Storing most of music on external drive but keeping library on local drive

As I think many have experienced, my hard drive is filling up. I would like to but most of my music on an external drive. This I know how to do. But I would like to keep the library itself on my local drive. This is so that when I am not home with my external drive connected I can still use iTunes to download and update podcasts and download new purchased music from iTunes Store.
I know that I can store some media files on another disk than the library, I do this with a few large video files. But I would like the music folders to stay organized, just on another drive.
Is there anyone with a solution like this? Apologies if I missed this in another thread...

I just found the following tutorial on moving iTunes music:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive/48
and it seems to answer my question. I can just change the preference for the location of the music folder, and new stuff will automatically download to my portable internal drive when the external isn't connected. Seems a lot of people have questions about external drives but it is hard to search for them because of so many different ways of posing the questions.
Anyhoo it would still be nice for a separate preference in iTunes to determine a separate location for podcasts. I will have to send in a suggestion.

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I can not store all my Music on my internal Macbook pro hard drive so I am storing it on a large external drive connected to my airport extrem. How do I get Itunes to search for the music here with out trying to copy it to my laptops hard drive??

I can not store all my Music on my internal Macbook pro hard drive so I am storing it on a large external drive connected to my airport extreme (2 TB drive plugged into the USB port). I see the drive on my laptop and I can add and delete files no problem. How do I get Itunes to search for the music here with out trying to copy it to my laptop's hard drive? I don't have enough space to do that.

How did you move the music to the external drive? What exactly is on the drive? The entire iTunes folder or only music? If it is the entire iTunes folder you can do the option+start suggestion earlier. If you copied only music and did so by dragging it there then you need to delete it again and consolidate/organize it there instead so iTunes tracks the move. iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19507

Can I store the apps in my iTunes library on an external hdd but keep my music on my mac

can I store the apps in my iTunes library on an external hdd but keep my music on my mac?
thanks

I don't know if this is me adding files to iTunes when the external wasn't connected
it is.
is it OK to just keep deleting that library on the Air?
i wouldn't - at least not until i
mount the external
point iTunes media folder location back to the external via preferences > advanced
consolidate my library via file > library > organize library
The ntfs hasn't seem to be causing any problems, but I've always wanted to know.
in order for your Mac to write to NTFS drives, it needs some help by installing e.g. the NTFS 3G driver. apparently that or something similar is installed on your Mac already. preferably, it would be formatted for Mac but then windows machines would need to have e.g. MacDrive installed to recognize the drive.

I moved all my music from c: drive(because it was full) to an external harddrive and now itunes can't find any of my music. Is there a way to get Itunes to find music on external drive without having to place all the music back onto the c: drive? Thanks

I moved all my music from c: drive(because it was full) to an external harddrive and now itunes can't find any of my music. Is there a way to get Itunes to find music on external drive without having to place all the music back onto the c: drive? Thanks

Hopefully you moved the entire iTunes Media (or iTunes Music) folder to a new path on your external drive. Copy your iTunes library folder out to the root of the external drive, e.g. X:\iTunes (where X: is your external drive), then move the media folder inside it. Hold down shift as you start iTUnes and keep holding untila asked to choose or create a library. Choose the library at X:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl. Should all be good.
Failing that, download and run my FindTracks script and point it at the new location of your media folder.
tt2

How do l play music from external drive using itune.

Does anyone know how to use itune to play music from external drive without upload sounds to the itune libray.

You don't. Use the QuickTime Player instead.
(61573)

I have a Zen Photo need to delete music from my pc but keep music on

I need to delete the music on my pc but keep the music on the Zen.
What problem will have in doing this?
What will happen when I connect the Zen to my pc?

You don't use Windows Media Player? You have never stated the O.S. on the computer you are using . Is it Xp or Vista? I can see that your Sync Manager is not up to date. The Sync Manager has been integrated into the Creative ZenCast Organizer Suite 2.0.0. That also gives you the ability to subscirbe to & download Podcasts. I must say I have discovered them recently & love it. There are audiobooks that are in the form of podcasts I found this a useful thing . You can set the sync organizer to be manual to not delete things automatically. Or you can use windows media player0 to add music? manually also.

