Playing music in iTunes from an external HD

I moved 600gbs of music to an external HD to save HD space and run iTunes from the external. After the transfer, I told or pointed to iTunes where the 'new' music is on the external HD but iTunes will not read the music - it is asking me to find each and every song one at a time? Thats a LOT of clicking if I really need to do that.
Please help

I recently did the same thing (move my library to an external drive). What you want to do is have iTunes move the songs itself. iTunes keeps track of where each song is located. If you move the songs yourself, iTunes won't know and you end up in your situation. Just setting the media folder to the external drive won't be enough as that is only telling iTunes where to store NEW tracks.
What you want to do is bascially set the new media folder location and then have iTunes move all the tracks to that location. I followed the procedure here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

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How do you play music in itunes from an external drive?

if the library and itunes folder are on the external drive, how do you play the songs from there through a laptop? I have gotten that dreaded "original file not found" message over and over again. Thanks.

Hold down the Shift key while launching iTunes. You'll be given a dialog box where you can select the iTunes library you want to use. Navigate to and select the iTunes folder in it's new location.

How to play music in itunes from external drive without copying files

Everytime I go to play a song in itunes, it imports it first. I am a DJ and don't want 200 gigs of music on my HD. There has to be some way to just play all of my songs off of my external HD w/o itunes importing the songs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for your help. This is my first Mac and I am getting use to how it operates. SInce I have gotten It, I usually just click on the song from my external then itunes imports it then plays it.
I use Serato when DJing which allows me to just access my external and play from there, which is what you suggested doing by creating a itunes library on my external.
I will create a library on my external and do like you suggested. That seems like it would solve all of my problems. I am using the instructions from here: http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ to do it. Seems like it should be pretty straight forward.
Again, thank you for your help.

PLaying music in iTunes from external drive

I have all my music on an external drive. I want to be able to play this music in iTunes without copying the music to my internal HD. In Windows it doesn't copy to internal, but in OSX it does. Also, when I have music on my computer (internal) and the first time I click it to play it copied to my iTunes Music folder, thus creating 2 copies on my computer.

To prevent iTunes to copy the files, uncheck 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library' in Preferences>Advanced>General.
M

My computer recently crashed. I had everything on an externa drive. I'm trying to reload my music into itunes from my external drive. I do not have an itunes library document for some reason. How do I get my library back onto itunes?

I'm trying to figure out how to access my music library from my external drive. I do not have a media library document and believe that I would have to create one based on the music that is on my external drive. Can someone help?

If you're running Windows 8.1, this seems to be a common theme, or some variation there of at least. Myself, I can't even back-up on my iPhone 4S which has iOS 7.1.2 and I'm running iTunes 11.3.0.54 and have resorted to purchased the iTunes Match service to ensure that music on my primary desktop PC (which is paired to my iPhone) will be available on both the iPhone and my Windows 8.1 laptop. Regarding backing up of the iPhone, I'm thinking about going to a third party solution until either Apple and/or Microsoft can figure out why Windows 8.1 is having so many problems with the current version of iTunes (as of this writing 11.3.0.54).

Managing music and iTunes from an external hard drive

I have a large quantity of music that I have downloaded to an external hard drive. I used Windows Media to download the music to the hard drive. What I want to do is keep my music and photos on the hard drive but be able to access the files from my laptop (Mac Book Pro). I don't want to take up the hard disc space on the laptop, so how do I make sure that all future cd's imported go the the hard drive (and not necessarily to the "iTunes" folder), are stored as the individual cd/artist name, and are then easily retrieved by iTunes for burning?
Scott

Niel,
You've got me most of the way there! I redirected the iTunes Music Folder location to the external hard drive, and specified the folder on the hard drive that includes all the previously ripped/downloaded music. Then I did the "consolidate library" command, which was successful in putting the minimal music already in my iTunes library onto the external hard drive. Finally, to get all the music from my external hard drive into the Library, I deselected the "copy files to the iTunes music folder when adding to the library" and then "add to library" the folder that is on the hard drive containing all the music I want to be able to browse and select to put on my iPod. Unfortunately, only some of the music came across. It copied about 20 gigs of the music, of which there is 135 gigs of music to copy...???
All I'm trying to do here is maintain a large volume of music (and eventually photos) on an external hard drive, and be able to use iTunes to access the music for placement on my iPod. What have I missed in my implementation here?
Many thanks for you kind advice and help! Scott

Playing music in iTunes from iPod

Hi there,
I have two Macs (dual 2,7 G5 & 17" Powerbook). I have my i Tunes library on my G5 and my 60GB video iPod updates off of that library. To save drive space on my Powerbook, I used to use my iPod to store my music and would connect it to my Powerbook essentially using the iPod as an external drive. This worked great but lately my entire library is greyed out and I can't play anything off of the iPod through iTunes and I am not sure why. Any ideas anybody?

I think the iPod has to be set to manual mode (in preferences)
In auto-update mode, it won't do it.
The other way you could do it is to use your iPod as a disk only, and store your library there. You can then point your library on both Macs to the iPod.
It can be relocated in: preferences/advanced/general. You can point to the library on the iPod on both Macs.
Scott

Playing music in iTunes off my iPod Touch G1

Hey everyone,
I am fairly sure I could do this with my old 30GB Video iPod but can't seem to do it with my new Touch. Basically I want to be able to play music within iTunes from my iPod not my library. I have music uploaded to my iPod and can play it over the headphones but when I plug it into iTunes it seems that all the music is there but grayed out and can't be played directly off the iPod but using my computer (iTunes) as the external speakers (Does that make sense?). Any ideas or anything I can do to make this work?

