Re. moving iTunes 11 library with Match to external drive

Hi
Firstly:
iMac 27" 3.06 GHz with 12GB RAM OSX10.8.2 and iTunes 11.01 (12)
I've read many of the threads regarding moving the iTunes library to an external drive. I want to do this as I have only got a 1TB drive in my iMac and therefore want to free-up some space on the internal drive.
I have iTunes Match enabled too which happily works between my other Apple products. So - at the moment, everything's working fine and I'm terrified of breaking anything!:))
Anyway - if someone could please help me with a step-by-step guide to moving my library so that iTunes (the program) would reside on my iMac, but the music/movies/books/apps etc live on the external drive which will then still work with Match, I would be so grateful........
Lastly, would there be any issues with doing this - ie would there be any indexing/searching issues or any other things I should be aware of that would stop me doing this?
I look forward to hearing from anyone who may be able to help.
Thanks and Kind Regards
Andy

Thanks very much Michael
This article showed me how to back-up my library to an external drive, but there was a link from there that I would not have found on my own to exactly do what I needed.
Thanks again
Andy

Similar Messages

Moved iTunes library to an ext hard drive to make space on my int drive... Followed steps from apple. Now I cannot access my music... It says: "File could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?"

Moved iTunes library to an ext hard drive to make space on my int drive... Followed steps from apple. Now I cannot access my music... It says: "File could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?"
I moved my iTunes library to my external hard drive some time ago and I followed the directions listed here on the apple support page. It did copy my library and now is on my hard drive... I can open iTunes and use it to sync all of my devices but I would like to play my music... I can see all of my music files but can not play them if I click on an album or song it says the following: "(file name) could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to locate it?" I click locate but do not know where to go from there? I need a way to access all files and not to hunt down one at a time on my hard drive... I am pretty sure I deleted the original library to make space on my internal drive which was the reason for moving it. I have tried and tried to fix it and do not have a lot of time to do so with a one and two year old at my house who do not like it whenI sit down at my computer. What to do??? Any help is much appreciated!!!

See Make a split library portable. Move all of the bits of the library together in the the correct shape and it should work. Or undo exactly what you did and then start over.
If you're a former Windows user don't try merging two folders together that have the same name by dropping one into the same folders as the other, as that goes badly on a Mac.
tt2

I have an existing mini mac and 4 tb external drive. My iTunes library exists on the external drive under /itunes... I have purchased a new mini mac and I want to leave the library where it is but move to new mini mac.. what do i need to do ?

I have an existing mini mac and 4 tb external drive.
My iTunes library exists on the external drive under /itunes...
I have purchased a new mini mac and I want to leave the library where it is on the external drive but move to new mini mac and have it show as it did on the old mini mac..
what do i need to do ?
I have found multitude of articles about moving itunes to external drive or other similar things but I don't want to move itunes from the external drive, just change mini mac machines and have everything in itunes the same..
Thanks

I had already tried that one and got this...
below is screen shot of what is on the new mac mini
and what is on the external drive now connected to the new mac mini..
There are no media files on the mac mini just the library files and on external just media files..
Do I need to copy anything over from the old mac mini ? xml files ? .. the itunes folder on old mini is about 840mb in size which looks to have artwork ect ? .. I am fairly computer literate, but this one has me stumped.. ?
thanks for help

TS3683 Not enough space on my Mac HD to back up my iPad. My iTunes library is on an external drive. Can I use this same drive to Back yup my iPad?

I don't have enough space on my Mac HD to back up my iPad. Actually, my iTunes library is on an external drive. Can I use this same drive to Back up my iPad?

1. First make sure iPhoto is not running. If it is, quit it. Use the Finder to copy your iPhoto Library file to your external drive. Unless you've changed it, its located inside your Pictures folder and is named "iPhoto Library".
2. After the copy is complete, start iPhoto while simultaneously holding down the option key. iPhoto will bring up a dialog box. The file in the list is your existing Library on your internal disk. Click the "Other Library" button and navigate to your external drive. Select your freshly copied iPhoto Library file and click "Open". iPhoto will from now on open and work with this library on the external drive.
3. After you've confirmed iPhoto is working properly with the newly copied library you may wish to delete the original library in your Pictures folder to recover the disk space.
Don't forget to keep a backup copy of your library on a separate disk. It's not a matter of "if" your external drive will fail but "when". You need to make regular backups or you'll be sorry someday.

