Storing movies and tv shows on external drive.

I have moved my itunes music library to an external drive as i was runnig out of space. I'm i right in thinking this only moves my music files to this drive and keeps my movies and TV shows on my internal drive? After buying an apple tv and loading up more movies my hard drive is filling up fast.
Is it possible to store these file on the extrernal drive and still be sync'd with the Apple TV in the same way my music is?
I want to use the Apple TV as a library of my moves and don't want to stream

When you import something to iTunes you can decide whether or not to have files automatically copied to the iTunes Music library or just links to their location elsewhere.
As you probably know this is under iTunes>Preferences>Advanced>General
and selected with the 'Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder when importing' tick-box
When importing new CDs the imported files will automatically go into the iTunes Music library.
If you import pre-existing files from somewhere else on the hard drive either from the menus or by dragging and dropping, then they are governed by the preference set regardless of whether or not they are movies/tv shows or music files.
So if you had 'copy to iTunes Music folder' option set any movies you added will have been copied into the 'Music folder' which is now perhaps a bit of a misnomer and effectively a 'Media folder'.
Simplest way to check if your movies are in the 'iTunes Music folder' or not is to select one by right clicking and choose 'Show in Finder' for Mac or the equivalent Windows option which I've forgotten, but basically opens the folder where the movie is actually stored.
AC

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I really need to speed up my IMAC. I purchased a new external drive specifically formatted for apple. I also would like to move some other media (movies and music) to this external drive. What is the best method for this?

Please help...I need to delete iphoto pictures and back up to external drive without losing pictures. I have the external drive and would like to start this process. Can you help?

Formatted for Mac is not a format - for iPhoto you MUST verify that it is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled)
and putting your iPhoto library on an external drive is NOT a backup - you MUST have a good backup plan like Time Machine running or you are 100% guaranteed to lose your photos sooner or later
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
other media questions need to be ask in the forum for the software you use for them - this forum is only for iPhoto and the above instructions are only for iPhoto
LN

I want to save my movies and projects on an external drive

Does anyone know how I can change the settings on imovie to save imported movies into an external disk? When you ase asked to select where to save the movies, it only gives me the option to save on my Mac HD and if you move the clips then you can't use your projects any more.
I don't want to take up all the space on my Mac and I like to save everything to a external disk. I do this with itunes and iphoto, so I can't see why I can't do this with imovie.
I am a new user, any help would be appreciated.

Welcome ssnyder to the  iMovie boards ...
step1) purchase an external harddrive
step2) launch Utilities/Disk Utility, select new drive, choose Erase, choose Mac/hfs as format
step3) .. no step 3, new and formatted drive will be noticed by iM automatically; when creating New Event, it will allow you to import straight to ext. HDD. iM also allows to 'drag n drop' existing Events from internal to external drive without loss of connection to projects.

How do you move just your movies and tv shows to an external hard drive and have iTunes recognize that that is where that media is (keeping music on the internal hard drive itself and putting only movies and tv shows on an external hard drive)?

I'm not sure about how to get iTunes to recognize that my music is in one location (on my MacBook's internal hard drive) and my movies and tv shows are in another (on an external hard drive I purchased). I know how to make iTunes recognize that all of my iTunes files are on an external hard drive, but not only some of them. Please help me out. Thanks.

While you can do that, it is not a feature of iTunes. Put your movies on the external drive, then add them to iTunes by dragging the files to iTunes while holding the option (alt) key down so it leaves the files where they are located. There are other ways to move them if they are already added but they can be more involved and tricky. If it's just one or two try: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=relocateselected

So, I have just about had it. For nine days now, I have valiantly tried to move my library to an external drive. At first, I attempted to move it to my 2TB Time capsule, iTunes didn't like its new home though and moved home without telling me.

