Transferring album folders from external hard drive to itunes

I have just purchased a 30G ipod. All my music is an an external hard drive. I do not own the CD'd thanks to a divorce! How do I move/copy my CD albums from their folders on to itunes?

iTunes menu File -> Add to Library... and pick the folder from the external drive. Or simply drag and drop the folder onto the iTunes library.
Keep in mind that the default setting in iTunes is to copy added songs to the iTunes folder (on our internal drive). Be sure to uncheck that if you DON'T want everything from the external drive copied to the internal.
Patrick

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Moving Album Folders to External Hard Drive

I organize my photos in iPhoto in Albums. I want to move Albums to an external hard drive, but it will not allow me to move the Titled Album, only its contents.
Is there a way to move the Album in its entirety to keep it organized in the new hard drive?

Export to a folder with the same name as the album - Exporting From iPhoto
You also can move your entire library to an external drive keeping everything organized as it is -
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
LN

Copying Large Blocks of MP3 files from External Hard Drive to iTunes

I'm trying to copy large numbers of MP3 files from my external
hard drive to iTunes. I tried putting them in the iTunes music folder but this did not work. Then I tried selecting blocks of the songs and dragging and dropping them in iTunes. This also did not work because when I select a large block of files and then click on them (holding down the mouse button) to drag them, then they become "unselected." So, I guess my question is 2 fold: Why can I not copy and paste these files to some folder on the Macintosh Hard drive where they will be recognized by iTunes (show up in iTunes) and what is wrong with my clicking and dragging technique? Am I losing it?

If you are trying to add tunes to your library then do the work from within iTunes not via the Finder. Droping the tunes into the iTunes folder will not create a reference for iTunes to find the tunes. You should be able to drag-drop the tunes/folders into the main iTunes window.
It is usually easier to use the 'keep' and 'copy' features selected. This way iTunes will keep your tunes organized and all in one place. If you work from in the iTunes interface then you will likely not go wrong.
From the iTunes File menu select 'add to library' (+O) and navigate to your ext HD and iTunes should bring those tunes into your library.
MJ

Can I play my music from external hard drive through itunes?

If this is possible How would a (NEW TO iMac) user do this? Otherwise if that is not possible, how do you export music files from a seagate external hard drive to itunes.

Expanding Niel's answer a bit...
in iTunes, go to iTunes->Preferences->Advanced and insure that "Copy files..." is NOT checked. Then you can add all your music to your iTunes library by dragging the parent folder into the "library" window at the upper left (if you're using iTunes 11, do View->Show sidebar first). You can also do "File->Add to library...".

Transferring my music from external hard drive into i-tunes

Help!
I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I've browsed through a lot of the posts and have not been successful.
I am new to using iPods and iTunes, as I've always had a zune. I have about 80gb of my music backed up on my external hard drive. I am trying to transfer my music files to my itunes and sync to my ipod, and am running into all sorts of problems. Some of my music transferred, the rest didn't. So far, I have only been able to transfer about 21 gb of music from the external into iTunes. I have tried to add folder to library, add file to library, and add playlist to library. In all three, it will not let me select the entire external hard drive, or select more than one individual song that is on my external to transfer. When I tried to transfer my music files individually, I can't find them in my iTunes library. What am I doing wrong?
Bottom line is, how do I get the music off my external hard drive and onto my iPod? It won't all fit on my computer, which is one reason it's backed up externally.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am getting so frustrated I could cry. Thanks.

Rosanne Maitland wrote:
Please I need some help with moving music on an external hard drive to my i-tunes library. I think that I have cut and pasted it to i-tunes from this hard drive but once the hard drive is disconnected...i-tunes can not find it. I would appreciate a step by step run down on how I might do this
I am having the same problem, only with music I import into iTunes from a CD. The tracks will import, and will synch to my Ipod, but will not play in iTunes unless the original, source CD is in the computer. It seems to me that once iTunes "accepts" imported tracks, it should play them, whether the source CD is present or not.
I suspect that iTunes will be able to "find" all of your songs, and play them, provided the original source (hard drive) is hooked back up to your computer.
But you shouldn't have to do that. iTunes will play most imported tracks without requiring the source to be present. Puzzling.