Successfully moved iTunes library to a bigger external hard drive.......

Hi all,
Yesterday I successfully moved my iTunes media library over to a larger external hard drive for my profile. The problem I am having now is that my girlfriends profile is still pointing over to the old hard drive. I thought following the same steps would be the best way to get her pointed to the new location.
I updated the path in the iTunes preferences Advanced tab to the new location.
I started the "Consolidate" process and noticed that it was creating duplicates of everything that I copied (Consolidated) yesterday, so I stopped that before it got too far - last thing I want is to have to go through and find and delete all duplicates.
In addition to her profile on my Mac, there are 2 other profiles as well. How can I get all profiles to recognize that the iTunes library location has changed, with out creating multiple duplicates of each media item?
Thanks in advance!
Mike

Drag the entire library to the Mac's internal drive, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, and point it to that library. If the library only contains the music and not the iTunes database files, drag it into the open iTunes application window.
(80731)

Moving iTunes Library and Music to External Hard Drive...Possible?

I want to transfer my iTunes Library to an external hard drive. Is this possible and what are the pitfalls, if any?
Thanks
A.L.I

Yes it's quite possible, that's how I have mine set up, and Moving iTunes Music will tell you how to go about it.
Pitfalls? Can't really think of any.
Regards
TD

Moving iTunes Library with two users on the iMac

We have our iTunes library on my husband's login for our iMac. I am the most frequent user of this computer. We have home sharing turned on so that I can listen to the library while on my user account.
What is annoying is that all of our iPods are synced to the library on my husband's user account. So, I have to switch sides of the computer to plug and unplug our iPods.
Is there a way to move the library (with playlists intact etc) to my user account without creating two copies of the library?
Message was edited by: mfreckle

Log into yoru husband's account.
Drag the \Music\iTunes\ folder to \Shared\ folder.
Hold the Option and launch iTunes.
Select *Choose library* and selec the _iTunes library_ file in \Shared\iTunes\ folder.
Everything should work fine.
Quit iTunes and log into your user account.
Hold the Option and launch iTunes.
Select *Choose library* and selec the _iTunes library_ file in \Shared\iTunes\ folder.
Everything should work fine.
That's it.
You are both using the *same library*. Anytime you add/remove/change something, it will be the same when your husband uses it.
The iTunes library can only be open one time so make sure each user quits iTunes before leaving the computer.

Moving iTunes library, with a twist

So I realize this issue has been tackled a number of times, but I'm finding that each time it is addressed for setups which are different from mine and are therefore less than helpful.
Basically I'm trying to conserve my itunes library, metatags and all, after reinstaling windows on my computer (yes windows ***** and I should probably just get a mac, but money's a bit tight). The problem is that all of my music files are not in the 'itunes library' folder in my documents but rather in a different folder simply titled 'music' elsewhere on the drive. Furthermore, the drive it is on is not my C: drive. The goal with the whole thing is to simplify: I'm going to repartition so that I only have the one C drive and I'm going to let iTunes organize the music itself.
I know I can just install itunes on the 'new' computer and import all the MP3's, but then I lose a good deal of information about them (play counts, ratings, etc) which I don't want to lose.
If I'm screwed, fine, but I thought I'd open the question up to the apple community.
Thanks