So, I have just about had it. For nine days now, I have valiantly tried to move my library to an external drive. At first, I attempted to move it to my 2TB Time capsule. iTunes didn't like its new home though and moved home without telling me. So then there were two libraries. I meshed them back together reluctantly and iTunes in a silent revolt, absolutely refused to use its own 'Keep Library Organized' criteria and may as well have thrown my music against the wall. Seriously, my 5 year old nephew has his computer files better managed. Then I bought a 3TB Time Capsule and you may ask yourself why??? Well, iTunes doubled in size- although when I ran apps that are designed to find duplicate iTunes files, it deleted the music I actually bought from iTunes. So then I watched as iTunes got it back. How you ask; I run a MacBook Air, iMac and Mac mini in my house - as soon as one powered up it hit the net like a sailor on leave and re-downloaded it all without abandon. I tried to keep the libraries separate, no success there. I tried to keep them unified; iTunes response was to ask me if I wanted to join iTunes Match every time I logged on to my computer and on any computer - my iTunes match song number has been as high as 24,367 and as low as 11,112. And I can't simply refuse iTunes. No one refuses iTunes. Refusal to allow iTunes Match to run through all 24000 songs again was to revoke my rights to the songs that were once part of my library. If I took a long time to decide or was visibly impatient while iTunes did its little 3 hour scan it would arbitrarily decide that music I bought from iTunes was ineligible for iTunes Match. How could that possibly be??? I am missing music, or at least iTunes tells me so by showing me that lovely exclamation point. I have tried backing up my computer to do a full system restore and start all over. Time Capsule claims I have 979 GB of data and takes its sweet time to even back up one gig (about 18 minutes) even though I can transfer files to my Time Capsule at about 1 GB every 40 seconds. I guess though performing back-ups are somewhat like government jobs; it will get done, when it gets done. The back up requirement of 979 GB is surprising though, my Mac claims that I currently occupy just about 25% of my 2TB drive. The discrepancy, who knows, but I think the solution lies somewhere in iTunes. But maybe iPhoto. But that is for another time.

After admittedly only a quick read the one thing you don't say is how you are trying to make this move. Most people with moving library issues do it the wrong way. Plenty of web sites tell you how to do it the wrong way.
If the iTunes application is started before the drive with the library is fully mounted and awake iTunes will revert back to the internal drive.

HT1660 Can I play movies and music from my external hard drive or do I have to re-instll them on my computer?

Can I play my movies and music from my external hard drive or do I have to reinstall it on my computer?

Hello B3NN13,
If you would like to add the music from your external hard drive to iTunes without copying it to the iTunes Library on your internal hard drive, you may find the following article helpful:
Add files to your library without adding them to your iTunes folder
When you add an item already on your computer to your iTunes library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder. The original file remains in its current location.
You can change this setting so that files are added to your iTunes library without being added to the iTunes folder. You might want to do this, for example, if you prefer to store video files on an external disk but still want to view them in iTunes.
Choose iTunes > Preferences, and click Advanced.
Deselect the checkbox next to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.”
From now on, when you drag a file to your library or choose File > Add to Library, the item appears in iTunes, but the actual file isn’t copied or moved.
Tip: You can temporarily reverse this setting by holding down the Option key while you drag files to the iTunes window.
iTunes 12 for Mac: Change where your iTunes files are stored
Sincerely,
- Brenden

I wish to move movies/tv shows to external drive

I have less than 10% of my internal 2T drive available, and wish to move my movies and TV shows to an external drobo, I don't care if my music collection moves or not.
What is the best way to do this and keep iTunes happy? I tried copying the entire folder to the Drobo, but the software did not seem to like that approach.
Thanks

The following article(s) may help you.
Moving your iTunes library to an external drive (Mac)

How can i make apple tv 3 store all my purchased movies and tv shows onto a hard drive somewhere in my house

Currently my apple tv 3 downloads movies/shows when I want to watch them. I'd prefer if it downloaded everything already and it is all available locally without having to download gigabytes from the internet.
Q: How can i make apple tv 3 store all my purchased movies and tv shows onto a hard drive somewhere in my house?
a) Impossible
b) Link my apple tv 3 to a computer running itunes
c) Link my apple tv 3 to my Apple Time Machine
d) purchase an external USB drive and plug it directly to the apple tv 3
e) purchase a NAS drive and configure the apple tv 3 to use it
f) [your answer here]
Thank you,
Chris

Hi! Dwagner, once again ...
I've just got my Mac last friday ... i'm still getting amazed with this new world to me ... eehe .. quite different ... but
... "i can do it, i can do it" eheeh
i'm in that period that a new question appears at almost every mouse click ... lol
so ... can you help me (once again) ..
you said you had your hard drive with this settings...
"You can partition for OSX (extended Journal) - read/write by only OSX or read only by Windows via BootCamp
You can partition for Windows (NTFS) - readable by only Windows
OR - you can format with ex-FAT and this is read/write capable for both operating systems."
how did you formated the partition in NTFS ? ... on the mac? using the "disk utility" ? or did you use another program to do so ...?
i hope i'm not "bugging" you ... this might be a silly question for most of people ... but right now ... it's a major question for me ... ehehe
once again Obrigado (Thank You)
Rui from Portugal

I can no longer edit the info for my songs, movies and tv shows. This occurred since I loaded Windows 7 Pro on my C drive, and then fownloaded ITunes 10. Why will the program not allow me to access the track info to edit it?

