Newbie to MacBook needs help with using Itunes with external hard drive...

I got a MacBook yesterday. I am trying set my Itunes up but having a big problem. When I try to sync music from my external TB hard drive into Itunes, the music is apparently being copied into the laptop HD and is being synced from there, instead of straight from my TB HD. I WANT the music to sync straight from the external HD and NOT being copied in the Mac HD first and then synced like it is doing right now. I don't want to use the Mac's hard drive because I have limited HD space on my Mac and unlimited external capacity. Can anyone help me in setting this up. i've looked for answers but can't seem to find on here. Thanks for all the help. I love this Mac and this is the only real bump I've had. Thanks again.

Turn off the option to "copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" is set in the iTunes -> Advanced preferences". iTunes will then just link to the tracks on the external drive rather than copying them to the internal. If you also want future imports and purchases to be saved to the external drive, change the location for the iTunes Music folder in the iTunes -> Advanced -> iTunes Music Folder location preference.
Regards.

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