From External Hard Drive to Itunes and back...

Hello I have a external hard drive with 2 main folders Music 1 Music 2, each folder has about 6-8 sub-folders labeled with the genres am in to , and those sub-folders have the artist I believe correspond to that genres, to many artist with genres was a mess on my PC so I figured this was the easiest solution for me.
Still with me? Ok, Great Here is part one of my first question, How can I guide Itunes to my E.H.D music folders and telling it; here is my music, Fix it with albums and correct file name just don’t copy in to my Mac Hard Drive and take the 90 GB space your taking on my E.H.D. Second part do I need to prepare the music folders in any way, meaning can I leave it the way I have it set up or do I just put all the music, no labels just as is on main Folder and let Itunes label it and set it up the way I tell it to on ITunes.
Second question, since this has taken nearly a day and a half trying to find the answer, till I finally decided to ask. Should I just put all the music with out sub-folders on my E.H.D. on one main folder and transfer the 90 GB to my IMac H.D. and Itunes, correct everything on ITunes and let it label it the way ITunes, ipod, and Ipad, can read it with no problems of missing files or artwork. Then when that is done I can transfer it back to the E.H.D. and save it again, the ITunes way. If this is the best way then, I still need to figure out how to tell ITunes the music is here and perfectly labels and in its corresponding Sub-folders use it but dont take it to the IMac H.D(or something is getting back handed real quick). Hope this explains my frustration or am just over thinking it to much and making it harder for my self . again thanks for all the help.

Have a look at these 2 Videos...
http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-library.html
http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-media-to-an-external-drive.html

How do i get itunes 11 to stop adding music played from external hard drive to itunes library

I use itunes 11 to play music from my external hard drive and when i am finished using the hard drive and disconnect it the artist and songs appear in the itunes libary and when i click on it to play them it cannot locate the file and i assume this is becuse under the advanced prefrences tab i unchecked the auomaticly add played music to itunes library. I do not want my external hard drive music to be added to itunes library which at this point it does not but it is still showing the music in the library even though it cannot be played this is very fustrating please help. how do i get the artist and songs played from the external hardrive from appering in the itunes library.

Do you have a working copy of the library anywhere? The key file is called iTunes Library.itl and normally exists inside <User's Music>\iTunes. This is the file that knows what is in your library and each of the playlists, and holds ratings, play counts etc. Changing the media folder path in preferences tells iTunes where you'd like it to store media in future. It doesn't magically connect iTunes to any media that might already be there, or fix links to media that has been moved, or make it pick up a non-existent library file. If the worst comes to it you will need to import the media into the new empty library.
See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device if you have any of these to recover ratings, play stats and playlists, and to associate your device with the new library.
tt2

Can't play music from external hard drive through iTunes on Windows 8?

I recenty bought a new laptop running Windows 8 with a small internal hard drive, so I don't want to store all my music on it. I backed up my iTunes library onto an external hard drive, but when I plug this into my new laptop I can't play my music no matter what I do.
I have tried:
- selecting the newly created iTunes library by pressing Shift when opening iTunes and playing a song directly through the iTunes player. It selects the song, comes up with the speaker icon next to it to indicate it is playing, but the time doesn't count down and no music plays
- I have gone into Advanced Preferences and specified the iTunes media folder location, still no songs play
- coped a single song onto my new laptop desktop and tried to play this through iTunes, Media Player and the Music app. Media player says "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file". The Music app says it can't find any music on the computer, so when I select the music folder from my hard drive, it says "Can't Play. Make sure your computer's sound and video cards are working and have the latest drivers, then try again".
I know my laptop can play sound and video as I can watch YouTube videos with no problems. I went to Windows Update, and there are no available updates, I already have every available update.
I have also plugged in a different external hard drive, with different music files on it, and have encountered the exact same problems. It seems I can't play any music at all on this laptop. I know the files are not corrupted, as I can plug both hard drives into a different laptop that runs on Windows 7 and play the music on them with no troubles. Could it be a problem with the files compatibility with Windows 8?
I can also access my iPhone backup through this iTunes library on the new computer, so I know there is no problem with my backup.