Hard drive crash, music on external drive but no library or playlist backup

I'm guessing this question has been asked many times but I've searched all over the internet and these forums and am exhausted. So I beg for your help.
My computer hard drive crashed. Not sure if I can get the files off it yet or not but will find out this weekend trying to connect it as an external drive with a special cable. All the Itunes music is on an existing external hard drive that works fine. No backups were ever created of the playlists or of the library file on the crashed drive, the external drive, or anywhere else.
I'm using what I guess they call on original Ipod, 25 GB.
The main thing I care about is getting 5 years' worth of playlists back. Most of them do exist on my Ipod, so at worst I could reference them visually there and recreate them in Itunes. But, um, I'd rather not!:)
So if with that information you can tell me what series of steps I should take to try to restore my playlists into Itunes on my new PC, or point me to a link, please do. I'll put my thoughts and questions below if this helps in figuring it out. I would say the chances are that I can't access any files from my old hard drive, but it is possible.
My Ipod also contains most of my songs and playlists, but not all, such as different versions of the same song etc. That is in addition to the external hard drive that all my songs are safely on.
1) If I can access the files on the old hard drive, is there anything there that contains information on the playlists if I haven't backed them up individally? From my reading it seems like playlists are not contained in the library file itself, is that right or wrong?
2) What information is contained in that library file, what does it do? If I can't get it from my old hard drive what will happen if I have Itunes create a new one?
3) I've read that I may be able to get playlist information from my Ipod, but it seemed really confusing and I was uncertain if that was correct. Is that a possiblity? Can I do it by accesing the Ipod as an external drive?
4) Would I also be able to get the libary file from the Ipod if I can't get it from my old hard drive? If the Ipod contains most but not all of my songs, would it be bad to use this file with the complete list of songs on my external drive?
That's about all the questions I can think of, so if anyone can help I'd appreciate it. I just can't seem to find an answer specifically to what happens if your music is backed up but playlists and library are not.
Message was edited by: overthetide

+"1) If I can access the files on the old hard drive, is there anything there that contains information on the playlists if I haven't backed them up individally? From my reading it seems like playlists are not contained in the library file itself, is that right or wrong?"+
See: What are the iTunes Library files? Both the ITL and XML files keep your Library data. The ITL file is used by iTunes. The XML file is created by iTunes and can bu used in other programs or Imported back into iTunes to re-create your Library. hey are only as good as your last archived backup file (should you corrupt the current Library database file).
+"2) What information is contained in that library file, what does it do? If I can't get it from my old hard drive what will happen if I have Itunes create a new one?"+
These are only in the iTunes Library files (ITL & XML):
Playlists
Ratings
Play Count
Last Played
Date Added
Date Modified
Equalizer
Volume Adjustment
These are stored in the music file itself:
Artist
Album
Song Title
Year
Comments
Compilation tag
Lyrics
Genre
Grouping
Volume Adjustment (a special iTunes-only tag in the file - non-standard)
Composer
Bit Rate (not a tag - inherent to the file itself)
BPM
Kind (not a tag - inherent to the file itself)
Album Art (only stored in the file - not copied to the iTunes Library ITL or XML files)
+"3) I've read that I may be able to get playlist information from my Ipod, but it seemed really confusing and I was uncertain if that was correct. Is that a possiblity? Can I do it by accesing the Ipod as an external drive?"+
These links will give you several methods of recovering whatever songs remain on your iPod; some free, some third-party software, some more comprehensive for restoring Playlists, Ratings, Play Counts, etc. Read them and their associated links before deciding on a strategy that works for you. There are many various third-party software programs that will offer a more robust process, or an easier GUI. Do a Google search for them if the links below leave you wanting…
Don King Resurrected: Deleted files from hard drive (free user steps – music recovery only)
MacMuse: Computer Crashed (free user steps – music recovery only)
Copying music from iPod to computer (a primer on various methods and software)
Copying Songs from Your iPod to a Mac or PC (resource for 3rd party software)
iPodRip Software (Free trial: Mac & Windows)
PodUtil Software (Mac & Windows)
YamiPod Software (Free: Mac & Windows)
PodPlus Software (Windows)
TuneJack Software (Windows)
XPlay (Windows software For Music Recovery &/or Cross-Platform Functionality)
XPlay Photo Browser (For recovering Photos)
+"4) Would I also be able to get the libary file from the Ipod if I can't get it from my old hard drive? If the Ipod contains most but not all of my songs, would it be bad to use this file with the complete list of songs on my external drive?"+
Not directly. You'll need to use the recovery software mentioned in #3 above.
Best of Luck

Music on external drive but want to use itunes when drive is not connected. How?

