content/media off of my external drive and not take up space on my internal hard drive? Is this even possible to do that or will always start to copy those files from the external hard drive back onto the internal hard drive? and second is there anyway to use the Apple router external hard drive to use as the source for all my media?
PS I am running Mac OS X Lion version 10.7.5 and iTunes 11.1.3 (8) 64-bit

2012EVOL wrote:
Hello,
I tried moving all my media to an external hard drive to make room on my MacBook Pro and just be able to run the media (ie music movies etc) from the external hard drive when it was connected.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder to the external. Don't only copy the iTunes media folder.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the external.
This is all you need to do.
Everything for iTunes (except the application) is on the external.
2nd I think (this was back in March 2013) I decided to cut/delete the folder Automatically Add to iTunes and moved it to one of my external hard drives (this folder for some reason contained mostly everythiing that was in the iTunes Media folder).
Make a shortcut to this folder on your desktop.
Nothing should be in this folder. When you put a file here, it will get moved by iTunes and added to the library.
The reason it had files in it is because you moved it.

My itunes library is stored on an external hard drive. How do I set it up to be able to use with my work macbook pro? I do not want it stored on my laptop.

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