Sync issues after moving entire iTunes library to new iMac

I have a question regarding moving an itunes library to a new computer and what happens to the devices that were synced with it.
I moved a clients entire iTunes folder from the user-music folder on one iMac to another iMac, replacing it's itunes folder.
I then opened iTunes and it read the library just fine, all content intact.
The issue was with syncing the ipods that were originally connected to the previous computer.
I thought that I could just hook up their iPod to the new iMac, since it is essentially the same iTunes folder/content/data and all should continue syncing just fine. Nope.
The ipod (touch) would show 'syncing' yet no data would move between it and the new iMac.
Same thing with their Apple TV - it was originally being synced with the older iMac.
I had hoped, once moving the entire itunes folder to the new imac, that itunes would just go on talking with the Apple TV. Not the case.
So far, the only thing I can do is to do a 'restore' on the ipod touch, then treat it like a new ipod and sync it with the new computer.
I haven't dealt with the Apple TV issue yet - it would not be fun to erase the entire contents of the apple tv, then resync with the new imac. Lots of data to move around - but perhaps this is the only way?
Kind of a bummer. Is this correct?
It never gave me the 'this ipod is being synced with another computer/library' message either. It 'seemed' like it was going to work as I had hoped.
I looked all over the computer, preferences folders, etc. to see if I could find something that associated the ipod with a particular library. I did locate the ipod backups folder in the application support folder and moved it over to the new computer too.
I've always moved client's itunes library from their old computer to new computer without issues - I don't remember their being an issue with previously synced devices like iPods/iphones/Apple TV's.

You didn't mention whether or not you authorized the new computer in iTunes. If not, do that and then sync the iPod. The iPod will recognize that this is a new computer and will ask you if you want to proceed - in this case, you want to do exactly that.

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How to transfer/enable my entire itunes library on new iMac? Purchased also

Songs from cds, songs i have downloaded from other suppliers & all my purchases from itunes store.
Now i have searched for the answers already but havents found clear answers which make me think i can manage it or do it myself.
I do not want to lose everything or even part of it. I have tried authorising my itunes library on other computers but in the case of my pc laptop, only 1 episode of a tv series came up when there where at least 2 or 3 entire seasons of other tv series purchased.
So whats the most straightfoward way. Also will be looking to transfer pics & video clips from my camera etc. Should i buy a firewire & can it be used for transfering my itunes purchases also???

OK. First you need to de-authorize the old computer: About iTunes Store authorization and deauthorization.
Next you need to copy your Music folder and some preference files to an external drive:
/Home/Music/ folder
/Home/Library/Preferences/ folder: transfer these preference files:
com.apple.iTunes.app.plist
com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist
com.apple.iTunes.plist
com.apple.iTunesHelper.plist
Once you transfer all this to the new computer you will need to authorize the new computer per instructions in the above link.
If you don't have an external drive, then you can perform the transfers via Target Disk Mode:
Boot your old computer into TDM. After the TDM logo appears boot the new computer normally. Your old computer's hard drive should appear on the new computer's Desktop. You can then transfer the files by drag and drop.

Moving existing iTunes library onto new imac

I have just bought a new iMac. My iTunes library is on an external hard drive. What's the best way of moving this library onto my new mac so that iTunes recognises it?
Thanks for any advice
Rob

Rob,
Put/copy (drag and drop) the files into the Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder on your iMac. Be sure to copy the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files as well.
Then, select "preferences" under the iTunes menu and select "advanced." Then make sure the location of your music library is the music folder on your mac (this will be the default).
Sharon

After moving my itunes library from my old WinXP computer to my new Win7 computer, itunes gives a warning that my content on my phone must be removed and re-synced. I want to merge changes/updates on my phone with my itunes library as normal, not erase it

After moving my itunes library from my old WinXP computer to my new Win7 computer, itunes gives a warning that my content on my phone must be removed and re-synced. I want to merge changes/updates on my phone with my itunes library as normal, not erase it & replace it. My updates/changes will be lost.
How do I merge content on my iPhone & content in iTunes together?