I don't ever remember being able to do this with earlier versions of iTunes and my iPod classic 80GB. I believe that playing the music from your computer is your only option (and you can plug your headphones into your computer if you don't want to listen to it through your speakers).

How to Play iTunes from a external Hard Drive?

Is it possible to run iTunes from an external hard drive so that I dont use up the space on my labtop? For example, store all my music files on the External and run it through iTunes.

Assuming you use the iTunes default settings where iTunes copied added items to your iTunes folder and organizes your library (meaning - everything is all self contained in the iTunes folder), then all you have to do is drag & drop your iTunes folder (not just the iTunes Music folder you find inside the iTunes folder) to the external drive and copy the entire thing.
If you want to test that it worked or would like to actually start using it from that location instead, use these instructions when you start iTunes to point it to the new location...
How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
If you are just testing, then close iTunes after you verify it works, and restart iTunes again with the same instructions and point it back to your internal drive (original) location.
Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307074
Patrick

When loading songs into iTunes, from my external hard drive. It seems to be copying the music onto my MacBook Air.

When loading songs into iTunes, from my external hard drive. It seems to be copying the music onto my MacBook Air.
How do i have iTunes only read the songs from my hard drive, rather then copying them?

You may find these Links of Interest...
Moving iTunes Media Folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-media-to-an-external-drive.html

Due to a broken laptop I've loaded my itunes from an external hard drive my itunes wont play unless i leave the the exteral hard drive connected. what is the problem?

My laptop working Vista H Premium broke, I now have laptop working Mindows 7 H Premium. I reloaded my itunes from an external hard drive but they wont play without the external hard drive left plugged in

The media is on the external drive. If you want to be able to play it with the extrenal drive disconnected, this will require moving or copying the media off the external drive to the computer's hard drive.
Importing the media via iTunes may automatically accomplish this, depending on the settings in iTunes.

HT1414 touch screen does not work on my ipod when playing music on itunes, but works fine on every other thing on ipod

touch screen does not work on my ipod when playing music on itunes, but works fine on every other thing on ipod, can anyone help or what is the cause

Try:
- Reset the iOS device. Nothing will be lost
Reset iOS device: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Unsync all music and resync
- Reset all settings
Go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset All Settings.
All your preferences and settings are reset. Information (such as contacts and calendars) and media (such as songs and videos) aren’t affected.
- Restore from backup. See:
iOS: How to back up
- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.
If still problem, make an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store since it appears you have a hardware problem.
Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar

HT1727 how do I transfer my iTunes from an external hard drive to a different computer?

How do I transfer my iTunes from an external hard drive to a pc?

If you don't have all of your music files within the iTunes Music folder structure, simply moving all of your music to a new location will not result in your iTunes library automatically updating the file paths to all of your songs appropriately. If you have a few other locations in which you store your music, you can take the ExportImport script turingtest2 wrote, make the modifications below, export the results, paste them into Microsoft Word or Excel, do a Find and Replace with the correct file location, and then import the new locations. To use the script, follow turingtest2's instructions on this thread as posted on Dec 19, 2012 6:28 AM.
Note that the modifications, while they worked for me, show my lack of experience with VB as the progress bar will no longer work. Definitely be sure to back up your iTunes library file before executing the script with the below modifications, but doing this for 3500 items didn't even take 2 minutes for the script to run.
Line 89 was:        Prog=True
Line 89 is now:     Prog=False
* I had to do this because otherwise the progress bar was erroring out. So, i just turned it off.
Lines 164-165 were:
'File.WriteLine "<#>" & .Location           ' Not so useful if working with missing tracks
'File.WriteLine "<Album>" & .Album
Lines 164-165 are now three lines (the middle one is the only uncommented line):
'File.WriteLine "<#>" & .Location           ' Not so useful if working with missing tracks
File.WriteLine "<Location>" & .Location
'File.WriteLine "<Album>" & .Album
Finally, insert this whole block around line 270 so that it looks similar to the others:
        Case "<location>"
          If T.Location<>Value Then                ' Don't update if value won't change
            T.Location=Value
            U=U+1
            Trace T,"Updated Location"
          Else
            V=V+1
          End If
          'If Trace Then MsgBox "Updated Location"
Note that I had to comment the very last line as well or else the program errored out. You won't be able to trace the results either.
Just thought I'd share this in case anyone else needed something like this.

Why can't I move my iTunes library and run iTunes from an external hard drive?

I've been having issues with space on my Macbook pro, so I wish to move my music in order to free up more space. I have been following the instructions on how to run iTunes from an external drive, but each time I attempt it only the 'Automatically Add to iTunes' folder copies to my drive - which has nothing in it.
What is going on?

Which exact set of instructions? Just about all of them are wrong, even the ones that specifically say how to move your library.
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.
Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the iTunes Library.itl file in the moved iTunes folder.
For the record there's this reference for iTunes 11 but it really doesn't strike me as having the specifics you need. iTunes 11 for Mac: Move your library to another computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12168

My mac book pro has no sound when i try to play music in iTunes

When I try to play music in iTunes, either from my library or the iTunes store there is no sound. Anywhere else the sound is fine. This just happens in tunes. Any suggestions?

Thank you so much - that was the problem. We just got apple TV and that was device selected. Once I changed the selection to the macbook, problem solved.
I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to my plea for help.

Playing music in iTunes from an external HD

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