Moving Lossless files to an external drive

<a href="http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748" target='blank">Moving Your iTunes Music Folder.

This Apple K-Base article will tell you how to move your Library to an external drive.
Michael

Sure it is possible. It will just take a few steps and you can't use iTunes to make the move for you. The main drawback to the following steps is that all playcounts, ratings, etc. will be lost and the date added will be reset to the date you do this. So if all that is important to you keep that in mind.

1. Create a Smart Playlist with the criteria:
Kind is apple lossless audio file. Name it whatever you want.
(Using the playlist you might want to highlight each artist, for example, right click on the Artist name and "Show Song File" so you can give the folders a color label so you can find them easier later. )
2. Once you have done this Delete all the tracks from your Library, but
b do not
move them to the trash. Leave them in your iTunes Music Folder.
3. Go to the Finder and pull down File > New Smart Folder. Click "Home."
4. Make the criteria:
Kind Folders
Color Label "What Color You Selected"
5. Once the Smart Folder has Found all your color coded folders type Apple+A to select them all.
6. Open a new Finder window and navigate to where you want to place the files.
7. Drag and drop the Folders from one window to the other. Once they are copied go back to iTunes.
8 Pull down File > Add To Library (Apple+O on the keyboard) and navigate to the new location for the files. Click Choose and let iTunes add them to the Library.
9. Once you have confirmed all the files got moved and added you can then delete the Lossless files from your iTunes Music Folder.

If you know which files are Lossless you can probably skip steps 3 through 6 and just directly drag and drop the files to the new location.

From now on, when you add Lossless files to your Library, when you choose Import hold down the Option key to choose where you want to save the file.

I'd like to do something similar, but I have a question before I do.

Suppose I've kept my "iTunes Library" on my PowerBook, but have moved a number of the songs to my external hard drive (having removed them from iTunes and then re-added them from their new location), as you describe in your post.

My question is: What happens if I start iTunes with my external hard drive unplugged? (e.g. when I'm travelling) Are the songs that live on the external drive removed from iTunes? Are they just un-playable (e.g. grayed out as long as my external drive is detached)?

Moreover, what happens if I plug in my iPod -- which is set to synchronize my entire library -- while the external drive is unplugged?

Thanks!

Mike, in the situation you describe above, if you launch iTunes when you external drive is not connected the tracks are not removed from iTunes. They are unplayable of course since the physical files are not available to iTunes. If you do try to play the tracks iTunes will tell you it can't find the file and ask you if you would like to locate it. Since the file is somewhere else you would click the Cancel button and the track would then have an exclamation point next to it. The next time you plug in your external drive and launch iTunes the exclamation point will be gone. In short, nothing catastrophic will happen.

An additional thing to note is that if you change the default location of your iTunes Music Folder to point to your external drive, iTunes will revert to it's default location of <~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music> when the external drive is not connected. So if you rip any new music this is where it will go.

If you connect an iPod while the external drive is not connected iTunes will only sync those files that are available to it. Meaning only the files on your local HD.

Thanks! That's good to hear!

One other question:
Do you have any idea if it would work to replace files (or whole folders) in my iTunes Music folder with aliases/shortcuts/symbolic links pointing to files (or folders) the external drive? Any idea how this would affect the answers to the questions I asked in my previous post?

Thanks again!

Aliases don't work with iTunes. At least, they haven't in my experience. iTunes like absolute paths.

I just tried playing around a little bit, and it seems that iTunes is happy with aliases that point to files on the same disk, but complains about aliases that point to files on different disks. That's really weird... and extremely frustrating!

For example, it would have been really nice to replace my "compilations" folder with a link pointing to a folder on my external drive. I could then move files back and forth by checking and unchecking the "Part of a compilation" item...

Hi guys, firstly I hate this site, I cant find any of the information I need nor any customer service points to assist me.
Hopefully someone else out there in Ipod land will help me.

I have lost about 500+ songs in Itunes however they remain in my Ipod. The time has now come where I want to up load new songs to my Ipod but im worried if i do im going to lose my old songs which have already up and left from my itunes.
if anyone can help me either keep the files which are still in my ipod, OR better yet help me get my files off my ipod and into my itunes that would be great.
Cheers,
Sheri

If you're using XP ,like your info tells, you will get more help in the iTunes for
b Windows
discussions.
And use the search function please, maybe after that you'll not hate this site as much as you do now obviously.

If you have a Mac there are some fine utilities that can transfer songs from your iPod to the computer, like Senuti or iPodRip.
If you have a PC, I'm certain there are similar programs.

Good luck.

M

Hi Sheri,

Generally, it's not good practice to trash a site and then ask everyone to help you...

One piece of advice that may make you like this site instead of hating it: you'll need to download an application like "iPod Rip" to move your files from your iPod to your computer. iTunes can't do it.

I think I've figured out how to do what you want. Here are some steps. The following assume that you don't use the "part of a compilation" option or don't care if this option gets reset.

1. Move all of your music to the external drive. To do this:
1.a. Open iTunes preferences, Advanced panel. Make sure "copy music into itunes library" and "keep itunes library organized" are checked.
1.b. Still in iTunes preferences, change the location of your iTunes Music Library (under Advanced) to the folder on the external drive where you will eventually want to store all of your lossless files.
1.c. Choose Advanced|Consolidate library, and wait while iTunes copies all of your music to the external drive.
2. In iTunes, select all of your lossy files (i.e. the files you want on your internal drive). Press Command-I to get info about these songs and then check the "Part of a Compilation" option. Press "ok". (iTunes may take some time to complete this step.)
3. In iTunes, select all of your lossless files, and un-check the "Part of a Compilation" option.
4. Re-open iTunes preferences, and change your iTunes library location back to the place (probably on your internal drive) where you'd like to keep your lossy files. If it asks you something about copying files to be consistent with your options, choose "no".
5. Now, open finder and find the folder you specified in step 1. Open it and the "iTunes Library" folder inside it. You should now have a folder for every artist in your iTunes library. There should also be a folder entitled "Compilations". Drag this folder into the "Library" icon in your iTunes window. Wait while iTunes copies all of your lossy songs back onto your internal drive.
6. If the "Compilations" folder you dragged in step 5 still exists, you should be able to delete it, as all of its contents should now be in a similar "compilations" folder in the folder you specified in step 4. (Check this before deleting, though!!!)

You're done. All of your lossless files are on the external drive. All of your lossy files are on the internal drive and you shouldn't have lost your ratings, etc. (At least, these steps worked for me, using the latest version of iTunes.) You can even change the "part of a compilation" settings as much as you please.

Good luck!