Hopefully you still have the original library and can redo the migration...
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.
Note if you have iOS devices and haven't moved your contacts and calendar items across then you should create one dummy entry of each in your new profile and iTunes should merge the existing data from the device.
If your media folder has been split out from the main iTunes folder you may need to do some preparatory work to make it easier to move. See make a split library portable.
Should you be in the unfortunate position where you are no longer able to access your original library or a backup then then see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device for advice on how to set up your devices with a new library with the maximum preservation of data.
tt2

Problems after moving my iTunes library to an external hard drive.

Hello everyone. I recently followed the instructions in the Apple support article to move my iTunes library to an external drive. After completing all the steps in the article I consolidated my library on the new drive and verified that all of my files made it over to the new location. Then I deleted my music files from the old location and made sure, one more time, that my music and videos would still play through iTunes. Everything worked fine. The files in iTunes all referenced the new location. Then there was a problem...
The next morning I opened my iTunes and every song and video showed an exclamation point. None of them could find their files! I went into my iTunes preferences to confirm my setting were still good and found that my iTunes music folder had been changed back to its default location on my Mac hard drive! All the files are still located on my external drive where I consolidated them, but iTunes is trying to pull them from the default location.
Why has this preference changed?
How can I fix what's happened?
And, how can I make sure this doesn't happen again?!
Thanks to anyone who wants to offer me some advice!
Mike

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

Moving entire iTunes library from a windows machine to a mac

Hi I just bought a mac and I need a way to transfer my entire iTunes library to the mac. I have my mac and pc connected via FTP I was just.wondering if it is as easy as dragging the library folder to the iTunes folder on the mac.
Thank You

These pages may be of some interest/help:
How to move an iTunes library from a PC to Mac (and back)
How to move your iTunes library from Windows to Mac

I keep getting ! in front of track names after moving my itunes library

II've moved my music library to an external HDD, including the .itl/xml files, and keep getting an ! in front of various album track names, is tehre a way to update this for itunes, or is it track by track?

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

Problems with transferring iTunes Library to new iMac

I am having a problem with transferring my iTunes library to my new iMac. I have read many of the suggestions posted in this forum along with numerous articles on other sites. I have not seen anyone describe my exact problem.
When I got my new iMac, I used Migration Assistant to transfer everything (files, applications, settings, etc.) from my old iMac to the new iMac. On my old iMac, the iTunes music folder (i.e., the actual mp3s) are on an external HD, while the iTunes Library file (the database and xml files) were in the /user/Music/ folder on the old iMac.
After the Migration Assistant was done, the /user/music/ folder and the library files were copied to the new iMac, but the iTunes music folder was not. It is still on the external HD.
If I open iTunes on the new iMac, iTunes shows me all of my songs, but if I play one, I get the "song can't be found; do you want to find it" error. In iTunes preferences on the new iMac, the "iTunes music folder location" is the new iMac.
I have the 2 iMacs connected by a firewire cable, but neither iMac recognizes the other computer as being on the same network. That is, in Finder on the new iMac, I cannot see the external HD of the old iMac.
I can't change the library location on the old iMac, because the new iMac does not appear in Finder or in the "Change Music Folder Location" dialog box.
I want to move the music folder (the actual mp3s) from the external HD of the old iMac to the INTERNAL HD of the new iMac. I don't need to keep them on the old IMac, as I will be selling that computer. Of course, I want to keep all my playlists, artwork, etc from the old library.
Does anyone have a suggestion?
Thanks.

Never mind. Figured it out. I attached external HD to new iMac and consolidated. Duh.

SYNCING ISSUE AFTER UPGRADING TO ITUNES 10

I upgraded to the new version of itunes 10 and now I receive the message that the "ipod is synced with another itunes library, Do you want to erase this ipod? an ipod can only be synced with 1 library? the only option provided is to erase and sync replacing the contents of my ipod with the most recent purchases in my itunes library.
If I do this I will loose all of my prior purchases. Help

Bob,
here we go:
(http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1692
for XP: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1925
for Win7: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1923

Moving entire iTunes library to external USB hard drive

My internal hard drive is nearly full. I need to move the entire current 10 GB iTunes library of songs, podcasts, album art, etc. to a 300 GB external USB hard drive with plenty of space. Within a few weeks I'll get a new replacement computer with a much larger internal hard drive and will want to relocate the iTunes library again onto the new machine. The iTunes Help Forum had some tips but explained "From now on, new songs & other items are stored in the new location. Songs you've already imported stay in their current location." That doesn't help. I won't be importing anything new until I've gotten my new computer and am running iTunes on it. Any help is very much appreciated.

