Saving itunes songs to a external hard drive

I currently have about 17,000 and I want to transfer my songs to an external hard drive. My problem though is that there are some songs that have scripts on them and will not transfer. My question is.... are there any good sites that I can use to change the format of all my songs in itunes to mp3 format?

I guess what i am looking for is soundtaxi equivalent for the mac.

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I cannot access iTunes songs showing in external hard drive

I recently closed my dropbox account and moved its content to an external hard drive. This included iTunes songs and now the songs and related albums no longer show in iTunes when I open it up, although I can see the individual songs (but not in albums) in the external hard drive. There are a limited number of albums still showing when I open up iTunes but they are albums I have recently added to iTunes.
However I can see the albums and tracks in the iTunes media folder on my Mac internal hard drive, but they do not show up when I actually open up Itunes.I have followed advice found on this website and have tried to move my iTunes folder to the external drive so all the music is in one place, but i keep getting an 'error code 50' message appearing. I have also tried to select the individual songs on the hard drive and move them to the media folder but there are no 'albums' to move them into and they just sit there as individual songs. I have a macbook air which is one year old and a WD My Passport ultra 1TB external hard drive. I am using OSX version 10.9.5 with 8GB of memory. As you can tell from my endeavours, I do not really understand the way iTunes works and it may be that the various songs and albums in the media folder need to be organised in a different way perhaps, so that they are visible when I open up iTunes?
As I have lots of space on my external hard drive and am running out of space on my Mac hard drive, ideally I would like all my iTunes folders to be held on my external drive, as it is always plugged in to my Mac, and for iTunes to be 'pointed' to the hard drive. Any advice please?
Thanks
Elizabeth

All kinds of things going on.
About the error code. Do you men "50" or do you mean "-50"? It is critical things get reported exactly here. Error -50 is a very unhelpful generic communications error with a number of possible causes. Something between the drive to which you are downloading and the drive from which it is all coming is not working correctly, with probably dozens of possibilities. I guess one simple possibility is if this is a brand new drive it likely came formatted for Windows use and needs reformatting for Mac.
Kappy's brief drive formatting instructions (12/2012) - https://discussions.apple.com/message/20571091#20571091
Pondini: Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks... - http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html, specifically http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Basic workings of iTunes. When you add a file to iTunes it puts the file in a specific location designated in you Media Folder preferences setting and makes a note in a database file (library.itl) of where it put it. When you want to play the track iTunes looks up where the file should be, goes there and plays that file. iTunes does not inventory its media folder for new additions. For iTunes to recognize tracks they have to be added to iTunes either by importing, dragging to iTunes, or dragging to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. If files added to iTunes are later moved by you in Finder, particularly to another drive, iTunes loses track of them completely and give you a broken link indicator " ! ".
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.
I don't know exactly how Dropbox works but basically by moving all your files instead of letting iTunes do the relocating you have broken all the links to your older files in iTunes. You can either repair them one by one, by one, by one.... or you can rebuild your library, or essentially create a new library and start over again (you did read those links I provided didn't you?). If you are prepared to start over, hold down the option key while starting iTunes. Create a new library on the external drive. Drag all your media files to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder in the iTunes folder on that drive.

Restoring itunes songs kep on external hard drive

hi all - some time ago on my power pc mac I put my entire itunes songs on an external drive, whilst keeping the song details on the computer. My power pc gave up the ghost and I transferred the contents of the old power pc mac to my new intel imac. The problem is that the intel mac cannot read the external hard drive and therefore cannot play the songs. Thankfully all the songs were backed up onto my time capsule and I have them all on the next intel mac - it is just that the computer cannot read the correct path to match the songs to the titles. Any advice? No data has been lost - I just want to avoid spending hours recreating my playlists etc.

Lewis,
I truly hope you have your current working iTunes Library and music files still on the original PC. From what I read of your process, you did not backup the music files at all.
There is little need to backup the iTunes Program Files as long as you have the installer file available (or can download the most current one from Apple).
Here is a link for my method to Completely Backup iTunes.
This is somewhat similar, but helps with moving (cloning) iTunes to another PC: Move (Clone) Your iTunes
Give them a read over and post back here with any questions.

I save my iTunes songs on an external hard drive, not on my mac. Everytime I play a song, it rearranges it in my external Hard Drive and sometimes renames it. How do I get that to stop?

Please help!

ITunes' default behavior is to copy items to the place you have designated for media storage, arrange it in artist and album folders and rename the file accordingly. You can disable this in iTunes preferences > Advanced but there may be consequences in doing this. if you get any broken links iTunes will not offer to find them for you. Moving your media to another drive in the future may be complicated and possibly involve losing some track information.

Creating iTunes Library on an external hard drive

I have an iBook G4 with a 60Gb hard drive which is filling up rapidly (I have about 5Gb of open space left). I would like to keep some of the music on my internal hard drive, as I use it at work, and the bulk of my libary on the external that I use at home. Is there a way to do this?
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Yes...
First, you need to move your iTunes songs onto the external hard drive. You can do this by going to (your home folder)->Music->iTunes->iTunes Music and then move each artist or song onto the external drive.
Second, if you want to play the songs directly from the external hard drive without importing them back onto your computer:
Open iTunes. Go to the iTunes menu->Preferences. Then go to the "Advanced" tab. There's a checkbox (most likely checked) next to "Copy files to the iTunes Music folder when adding to library". Uncheck that.
I would do the same for any other computer that you want to play music from the external drive with.
You're all set! Tell me if this works...
-Joe

I have an old iPod Classic with 80 GB (I think) of space. I saved all my songs in an external hard drive, but the iTunes library resided in an old computer (no longer working). Can I get the libray from my iPod and use it in my new computer (Windows)?