I am experiencing a similar problem in Windows 7 64bit. Since my laptop has a 128gb SSD, I have loaded my iTunes library on to an external drive. I can sync my iPhones and iPads from this library, and the songs play fine from those devices. However, when I select a song from my library, and click the play button, nothing happens. iTunes does nothing. I have also tried right-clicking mp3s in my library and selecting "Play", with no results. I do not receive an error message of any kind.
I have also noticed that some of my mp3's within iTunes denote the Time as 00:00. The same mp3's will play and register properly using other mp3 players on my computer, and they also play normally on my iPhones and iPads.
I am running Windows 7 x64 on a Lenovo T530, in iTunes 11.1.3. Everything else in iTunes appears to function normally. I can listen to internet radio stations without an issue, through iTunes, and they play as they should. I have tried three different external drives, with different drive formats, and they all have the same issue. If I copy my iTunes library back to my internal drive, iTunes will play my mp3s.
I did not have this issue with iTunes 10, so I am assuming it is something that has occured within the last few updates.
Has anyone found a fix for this? Unfortunately, I am forced to use iTunes 11 because of my iOS devices, otherwise I would revert to iTunes 10.

How do I get music from External Hard Drive to iTunes?

Hi, I recently got an external hard drive to free up some memory on my powerbook. I put all of my music on there and deleted it from my computer, following the article about "Moving your iTunes folder". It copied most of the songs and worked temporarily, but then I had to erase my hard drive, because I was having some issues with a few programs. So now I have my "iTunes Music" folder on my external hard drive, and when I choose that as the source of music for the library and try to consolidate, nothing happens.
So, how can I use the folder on my external hard drive for my iTunes library? I even tried reloading it onto my PowerBook hard drive and importing from there, and it didn't work... Any help would be fantastic.

if your main library is on your external, then when not connected, you wont have access to it.
so first decide, where do you want to keep the files.
E.g. In my case, I keep my files on "C:\iTunes Music".
I have a backup on external "Z:\iTunes Backup". If I format my laptop, this is how I restore everything.
Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced.
The iTunes music folder in selects as "C:\iTunes Music"
I have checked Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized, and also Copy Files to iTunes Music folder when adding to ibrary". Click OK to save and close preferences.
My iTunes list is now empty. I go to file, and select "Add Folder to Library". From that window, I select "Z:\iTunes Backup". iTunes then copies everything from the backup to "C:\iTunes Music". For me, backup is backup, I dont need it to play music.
Now decide this. If you do not want to keep music on C:, but want to only connect the external to update music on your ipod, do this:
In preferences, set iTunes Music folder as "Z:\iTunes Backup", and uncheck Copy files to iTunes Music folder, since they are already there. Then in files, select Add folder to library again to build and update the list.

How do I transfer my music from external hard drive to itunes library?

Hello everyone!
How do I transfer my .mp3 files from my external hard drive to my itunes library?

Drag them into the open iTunes application window. You may need to copy them to the internal drive first or organize the iTunes library afterwards.
(65802)

How to import previous Itunes database from external hard drive into Itunes on new computer

I need to know how to import a previous iTunes data base that is saved onto an external hard drive into the iTunes library on my new computer

There's only one way to do this.
Copy the iPhoto Library from the old machine to the Pictures Folder on the new machine. You have to copy it as a single item. Then open it, don't import it.
Regards
TD