Copy /Music/iTunes/ folder to the external.
To use this folder, hold Shift and launch iTunes.
Select *Choose library*.
Select the iTunes folder you copied to the external.
Make sure the external is connected and ready before launching iTunes.
When you get your new computer, copy the entire iTunes folder from the external to /Music/ on the new computer.

Syncing to iTunes library on new iMac

Having just bought a new iMac I connected up my iPod which was immediately recognised by ITunes which opened. Unfortunately it says that it can only transfer the purchased items as the iPod is linked to another Library - presumably the one on my old PC. How do I reconcile this and avoid having all my songs erased during a 'sync'?

Thank you for your response! Here is how I had my system set up. I found a link to this in the chain from Zevoneer:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
After re-reading my initial post, I realize I was probably not clear enough about what I wanted to do with the music files on my external drive. This is where I have been operating my iTunes from, so everything is there. The only thing that isn't there as a result of my failed backup software is the backup of HD\Users\Me\Music\iTunes folder with the all important iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files. In other words, I've not only operated my iTunes from my external drive, but was (key word there) performing full system backups to this drive as well. Since the back up (what I need for iTunes Library files) is not current, I think all I can do here is put the pieces back together some other way. I will loose things like artwork and playlists, but my content should all be there, correct? I see it when I browse the external drive folders. My content consists of music and movies ripped from CD/DVD from my own collection, music, movies, and TV shows purchased from the iTunes store, and music purchased from other music stores as well as music I created myself in Garage Band and mp3's from other devices. Here are my more specific questions:
1. To put my content from my external drive into iTunes, do I just copy everything from the external into the internal iTunes music folder?
2. Is there something I need to do from here to rebuild my two Library files?
Then I assume I would need to repeat the steps in the previously mentioned KB article to get my "mechanical" set up back where I have my music files on my external drive only.
3. What, if anything will I need to do at the iTunes store in terms of registering/de-registering devices/computers? Since this is the same computer, my initial thought is nothing. I have a feeling though that even though it is the same exact hardware except for the new HDD, with a re-installed operating system, iTunes Store might think this is a new machine? Will I have to do anything specific to accomodate songs I brought in from my own CD's vs songs I purchased from the iTunes store? Will my iPod be OK as far as being registered on my account and later syncs with my rebuilt iTunes? I'll probably avoid syncing it as long as I can since I will loose my playlists once I do.
I read your message at the bottom about importing the contents of the media folder from the external drive, but don't see where to do that in iTunes. Do you mean to just copy the files from the external to the music folder on the internal? I'm running iTunes 10.1.1 (4) on Snow Leopard 10.6.5 if that helps. Regardless, thanks for taking the time to respond. I've already learned quite a bit more than I had before! Thanks!

Transfering PC iTunes Library To New iMac

Hi Everyone
I am very very new to macs and have been a pc user for the last 10 years. I have recently bought the new iMac and was wondering how to transfer all my music from the PC to it??
I sort of have an idea how to do it but I do not want to lose any of my playlists as I am a DJ and have somewhere in the region of forty. I have started by coying the entire iTunes folder on my PC harddrive onto a portable harddrive. Is all I have to do is connect this to the Mac and then copy the music files into iTunes and then go to consolidate library which will make a copy onto the Mac?? It seems simple enough but is this how to do it and will this keep all my playlists??
Any help is great
Al.

