Save playlists

Question

I want to backup my iTunes library, and I have EVERYTHING scrutinizingly organized by albums in playlists (i've imported my entire physical music library) and the lone songs are in various playlists as well. You get the picture.
Could someone tell or direct me to what I have to do to save my playlists and how to restore them should I ever need to? Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Hi,
I'm also looking for a good way to back-up my iTunes library, and here is what I've found so far:
1. You can just back up the music files. (They're usually in something like ~/Music/iTunes Music Library... you can find the exact location in iTunes|Preferences|Advanced, or you can simply drag them out of iTunes into a finder window.) Some song information is stored directly in the file. This includes track name, album, album art, lyrics, composer, note, and basically everything that is listed in the "Info" panel of a song's "Get Info" window. Some other information is not stored directly in the song file, including ratings, playcount, start and end time, and anything in the "Options" panel of a song's "Get Info" window. (Also, inclusion in playlists is not, of course, stored in the actual song file.)
So, in summary, backing up all of your music files only has the cons of losing the aforementioned information, but it has the pro that your backups -- except for the protected AAC files for music purchased from the iTunes music store -- will be readable by computers without iTunes. (Note: before backing up your music files directly, it is a good idea to "consolidate" your music library (from the Advanced|consolidate menu item).)
2. Another way to backup is to copy your entire library (i.e. all files) as well as the associated iTunes database files. (Or, you can have Apple's "Backup" program do this for you.) This has the disadvantage that restoring the backup is a pretty-much all-or-nothing activity: you can't just restore a few lost songs.
3. You can click on a playlist and burn a "Data Disk". This works wonderfully: you can just re-insert the disc (either DVD or CD) and it will show up just like a shared iTunes library. The downside is that you have to back up each playlist separately, and files included in multiple playlists get backed up multiple times... I really wish you could burn multiple playlists to the same disk in this manner, (the analogous operation works in iPhoto) but I don't know how.
Anyway, just a few thoughts.