I can no longer edit the info for my songs, movies and tv shows. This occurred since I loaded Windows 7 Pro on my C drive, and then fownloaded ITunes 10. Why will the program not allow me to access the track info to edit it?

Ah yes school boy error there out of frustration and discontent..
My issue is with music/apps/films etc not downloading from iTunes / App Store.
They initially fail and message is displayed stating unable to download / purchase at this time, yet if I retry it says I've already purchased (?) or alternatively I go to the purchased section and there they are waiting with the cloud symbol..
However some items get frozen in the download window and cannot be retried or deleted. Message appears stating to tap to retry, but even if you stole every bath and sink in the uk you'd still not have enough taps.
I post here as the iTunes guys are useless in there 'help' and have only advised posting here or phoning apple, at my expense, to explain a problem that could be rectified by forwarding my original email to a techie. However the tech team apparently don't have an email address as they're from ye olde Middle Ages..!
Anyways I digress.
So I tried sync to pc, but instead of showing the file as ready to listen/use/view, the iCloud symbol shows and I'm back to square one as the item is unable to download..
At frustration station waiting for a train from pain...
All my software is up to date, and had all worked fine prior to the last big iOS update that resulted in all the changes in display and dismay.
Answers in a postcard :-)
Much love

I have been storing my music and photos in an external drive how to I transfer them to Time Capsule now that I acquired one?

I have been storing my music and photos in an external drive to save disk space in my computer. Now that I purchased the Time Capsule what do I have to do to transfer such files to my time capsule?

I have been storing my music and photos in an external drive to save disk space in my computer
How have you been backing up the data on your computer and the external drive up until now?
I assume that you want to use the Time Capsule to back up your Mac and the external drive. Is that correct?

I am running Lion 10.7.2 and I have an external drive hooked to my time machine. I can't rename folders and when trying, I get an error code 8076. The checkbox "ignore permissions for this device" does not show on volume info. Help please???

I am running Lion 10.7.2 and I have an external drive hooked to my time machine. I can't rename folders and when trying, I get an error code 8076. The checkbox "ignore permissions for this device" does not show on volume info. Help please???

The TIme Machine volume does not have that checkbox.
I think the issue is with your Finder...
Go to Finder "Go" menu hold the option key and choose Library. Then go to Preferences trash these files:
com.apple.finder.plist
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
Then, restart, or log out and in again.
(You will have to reset a few finder prefs the way you like them.)

Movies and tv shows, stored in my itunes, are not playing on my iPad

In my iTunes, I've played tv shows and movies on my laptop and iPod, however I can't get them to play on my iPad. Help?

The movies and tv shows in your iTunes library on your computer can be transferred to your iPad via the iTunes sync/transfer process. This is selected under the Movies and TV Shows tabs for your iPad sync preferences with iTunes. After the movies and tv shows are transferred, they will be available in the Videos app under iOS 5.

The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?

I have recently switched from a PC to a MacBook Pro.
I have a large number of documents and photographs on a multiterrabite external drive, backed up on a second multiterrabite external drive.
Both external drives are formatted for MacIntosh. This has been verified by agents at an Apple store and also at Best Buy in two different cities.
This is the problem:
The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?
Also, the MacBook Pro will not allow me to rename multiple documents or photographs. I can click-and-rename a single one, but this is impossibly time consuming. I can batch-rename in iPhoto, but when I transfer the photographs to the external drive, the rename does not transfer.
I’m reduced to using my wife’s Toshiba to cut-and-past, rename, and transfer documents. It works perfectly. Is there any way to do this on the MacBook Pro?
Thanks!
Roderick Guerry
[email protected]

