Need Detailed Help about storing at home, downloading on the go.

Question

Need Detailed Help about storing at home, downloading on the go.

I have a computer I have used itunes on without fail for about a year now, the only problem? I am running out of room on my laptop's hard drive, so I purchased a 1.5TB External Hard drive, which I would like to leave at home, I am currently moving all my itunes files to this new hard drive, however,

1. I would still like to be able to sync my ipod on the go without losing the current music i have on my external drive at home.

2. I would like to continue to download music onto my laptops hard drive, then transfer them to my itunes library on my new external hard drive when I return home. (as I am gone for work 2 weeks at a time) without messing up all my files.

Is there an easy way to do this? what do I need to set my iphone options to so my stuff won't be deleted, and how can I download music to two different spots to keep my library nicely organized?

3GS, iPhone OS 3.0

Posted on Aug 18, 2009 2:53 PM

Reply

Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Aug 18, 2009 3:00 PM in response to kyleplusitunes

Are you planning to take that hard drive with you when you're out and about? If so, then drag the entire iTunes folder (the entire folder, not just the iTunes Music folder) from your computer's internal drive to your desired location on the external drive. Then hold down the Shift key while launching iTunes. You'll be given a dialog box where you can select the iTunes library you want to use. Navigate to and select the iTunes folder in it's new location. iTunes will then be working entirely from the external drive, and you can repeat this procedure on any computer to which you connect your drive and iTunes should work the same as on your home system, including (to the best of my knowledge; I haven't tried this when hauling my secondary drive around) synching to your iPod.

Note that this procedure assumes that all of your tracks are contained in the iTunes Music folder. If they're scattered around your volumes, moving them becomes much more complex. Note also that if you launch iTunes before the drive is connected and mounted, iTunes will automatically switch back to it's default location on the internal drive, in which case you'll have to quit and relaunch iTunes while holding down the Shift key and reselect the external drive.

Warning: don't delete the tracks from the old location on the internal drive until you've confirmed that they're working correctly from the external drive.

Reply

Answer 2

Aug 18, 2009 3:05 PM in response to kyleplusitunes

No, I would like to leave the external hard drive at home, and only carry my laptop with me but continue to download things on my computer and update my itunes library with the newcontent untill i can get home and move the music to the external.

Reply

Answer 3

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Aug 18, 2009 3:11 PM in response to kyleplusitunes

In that case you'll have to keep track of what you download while traveling with your laptop, and when you get back you'll have to switch libraries and then drag the new tracks to the iTunes window to copy them to the external (this presumes you have the option set to copy tracks to the iTunes Music folder when adding) and get them into that iTunes library.

Alternatively, one of the synchronization utilities might be easier, such as these:

TuneRanger

SuperSync

Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

Reply