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I have already turned on iCloud Photo Library and it works just fine for my iPhone. BUT, what I want is for it work on my main machine, the macBook Air. I do NOT have an iMac or other to store the "system" Photos library. I do Not have room on my internal drive for the macBook Air ("system" library is located on an external drive). I don't want to have to lug that 3 TB drive with me. It also will not let me move the library file. The library file is close to 40 Gbytes and I have less than 20 left on my internal drive (and I don't dare let it get much smaller than this)....
Any ideas as to how to do this?
For my iTunes library, I ran into a similar issue, but I simply started a new library and dragged the files (on my external drive) into iTunes. This told iTunes where they were without copying them to the internal drive.
I would think something similar should work with Photos, but I don't know how to do it.

Storing Music on External Drive Access from iTunes without using HD HELP !!

I have a 160 gb external drive that I store all my music on, I have a 30gb HD on my computer, I am trying to update my iPod with the files that are on my External HD and not use up HD space on my computer, I cant get it and keep either using up all the HD space and getting error messages, I hate it right now and I cant even email apple as they just keep sending you round and round, I am about to bucket my iPod unless I get some help, please somone help me !!!!
60gb i{Pod Windows XP

Hi GL,
Your a Star, it was in General Tab but in the Advanced option, iTunes was set to my previous on my laptop which had the local HD capacity to hold the volume of info, I have now directed iTunes to look at the External drive and the folders with the music and it seems to be fine , I,m so happy as I need my ipod to keep sanity, cheers for your help, dont hesitate if you have any problems to ask!, Regards Kevin
Hi Kevin,
I can empathize with your frstrations. If I
understand your question, you want to be able to play
your music on your pc, but not copy the files to your
local HD? I can only tell you what I did... maybe
there is an easier way, if you can figure it out, I
only hope that youll share it with me when you do.
Here goes:
First, open itunes on your PC, and go to
(edit/preferences)
Click on the (general) tab, and you will see a box
entitled (itunes music folder location)
Click on (change) and select the drive that you want
to have your music read from - NOTE this drive will
have to be connected for you to be able to hear your
music then click ok ONCE
BEFORE CLICKING OK THE SECOND TIME----- DESELECT the
(copy files to itunes music folder when adding to
library)tab
Now you can click ok
NEXT... go to (file/add folder to library)
select the folder you want to add to your PC library
- ideally your library should be empty or it will be
VERY DIFFICULT to determine which songs are on which
drive if you are using multiple drives for storage -
and click ok
what happens next is that itunes will scan the folder
and add all the titles to your library without adding
them to your HD.
I hope this helps.
GL

Moving music from external drive to new computer, not showing music

Hello,
I was running iTunes 7 or 8 on Windows XP on a laptop. I ran out of room on the laptop and followed Apple's doc to move library to external drive and point iTunes to the new location. It's been working that way for over a year.
Old laptop crashed and I purchased a new laptop running Windows 7. The external drive is fine, and I was able to restore info and pics backed up to that drive on my new laptop. I installed iTunes 9 on the new laptop and tried several things to get it to see the music folder on the external drive, but it doesn't see the music at all. I even copied everything to the iTunes Media folder on the new laptop, but nothing shows up at all. I assume it has to do with what library files are available and where they're located. There are no library files on external drive, only a My New Music Folder. The old laptop can be on for about 10 minutes before it crashes, so I could try to retrieve the old library files if I knew what I needed and where to find them, but I hope I can do it without having to turn on old laptop. Any help is much appreciated. Are my playlists gone? Help!

If everything on the external drive is in WMA format then that method would work, otherwise you are likely to get duplicates, which is why I suggested you work with the Not Added folder.
Different audio formats have different ways of compressing and storing the information from the original source. Most software and hardware will only work with a limited range of formats. iTunes cannot play WMA directly, but can convert it to one of the formats it will play. Given this is a clean install of iTunes that format is likely to be AAC if you haven't changed it. MP3 may be a better choice if you might want to put the media on some non-Apple device in future, otherwise ACC is supposedly slight more efficient, i.e. a smaller file for the same quality.
The main factor affecting file size is bit rate. The more original data that is kept, the larger the file and the more closely the reproduced music will match the original source. WMA is a lossy format typical bit rates are 128kbs and 256kbs. Conveting a 128kbs file to, for example, a 256k AAC file results in a file larger than the original, but no better quality.
If you put Windows Explorer in details view you should be able to enable a bitrate column and scan through to see what the current values are. You can adjust your import settings as given. You may want to import in more than one batch if there is a mix of bitrates.
tt2

Have iTunes music on external drive. How do I access it with new computer?