How to Copy and Move your Music Files from One Computer to Another
This is the conceptual framework with related and important links. Apply it to your specific situation and resources.
The safest, quickest, and most optimal method to move your Library to a new computer is to actually clone the entire ‘iTunes’ folder structure, rather than just copying just the song files. By copying the entire ‘iTunes’ folder and all sub-folders, you capture not only the music files, but the all-important ‘iTunes Library.itl’ database file (usually located in the ‘iTunes’ folder), which contains all the data about your songs (Playlists, Ratings, Play Counts, Last Played, Date Added, etc). See: What are the iTunes Library files?
Install iTunes on the new computer. Then go back to your old computer and move (copy) the "iTunes" folder which usually resides inside your "My Documents\My Music" folder from the old computer to the exact same place on the new computer. When you open iTunes on the new computer it will look and behave exactly the same way it did on the old, Play Counts, Ratings, Comments and all!
NOTE: It is usually safer moving files between computers with the same version of iTunes!!
Here's a list of methods to copy and move your music files from one computer to another:
1) Use an External Hard Drive (ExHD) to move the complete files and Folder structures from one computer to another (my preferred option). You can clone’ the entire ‘iTunes’ folder structure in one very easy step. Also great to have available for complete backups of your Library. External hard drives now run less than $100 for 200-250GBs of storage. See This Link
2) Directly connect the two computers:
2a) Connect them through a Router
2b) Connect using a Direct (w/Mac) or Crossover (PC/PC) Ethernet cable (See: http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/3001.html)
2c) Connect them via a USB-to-USB Network Bridge. See: here as an example. There are many out there (Google).
Copy files from one computer to the other.
3) Use the iPod as a transfer device, as this extensive Apple link explains. It will be a bit easier if your iPod has a larger capacity than your music collection, otherwise you will need to perform multiple copy/move transfers. This well written process also works fine while using any other data transfer medium (ExHD, Flash Drive, DVD, CD, Zipp, Jazz, etc.).
4) Burn several DVDs (at 4.7GBs each) with your music data files and folder structure, and load them onto the new computer. Re-writable DVDs are more cost effective (if your DVD drive can manage these types).
5) Burn 6x more on CDs (at 700MB each) than in #4 above and load the files and folders on the new computer. Re-writable CDs are more cost effective (if your CD drive can manage these types).
6) Use a larger USB Flash drive (1GB - 4GB) to move the files and folders. Best if the flash drive is larger than your Library, otherwise you will need multiple copy/move transfers.
Switch from PC to Mac Using the iPod
hudgie: Migrating iTunes for Windows to a new PC
How to copy music between authorized computers

Syncing apps after changing computer/itunes library

I used to sync my iphone apps with computer A.
Then I reformatted computer A, and decided to stop syncing apps anyways on that machine (a laptop with very little disk space).
Computer B, which has always synced the iphone music, my desktop, is now running itunes 9 and usually I haven't cared to sync apps (why bother!), but itunes 9's app management screen needs me to sync!
When I select the sync box I'm told it will delete and replace all apps on the iphone with those in B's library. But B doesn't have anything! (I deleted anything it did have, again to save space).
How do I make the iphone start syncing apps with my B desktop, by effectively starting by copying-all-apps-from-iphone-first?

Disable autosync in iTunes, connect your phone to your new computer and right click on it in the device list and choose backup. iTunes will backup your phone without syncing. Transfer your purchases as pointed out by Allan. When you connect your phone for the first time, all media content will be erased. But you can restore your settings and app data from your manual backup afterwards. Don't forget to set up at least one contact and event on your new computer to be able to merge calendars and contacts when you sync the phone for the first time.
About backups and what's saved: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
How to back up and restore: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
How to download apps for free again: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

How do I transfer my entire iTunes library to new laptop?

I have just recently purchased a new notebook/laptop. (Not a Mac). I would like to transfer everything from old laptop to the new without loosing anything. Are there programs that assist in this? If so can you point me in the right direction please?
Thanks :)

If you're moving from PC to PC then perhaps Windows Easy Transfer is the tool for you, although I'd still recommend you look at method 1 from my earlier link. If you don't have a backup strategy now then it is time you got one. Hard drives can and do fail without warning. All your personal data should be on at least two if not three separate disks to avoid disappointment.
tt2

New MacBook pro how do I add external hard drive which has my entire iTunes library on it. Do I just drag external drive icon into iTunes preference box that shows where new itunes library is now located ie. On the MacBook pro.

how do I add external hard drive which contains my entire iTunes library to new MacBook Pro. i want to keep iTunes library on external hard drive. But I want all my iTunes information: artist, songs, albums, playlists on my new MacBook Pro. I know about going to iTunes preferences- advanced-itunes media folder location. At this point I don't know what to do Do I drag external icon into iTunes media folder location box. I want to keep music files on external hard drive. I don't want to use macbook pro memory for my very large music files.

I will request that your query be relocated to the iPhoto forum where knowledgeable iPhoto users will be able to assist you.
Ciao.

Sync issues after moving entire iTunes library to new iMac

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