My songs have all been duplicated. All my music is on external hard drive and I want it to stay there. Am using a new computer and thought I'd done all the required things for my library to show on iTunes 11.
I'm using a new computer. All my music is on an external hard drive and I want it to stay there. Before installing iTunes on the new computer, I followed turingtest2's instructions as to the layout of all the iTunes folders (Itunes folder, Itunes Media, Music, etc...). I also followed his instructions as to get all my music in iTunes on the new computer (but keeping all the media on the external drive). Now my songs are all duplicated in my library (I normally have about 15,000 of them). They all play when I click onto them. Also, I've lost all my playlists, and all the songs in the library are now ticked. I've already spent hours trying to sort this out, but can't seem to find a solution. Help please!
Hi turingtest2,
Thank you for replying. I've been looking at your posts about setting up iTunes using an external drive. A bit of background info. My old computer broke down, so I got a new one from work. I've always kept my music files on my external drive (I have around 170GB of music). I didn't follow the suggestions in the "migrate iTunes library" post because my old computer died on me. However, I've looked at your posts about lay out of the iTunes folders. Before connecting to iTunes on the new computer, I had reorganized my iTunes folder on my E: external drive, and created an iTunes folder which contains an iTunes Media subfolder. The music files are in a Music folder, which is in the iTunes Media folder. I've also put the following files in my iTunes folder: iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Library Extras.itdb, iTunes Library Genius.itdb, iTunes Music Library.xml, as well as sentinel. I then followed the advice you gave bmw99 on 2 Nov 2013 at 9.58 (sorry, can't copy the exact answer).
Just to clarify: I'd like to keep all my music media on the E: external hard drive (the computer hard drive is too small), and I'm aware i might never have my playlists back, and that all the songs in my library might be ticked. However, I don't want my library to be duplicated.
I'm at work at the moment, but will be back home in about 10 hours, so I can be more specific about folders / files names.
I'm glad you picked up my message and greatly appreciate your help.
Patrice
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Hey Rbe58!
I believe this question can be answered by the information in the following article:
iTunes 11 for Windows: Access all your music anytime, anywhere with iTunes Match
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph12492
Play or download songs from iCloud
You can play songs directly from iCloud, or you can download songs so you can play them when you’re not connected to the Internet.
If a song is available in iCloud, it has a Download button next to it.
To play the song, double-click it.
To download the song, click the Download button.
After you download a song to a computer, it remains in the computer’s iTunes library, even if you turn off iTunes Match.
To only display downloaded songs in your iTunes library, choose View > Hide Music in the Cloud. This also hides any previous iTunes Store purchases you haven’t downloaded.
For information about downloading and playing songs on an iOS device, see the documentation for the device.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!
Cheers,
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Launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and specify it. If the external drive doesn't contain the iTunes database files, create a new library there and import that music.
If the library contains any rented movies, they won't play on a different computer.
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I perviously transfered all my iTunes music to an external hard drive. But now when I connect the external hard drive and try to play a song, I get an error message saying that I need to "locate" my music. I don't how to find it on my external hard drive. Please help for I am not that computer savy and don't want to mess anything up.
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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
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Because the location for each song in your library is on your hard drive. If the hard drive isn't there, how can iTunes play it?
You'll have to move/copy the music from your hard drive to your computer's hard drive.
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Shouldn't have any more problems... -
I have all my movies on an external hard drive. I want to be able to access them without copying everything to my iTunes. How can I do this?
I think DebinSC might mean using the movies without copying to the iTunes library?
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Thanks for your quick response. I had a look at your discussion... I tried it on a Windows machine and I thought that was compatible with ExFAT?
Therefore I need to attempt to use my external hard drive with a machine that boasts OS X 10.6.5 or above and then it should work?
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I had to go through this today (got a new computer recently). I ended up pluggng in my phone to the new computer and then doing a sync and a backup, and Image Capture to get all your pics just in case. Then I did an update check wnen iOS 5 became active and it said that it was going to erase everything and I hit OK. And after that install was complete, I did "restore from backup" which said it would restore everything that was backed up except the new iOS 5 firmware (that stayed put). Just a few tweaks here and there and it all worked for me.
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I want to put all my music onto an external hard drive. But I can't get it to put music on my itunes. The music list is completely empty and so is my IPOD. How do I do this? I have a PC with Windows.
You say the music is not on the external HD, the music list (iTunes?) is empty, and it is not on the iPOd. Then where is the music you want to move to the external HD?
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i have backed up all my music on an external hard drive and i was wondering is there a quick way to put it all back on itunes.
Hello, Gazzlaa84.
You can import your media a couple different ways. If you plan on keeping the media on the external drive, I would just direct iTunes to read the media folder on the external. Here are the steps on how to make that change.
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Also, here is another great resource for moving your iTunes media.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Cheers,
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I have just purchased my 1st Mac Mini,
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I have 100gb of music on an external hard drive (already formatted to Mac OS Journaled.
I want my iTunes to be store on the External Hard drive, and to update my External Hard drive with new music I add to iTunes.
I also want to know the best way of adding my music on the Ext Hard drive e.g.: "add folder to library" or "import"
I plan on buying a Macbook Pro soon, and want to be able to use the same iTunes library.Launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and specify it. If the external drive doesn't contain the iTunes database files, create a new library there and import that music.
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