I have an old iPod Classic with 80 GB (I think) of space. I saved all my songs in an external hard drive, but the iTunes library resided in an old computer (no longer working). Can I get the library from my iPod and use it in my new computer (Windows)?

You might want to check your process for moving your iTunes music against this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527.

I recently transferred my ITunes library to an external hard drive. I made sure to copy all the data from the saved location. After the transfer I noticed that a lot of albums are missing the first song and some recently purchased albums are missing.

I recently transferred my ITunes library to an external hard drive. I made sure to copy all the data from the saved location. After the transfer I noticed that a lot of albums are missing the first song and some recently purchased albums are missing. Is there any way to recover the data? Thanks for any help.

I may have found an answer here:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive
They only thing I can assume is that my external hard drive was slow to start and iTunes defaulted to its old directory (see the last paragraph at the link above). However, once my external was recognized shouldn't everything have fixed itself?
Message was edited by: williamson42
Message was edited by: williamson42

I have two apple id's one from my old laptop and one from my iPhone. I saved my iTunes library to my external hard drive and then tried to transfer it to my iMac. My music skips like a scratched cd now and I can't add any to my iPhone. Help please!

I have two apple id's one from my old laptop and one from my iPhone. I saved my iTunes library to my external hard drive right before my old mac laptop died and then tried to transfer it to my new iMac. Now when I try to play my old music it skips like a scratched cd. Also, now I can't add any music to my iPhone unless it was purchased recently through itunes and downloaded through icloud. I tried to "Organize" my library in hopes of correcting the problem but my iMac just ejects my external harddrive part way through. Please help!

Ejects the harddrive?
Of what did your old Mac die?
It sounds to me like you have some file corruption somewhere. Either in the transfer of your library to the external or the external itself is flaky if it keeps ejecting.

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.

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.
Thanks!

I called Apple Support and they walked me through it. They told me to basically copy and paste my music to the external hard drive. (I think.) Or maybe it was they had me transfer a folder to the EHD. I don't exactally remember it was a few years back. But I tried to plug in the EHD before starting and...nothing. Still says same thing, "locate file."

I recently transferred my itunes library to an external hard drive. Now I get the error message 'the original file could not be found. Could you like to locate it' when i try to open songs. My iPod syncs ok.

I recently tranferred my iTunes library to an external hard drive. Now I cannot open songs and get the error message ' The song "***" could not not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it'. This applies to all 9742 songs!!. My iPod still syncs ok, but I can't play songs on the PC. Can anyone please help.

It would help to have more background about your iTunes collection such as if you keep it on an external drive, or if you have moved or renamed anything recently. iTunes is very sensitive to you renaming or moving files or folders involved with your media. iTunes only keeps a reference to where a media file is located and then goes to look for it when you try to play it. If you have changed things since it was added to itunes then it's like me sending you to look for a friend in my addressbook but that friend has moved.
The other possibility is your computer is starting to lose files. Again, the computer uses a reference database to tell it where on the drive to look for a file. If that database gets corrupt then it starts losing files. Use Dsk Utility's first aid to verify your hard drive.

I saved my itunes account to an external hard drive and can no longer access it

i have saved my itunes account to an external hard drive, then deleted my account on my laptop to make space on my hard drive and can no longer get acces to my itunes account.

If you move/copy your data back to internal drive, you should be able to add it to library, by clicking file add to library at the top of itunes.

I got a new computer and backed up my iTunes library to an external hard drive. The external hard drive is not allowing me to access the drive. Is there a way to transfer the songs from my iPod touch to my new computer?

I got a new computer and backed up my iTunes library to an external hard drive. The external hard drive is not allowing me to access the drive. I no longer have access to the old computer. Is there a way to transfer the songs from my iPod touch to my new computer?

That's a bummer, didn't realize the exHD files were corrupt, esp if you have tried from another PC and not just this new computer.
You can get purchases from the itunes store transferred from an iPod using these directions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848?viewlocale=en_US
If you want everything (meaning non-itunes songs, app data, photos, etc) you need to buy a 3rd-party ipod manager that support iTouch. Here is an iLounge article to start your research:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/copying-music-from-ipod-to-co mputer/P2/

I've copied my itunes library onto an external hard drive. Is there any way I can do this and delete songs from my PC without also deleting from the external drive? Already lost two songs!!!

I've copied my itunes library onto an external hard drive. Is there any way I can do this and delete songs from my PC without also deleting from the external drive? Already lost two songs!!! I just want a back up - using a work PC and don't want others accessing my songs. Hope someone can help. Thanks!

I see. To get a better idea of what is being stored where please download and run the script iTunesInfo which should output something like this:
I'm interested in the block of 4 results starting ITL location. If your profile name shows up somewhere replace it with <Name>. It is also worth checking under Edit > Preferences > Advanced to see where iTunes thinks your media is supposed to go. My script estimates the setting based on the location of the first media file it can actually find.
tt2

Can you save your itunes and songs onto an external hard drive so that incase your computer crashes you will still have all your music?

Can you save your itunes and songs onto an external hard drive so that incase your computer crashes you will still have all your music?

The procedures below are for "moving" your library but as long as you don't delete it from your internal drive you are basically backing up.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Simple answer: Copy your whole iTunes folder to the external drive. For subsequent backups you might want to learn about cloning and using a tool that only does incremental backups of recently changed items rather than copying all your files each time.

If I've downloaded my music to an itunes library from an external hard drive and I have several duplicate songs, is there an easy way to delete the duplicate songs? Or, do I have to go through my entire library song by song to delete duplicates?

If I've downloaded my music to an itunes library from an external hard drive and I have several duplicate songs, is there an easy way to delete the duplicate songs? Or, do I have to go through my entire library song by song to delete duplicates?

In iTunes, File>Display Duplicates

Saving itunes songs to a external hard drive

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