These are two possible approaches that will normally work to move an existing library to a new computer.
Method 1
Backup the library with this User Tip.
Deauthorize the old computer if you no longer want to access protected content on it.
Restore the backup to your new computer using the same tool used to back it up.
Keep your backup up-to-date in future.
Method 2
Connect the two computers to the same network. Share your <User's Music> folder from the old computer and copy the entire iTunes library folder into the <User's Music> folder on the new one. Again, deauthorize the old computer if no longer required.
Both methods should give the new computer a working clone of the library that was on the old one. As far as iTunes is concerned this is still the "home" library for your devices so you shouldn't have any issues with iTunes wanting to erase and reload.
I'd recommend method 1 since it establishes an ongoing backup for your library.
If you do it properly there is no need to "import" anything on the new computer, you connect iTunes to a copy of the original library and it just works.
If you backed up the entire iTunes folder onto your portable, simply copy it into <User's Music> on the new computer as <User's Music>\iTunes and start iTunes.
tt2

HT4527 After copying my iTunes library across from an external drive it does not show in iTunes. Why?

My old computer died. I had my iTunes library backed up to an external drive. I have followed the steps outlined and moved the itunes folder from the external to the music folder on my new imac. I have checked that the addres is correct but when I opened itunes non of my music shows up. I can find a track file click on it and then it will open up, play and stay in itunes. But I would spend the rest of my life importing the songs one by one. Help ?

Thank you for your prompt response - I did as you said and did a drag and drop into the iTunes window - it imported and got my album art from the net. When I started Itunes with the shift key down I was prompted to choose a library but since I copied over the media folder and not the library folder I was unable to select that so I guess I will have to create a new library and add in all the music, videos, etc. unless I wait for my laptop and export the library or at least that seems to be the case? In short, all my data (iTunes media folder) is on my external drive and can be added to the blank iTunes screen but I can not choose a library folder. Is there anyway around completely making all those playlists again? I am not sure my laptop will survive the shop with data intact and really hate to start over on those.
In an unrelated question - I collect old TV shows from the 1950's. Can I make playlists within the home video folder somehow? In other words like one for Quiz shows, one for comedies, one for police and detective shows, etc. while I am remaking all my playlists for my music if I end up having to go that route?
Once again thank you for helping me out. I am not too Itunes savvy and really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

How to create new iTunes library from songs on external drive

I've seen numerous questions about moving an iTunes library TO an external library, but I want to do the reverse. I have a brand new iTunes program on my (brand new) Mac, and I have a large song collection (140 gigs) on an external drive. How do I put the song names into my Mac iTunes library without actually downloading the songs to the computer? I don't want to clog up the Mac with 14000 songs, I'd rather just have it access the drive to play the tunes.
Thanks in advance,
Ron

Hi Ron,
A couple ways to go about it. One is to simply go into iTunes preferences and under the Advanced tab DE-select (un check) the "Copy Files to iTunes Music folder when adding to Library" option. Now when you add your external drive tracks they will remain where they are and are just added to the library listing and will be played from the external location.
Keep in mind that this will happen to ALL songs you add to your library. So if you add one from your download folder and another from a server, etc. they will not be copied in and accessed from that location. If you like, you can always uncheck that, add your 140GB of external tracks, then when it is done, reselect that option so all other things added to your iTunes get copied into the iTunes Folder on your internal drive.
Are the tracks on the external drive arranged in any sort of special organization you want to keep? Or would you be willing to resort them a bit and let iTunes manage the organization? If you are will to let iTunes do the managing, you can set it up so everything goes onto the external and all your existing tracks will get organized by iTunes.
Patrick

Sharing Itunes library and backup on external drive

Would appreciate if anyone can offer help on their experiences of external / NAS drives. I've been looking for the best solution to move my entire Itunes library to an external drive that I can put on the network so can have access from PC's, Mac and Iphone. Just recently moved to new MBP but still have PC's in home.
Have looked at varying solutions and think I've got it narrowed down to going for either QNAP TS212 NAS or dedicated Iomega Network hard drive but seem to come over a lot of conflicting reports of these items not working well with MAC, particularily some comments on the use of Iomega which is the more cost effective solution.
A little background was planning on 2TB drives and partioning for Itunes library, Time Machine backups and PC backups. Have the S/W on MAC to read/write NTFS.
From my research the dedicated NAS would be appear to be the best answer but a lot more expensive than a network drive.
Can anyone advise of a network drive that they have experienced working well for this type of configuration?
Also is there any issues with syncing Iphone to an external networked library?
Any Advice Appreciated
Thanks