Moving songs from external hard drive to Itunes library

I have a bunch of songs on an external hard drive, but my itunes library is on my pc.....I tried to add some of these songs to my library (i played the songs and they were automatically added to the library)....but when i inplugged the external hard drive from my pc and tried to play the songs from the library, it would not let me play them.....an error message came up that stated that the library could not find the device from which the songs came from....why is this?....is there another way to add these songs from the hard drive????

why is this?
The Windows version of iTunes doesn't copy content to the iTunes Music folder when importing from another hard disk by default. Connect the drive and choose Consolidate Library from th Library section of the File menu.
(36713)

Transferring Mail/iPhoto FROM External Hard Drive to iMac

Pretty new to our Mac but loving it. Also have never posted anything anywhere so hope I'm doing this correctly. ;/
We are trying to transfer our Mail and iPhoto programs FROM a new WD external HD back to our iMac. (We had to reformat it.) It were able to transfer our Documents but we can't access our saved Mail program or iPhotos.
When we click on the Mail icon we get the recent Mail program (not the one we saved). Same with iPhoto. We also tried to "Import Mailbox" from File menu (Mail program) but the Mail option can't be highlighted.
Feeling pretty dejected. Sure would appreciate some help. Thank you in advance.

what exactly did you back up to that WD external and how? I hope you are not trying to move back the actual applications that were sitting in your Applications folder. that would be the wrong thing to do.
Mail keeps its data in user-home-directory/Library/Mail an iphoto in user-home-directory/Pictures/iphoto library. did you back up those? quit mail and iphoto and move those from the backup to the corresponding locations on the internal drive. do the same with the files com.apple.iphoto.plist and com.apple.mail.plist from user-home-directory/Library/Preferences
when you start iphoto and mail they should be as they were when you made the backup.

From External Hard Drive to iTunes

I recently had to reload my computer again, but I did manage to copy my entire My Music Folder and all of its contents.
Now I can't get my music back onto my iPod. I keep getting those annoying little "music not found icons."
Can someone tell me how to get it all back into my iTunes again without manually clicking and finding ALL 2,000+ files?
Thanks

Remove the music from iTunes, then from the top menu's choose add folder to my library find the folder that contains all your music and then click add.

Got a new external hard drive. Transferred all files from old hard drive to new hard drive. Connected hard drive to macbook. How do I get all my files to be recognized by iTunes and my already made playlists??

Got a new external hard drive. Transferred all files from old hard drive to new hard drive. Connected hard drive to macbook. How do I get all my files to be recognized by iTunes and my already made playlists??

Trying to download photos from IPHONE, IPAD to IPHOTO in IMAC after installing new hard drive.
How did you import the photos to iPad and iPhone?
If the photos have been synced to the iPhone and iPad using iTunes, you cannot sync them back.
See this document: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4236
You can't reimport pictures synced from your computer to your device back to your computer. You can only import pictures in the Camera Roll or Saved Photos from your device to your computer. If you need to retrieve synced photos from your device:
If your photos are not in the Camera Roll on your devices, save them to the Camera Roll, share them to the Photo Stream, mail the photos, or, if you have iPhoto on the devices, use iTunes Photo Sharing.
http://help.apple.com/iphoto/iphone/2.0/?handbuch#blnkee26bc1
Save photos to your computer using iTunes
Connect your iOS device to your computer.
Tap a photo, album, event, web journal, or slideshow and tap Share> iTunes.
Tap Selected, or change the photos you want to save (if you are saving a slideshow skip to step 4):
Select different photos: Tap Choose Photos, tap one or more photos, and tap Next.
Select a range of photos: Tap Choose Photos, tap Range, tap the first and last photos in the range, and tap Next.
Select all the photos in an album or event: Tap All.
In iTunes, click the button for your device and click Apps at the top of the window.
Below File Sharing, select iPhoto (in Apps).
Select the Shared Photos folder under iPhoto Documents.
Click Save To and select the location on your computer where you want to save the items.
To view your photos, go to the Finder and look in the location you selected above.

Transferring album folders from external hard drive to itunes

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