Roderick Guerry wrote:
The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?
No, this is a philosophical difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple believes that it's dangerous to cut a file in case the user never pastes it; in that case the file is lost. Microsoft seems to not have this problem (if I remember Windows correctly) because they don't delete the originating file if it's cut but never pasted.
Even though Macs have a lot of keyboard shortcuts, philosophically Macs have traditionally been mouse-first. This applies to file copy operations. In your case, what a Mac user would do is open the source window, open the destination window (on your second drive), and then Command-drag the selected files from the source to destination window. This is because a normal drag would leave the originals behind, while adding the Command modifier key tells OS X that this is a Move, not a Copy, so don't leave the originals behind.
(In addition there are different rules for drag-copying within the same volume or between different volumes. If you drag between two folders on the same volume, the files are moved. If you drag between different volumes, the files are copied unless you hold down Command to delete the copies on the source volume.)
Roderick Guerry wrote:
Also, the MacBook Pro will not allow me to rename multiple documents or photographs. I can click-and-rename a single one, but this is impossibly time consuming. I can batch-rename in iPhoto, but when I transfer the photographs to the external drive, the rename does not transfer.
Two problems in this case. First, batch file renaming is not built into OS X unless you build something with Automator. However, there are many utilities that can do batch file renaming which you can find at macupdate.com or on the App Store. Since I work with media I often batch rename using one of the media managers I have lying around like Media Pro or Adobe Bridge (comes with Photoshop).
iPhoto is a database front end designed to shield the file system from the consumer and let them concentrate on creativity and sharing. As such it is often a poor choice for managing files directly. When you "transferred the photographs" chances are you moved the originals, not the ones iPhoto edited which are stored in a hidden folder.
Roderick Guerry wrote:
I’m reduced to using my wife’s Toshiba to cut-and-past, rename, and transfer documents. It works perfectly. Is there any way to do this on the MacBook Pro?
There will not be a way to do it exactly like Windows. As described above, there are ways to do it "the Mac way." If it is possible to remove judgment on which way is "better" you might find the Mac way to be acceptable, but of course sometimes we simply prefer what we're used to.

HT1329 Moving movies and tv shows to new computer.

If I move my iTunes library to another computer using my iPod in disk mode, will it move my movies and tv shows as well? Any help would be appreciated.

They should be under the same iTunes folder as your music, in 'TV Shows' and 'Movies' sub-folders - you can find the exact location by doing 'get-info' (control-I) on one of them and the file location should be shown on the bottom of the Summary tab, or just right-click on a film or tv show and select 'Show In Windows Explorer' from the pop-up.
You can then copy them to a CD, DVD, flash drive or external drive and copy them onto your new computer and into iTunes (films and TV shows can be copied to a DVD for backup purposes but you won't be able to play them in a normal DVD player). If you have a wifi network in your house you might also be able to copy them via home sharing over your network (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527), but depending on how many films and tv shows there are it might be quicker via a disk or external/flash drive.

Transfering a few TV shows to External drive?

Hi,
I have a MacBookPro which is about 2 1/2 years old. I need to buy some TV shows from iTunes but I only have about 10 GB left in my laptop. I want to keep my iTunes in my laptop but keep some of my old TV shows that I bought from iTunes and don't want to watch for a while in the external drive. Can I do that? Is there a way to just drag the shows to external drive?
I really appreciate the help. I will buy a new MacBPro but can't afford for another year

lily00 wrote:
I only have about 10 GB left in my laptop.
yes, you urgently need to make room on your startup disk ! check this:
Your Mac needs adequate hard drive space to operate normally. How full can a drive be before it's too full? There is no hard and fast rule that says “X” amount or “%” of free drive space is needed. A low amount of RAM requires more drive space for Virtual Memory’s swap files.
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space are discussed in this link
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/lackofram.html
Here’s some general guidelines for minimum hard drive free space:
1. As a general rule, your available space should be 5GB as an absolute minimum as it generally requires that much free space to perform an Archive and Install of Mac OS X and still preserve some free space for VM swap files.
2. Some say that your hard drive should have at least 5% of it's capacity available for use. Still others say 10% to 15%. If you routinely process complex graphics and videos, even more space is required.
With your 19.7GB of free space, you should be OK. Usually it's best to not state a percentage, but state an amount of free space. There's a big difference in having 10% free space (20GB) on a 200GB hard drive compared 10% (4GB) to a 40GB hard drive.
Look at these links about freeing up more space.
Where did my disk space go?
http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38&Number=770243
Download & use WhatSize described in this link or Disk Inventory X @ http://www.derlien.com/
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
Amazing Disappearing Drive Space
http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/TigerMisc.html
Increase HD Free Space
http://macosx.com/forums/howto-faqs/275191-how-easily-increase-hd-free-space-lap top.html
How to free up my disk space
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
I want to keep my iTunes in my laptop but keep some of my old TV shows that I bought from iTunes and don't want to watch for a while in the external drive. Can I do that?
yes. try this user tip:
In iTunes 9.
iTunes prefs -> Advanced.
Set the iTunes media folder location to the external.
Then select the movie files (or any files in iTunes) and right click Consolidate.
This will copy only the movies to the external location.
After it finishes, iTunes prefs -> Advanced and set the iTunes media folder location back to the internal. This will tell iTunes to use the internal drive for new files.
You can then delete the movies from \Music\iTunes\ on the internal to free up space.
To copy a movie back to the internal, simply right click - Consolidate (since you pointed iTunes back to the internal).
just edit these instructions to meet your needs.
JGG
edited by the Jolly Green Giant (where Green stands for environmentally friendly)

Storing movies and tv shows on external drive.

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