Trevnew wrote:
when looked in preferences the old location was still there, eventually changed in preferences
Trev,
changing iTunes media folder location via preferences > advanced tells iTunes where to put new additions to your library, not where the current content is.
also, with your library now on the NAS, you must make sure the NAS is mounted on your desktop before launching iTunes.
... still showed an issue with the file locations and the exclamation marks.
you may have done something wrong initially (during re-locating your library to the NAS) because the exclamation marks usually appear when media files were moved using the finder and iTunes lost track of their location.
you might be able to use this script:
iTunes Track CPR v1.3
This script attempts to locate the files of so-called "dead tracks"--iTunes tracks designated with (!)--that you assume are not actually missing but are still located in the iTunes Music folder in their "iTunes File Order" (Music -> Artist -> Album -> file.xxx)."

Moving Itunes Library from a Mac hard drive to a Windows hard drive.

We would like to move our Itunes library from our G5 that is on a external hard drive to another external hard drive that is Windows based to use on our other computer that runs Windows 7. We will not be moving it back to the G5. The hard drive contains over 700 GB of music on it. Is there any way to do this ? Any software ? I looked for answers but could not find any. Thanks in advance for your help.

This did not work. I signed into the iTunes store as the same user and I can still not play the music I purchased or the music I am authorized to play that others purchased. Can anyone help out with this question?

Can I keep my iTunes library solely on an external drive?

I have the macbook air with 128gig HD. I currently have a Windows laptop with a bigger HD housing my itunes network with all of my music and digital copies of movies. I've been using this computer as my primary laptop since I bought it (love it too much) and was considering taking the library over to this computer. Unfortunately with all the movies, it takes up a huge amount of HD space. I have a 500gig external drive. Can I have my itunes library on that, and plug it in when I want to sync or use itunes? Or does it all need to be on the actual computer's HD.
(Fingers crossed a cloud-based storage system somewhere in NC makes this all irrelevant later this year)

Hey
No problem keeping your itunes library on an external drive, just follow the instructions here to move it
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
In future make sure your external drive is connected and detected by your computer before opening iTunes.

HT4527 Help I followed the steps one by one to download my iTunes Library from my old external drive to my new iMac... it didn't work... I'm crying here!!

PLEASE IM BEGGING!! I need your help ...I cant lose my music library. Its all on my old windows laptop hard drive. I have removed the hard drive and put it into an enclosure. When I double click on the 'untitled' hard drive i see so many things Im confused. (im completely computer illiterate) I cant afford to take this in to the shop and I followed all the steps posted in above thread. I dont have my music. Is there anyone who can walk this old lady through (patiently) on how to do this?

Hello,
I would recommend taking a look at the article below for more information about migrating your iTunes library.
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1364
-Griff W.

Moving itunes library to a different hard drive

I am currently trying to move my Itunes Music from my C: Drive to my D: Drive, as there is a lot more space in the D: drive. I have followed the instructions on the "Changing where your iTunes files are stored", and then dragged the music from my iTunes music folder in C: to a newly created Music folder in D:
I just wanted to check how i now make it so my songs in my iTunes are now stored in the D: drive? As each file i click on in iTunes says the file is still in the C: drive.
Sorry if this is a bit of a stupid question, but I'm just a bit worried I'll lose my files when trying to move them.

turingtest2 wrote:
@jamesl1: Once moved you can hold CTRL as you start iTunes, then open the *iTunes Library.itl* file on drive D: Hopefully you either did the first step as outlined or can copy/move files around for the same effect adn then move on to opening the library ion the new location.
Have just tried to do what you said and did the first thing, worked fine. But now when I try and follow these steps I find problems. Firstly, opening iTunes whilst holding down SHIFT seems not to make any difference. And I can't seem to find a file called "iTunes Library.itl". (although there is something called "iTunes Library" but this is called an "iTunes Database File"
Any ideas whats wrong or if I am doing something wrong?

Re. moving iTunes 11 library with Match to external drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for