Hello. On my old laptop (which died) I had my iTunes music and videos stored on an external drive (changed it under Preferences). Now that I have a new computer and installed iTunes, how do I get it to use my external drive with all my music and videos? I changed it in preferences but it doesn't show up.
Thanks for your help.

I did an add file to library with the entire music library and after all day of processing it is now showing up and did not duplicate the setup. I had changed the save location to the music folder under preferances first. Thanks for the help. I guess it is time to figure out playlists next. Then go buy the iPod.
Doug

HT1766 Can the backup file for a IPAD be stored and accessed on an external drive?

Can the backup file for a IPAD be stored on an external drive to free up space on a computer?

There are some wireless external hard drives that can be used with the iPad.
The Kingston Wi-Drive, which costs $50 for the 16 Gigabyte, and then $30 more for every 16 gigs more. It works by you turning it on and then accessing the files on it from an app that you download on your iDevice. You can access music, movies, and other stuff. No connections or anything, it works like a WiFi connection, you connect to it from the setting on the iPad under wireless networks.
Then there is the Seagate GoFlex, which some would recommend over the Wi-Drive. But this one costs $199 and had 500 Gigabytes of storage. It works the sameway as the Kingston: no wires, runs over its wireless connection. You can actually fit up to 300 HD movies on it.
Another option:
Expand your iPad's storage capacity with HyperDrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1153935/hyperdrive.html
On the road with a camera, an iPad, and a Hyperdrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1160231/ipadhyperdrive.html
Mac - How to Move the iPhone & iPad iTunes Backup folder to an External Hard Drive
http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/05/how-to-move-the-iphoneipad-itunes-backup-folder-t o-an-external-hard-drive/
Windows - Change iPad default backup location
http://apple-ipad-tablet-help.blogspot.com/2010/07/change-ipad-default-backup-lo cation.html
Windows - Changing IPhone and iPad backup location
http://goodstuff2share.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/changing-iphone-and-ipad-backup- location/
 Cheers, Tom

ITunes adding music from external drive to multiple users

Here's what I have:
My iMac currently has 3 different user accounts on it. My iTunes library is currently stored on my external HD and its location is set to route to the external drive on both accounts. I currently have both boxes checked to Keep files organized in the iTunes folder (which is on my external HD).
Issue: iTunes does not automatically update the library information from the external drive to the actual iTunes player/list. So, for instance, if I currently added a song to my library via cd on User A's account, it will automatically save to the external drive...but when i log into User B, it will not show the new song in that iTunes player/list. Instead I have to go find the file on the external drive and drag it into the iTunes.
Basically, how can I make it so that any time new music is added to the external hard drive, iTunes will automatically add it into the player w/o me having to manually move it over?

iTunes has no "folder watch" feature, so what you're experiencing is normal and cannot be solved without third-party software. Hazel is a third-party utility that claims to be able to watch a folder and automatically add an added track to iTunes. I haven't tried it, but you might want to take a look. Otherwise, you have to add the tracks manually.

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!! Transferring music Mac external drive- Windows

Hello my fellow community members. I have an external hard drive where I used to back up my MacBook's hard drive, and more importantly my iTunes music collection, a decade long culmination of my ever changing musical tastes. The MacBook finally gave out on me and now the only computer I have access to apart from my iPad is a PC running windows 7. So my question is, how can I transfer my iTunes folder off of my Macbook's external drive onto the Windows 7 PC? And also, would there possibly be some kind of USB extension I can get for the iPad that could possible allow me to access those files on the drive? but most importantly is transferring that entire folder onto the PC. If someone could please help me I would greatly appreciate it. I would be devastated if I lost my collection. About 90% of my collection wasn't purchased on iTunes so iCloud is no help for the majority of it. So please, help a brother out as they say!!!!!!!

There is no way to connect any iOS device via USB to an external drive.
What format is the external drive in? If it is not in NTFS format, the windows computer will not be able to read the data on it.

ITunes keeps forgetting location of music on external drive

iTunes keeps forgetting the location of the music i have which are stored on an external drive. it remembers a handful of them but forgets the rest so i keep getting an exclamation when i want to play them. how can i make iTunes permanently remember these files????

ah sure that's what i have been doing. the drive is always on before iTunes but iTunes can never find my music without me actually finding them for it. the location in iTunes preferences is also pointing towards the drive so not sure why it can't find them!?

Storing most of music on external drive but keeping library on local drive

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