Recommended method of changing library folders

edgetunes wrote:
What is the "official" recommended method of telling i-tunes that you are changing the location of your music files/libary?

There is only one way that works. If you do it any other way, iTunes loses the songs.

Here is the one way: First use the Advanced Preferences to set the new location of the music folder. (You have already done this.) Then run the command Consolidate Library. This puts a copy of each song into the new location. (This is the step you missed.)

When you are sure that everything is proper in the new location, and that iTunes can find everything, you can go back and delete the original copies.

If you've already copied the files onto C: then consolidating will just duplicate the effort. In addition if the files are exactly where iTunes would put them it will create duplicates adding a trailing " 1" to each filename. Major bloat alert!

I don't have time to make a specific set of instructions (and I really must get around to producing something general with diagrams) but it's possible to repair the library so that it uses the new location without copying everything again. The gist of it is in this recent post: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10443550#10443550

I'll try to log in a bit later to provide a fuller explanation.

tt2

...When I upgraded my internal hard drive, I copied my library over to the c: drive. In i-tunes (version 8), I went Edit => Preferences => Advanced and changed the "itunes music folder location" to the new path pointing to c:/my music. Now itunes can't find any songs -- unless my external drive is connected, so it's obviously not "getting it" that the songs have been moved.

Changing this setting would have changed the location that iTunes uses when it creates a file, e.g. downloads, rips, imports if you have copy on import selected etc. It does not update the location of exisitng files in the library unless certain conditions are met.

Normally the library files are held in an iTunes folder which is inside your profile's Music folder. iTunes creates another folder called iTunes Music (pre-Tunes 9) or iTunes Media in which to store your content. If all your content is inside this media folder then you can move the main iTunes folder to a new path or drive at will and iTunes will update the references to the files. Content that is outside of the iTunes Music or iTunes Media folder will be assumed to have stayed put. The same happens if you've relocated the media folder so that it is no longer a subfolder of the one containing the library database.

Let's assume that your music folder on your external drive is called *X:\My Music* and that your existing library files are at *C:\Documents & Settings\<User>\My Documents\My Music\iTunes*. The first step to repairing things is to use Windows Explorer to copy these library files ( iTunes Extras.itdb, iTunes Genius.itdb, iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Library.xml, sentinel & the *Album Artwork* folder) to the parent folder of that which holds your media on the external drive, e.g. X:\ if I've assumed correctly.

Next, click on the iTunes icon in your Start Menu and *immediately press & hold the SHIFT key* until a dialog appears asking you to choose a library. Browse to X:\ and open the iTunes Library.itl file there. Open preferences, advanced and change the location of the iTunes Media folder to X:\My Music (or whatever the true value is). Click OK. iTunes should process the library updating it's links. When it's complete check that your media plays. Close iTunes and wait for it to finish saving the libray.

Now copy the library files ( iTunes Extras.itdb, iTunes Genius.itdb, iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Library.xml, sentinel & the *Album Artwork* folder) from X:\ to C:\ - don't copy the My Music folder since you've already done that. Use shift-open iTunes to open the library file at C:\iTunes Library.itl, then change the media folder location to C:\My Music again. iTunes should once again process the library and when complete you should be able to turn off your external drive and still have access to all your content.

While this works iTunes will give itself the window title of C:\, being the name of the folder in which the iTunes Library.itl file lives. You can choose to leave the music just where it is, copy the library files to the original location - C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\My Documents\My Music\iTunes - and shift-open the library there, or create a folder called C:\iTunes and move the library files & content folder into it, then shift-open once more.

You may also need to repair links to any iPod Games/Mobile Applications that were not inside the media folder before you started.

tt2

You can, of course, do just what you like. However there's no need to delete or uninstall anything. You can delete your old library files once you are happy with the new library you get around to creating.

If you're asking my opinion I would recommend you start by creating a brand new empty iTunes libray at either C:iTunes or C:MediaiTunes. Under iTunes 9 the default media folders for these would be *C:\iTunes\iTunes Media* or *C:\Media\iTunes\iTunes Media* respectively. The layout of what goes inside looks something like this:

Although since I don't have any ringtones I'm not quite sure where the new & old locations for those are. If you still want to manually orgainse your media then I would recommend you do so within the pre-drefined categories that iTunes 9 provides, otherwise just leave it up to iTunes to keep your media organised.

As to rebuilding your playlists, one approach would be to add the playlist names into the grouping field in your existing library, then when you move & rebuild you could create smart playlists that would draw in the correct tracks.

tt2

I've been following this thread as I was hoping to be able to pick up some info re changing library folders that would be appropriate to what I am trying to do. Briefly I need to clear some space on my C: drive and I thought the easiest way to do this would be to shift gigabytes of music from C: to a 500G drive and still be able to use Itunes.I have Itunes 9 and Vista ultimate. Shifting the music files is easy enough but what do I need to do to get Itunes to find the new location of the music files? is it even possible? I have copied the files from the C: Itunes folder to the new location ie Itunes Library extras .ITB ''Genius.ITB ''Library.ITL "" Library.XML Sentinel and Album Artwork. Any help would be appreciated