How to use old iTunes library from external hard drive on new MacBook Air

Thank you for this helpful information, tt2. In fact, it was my reading of your Make a split library portable - Apple Community that prompted these questions. I'll review this information in depth once more to take steps to get my iTunes library in the right shape for portability. I do have two somewhat basic questions as I begin this process: 1) on my old iMac, how does iTunes currently know to look at my old G-Drive to find audio files since in Preferences>Advanced there is no location being shown for iTunes Media Folder Location, and 2) where do I rearrange and repair my iTunes library, on my iMac's internal hard drive or the G-Drive? Reason I ask is that I don't know how to list all my audio files in an iTunes Media Folder on my iMac since it is a 500gig machine and I have 835 gigs in audio files. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

I'll start with screen shots if iTunes on my Old Mac. Somewhat by chance, after returning home and turning on my Old Mac, I forgot to turn on the G-Drive before accessing iTunes. With the external hard drive off, I tried to access Around & Around by the Grateful Dead. When I right clicked to access Song Info to take a look at the audio file's location, I got a message that the song could not be found (1st screen shot), which made me remember to turn on the G-Drive. However, before doing that I thought to see what the Song Info said about the location of the audio file with the G-Drive turned off. Turns out the location is file:///Music/Grateful Dead/...(2nd screen shot). When I turn on the G-Drive, the location of the file shown on song info changes to /Volumes/ITUNES G DRIVE/Music/Grateful Dead/...(3rd screen shot). I also checked iTunes>Preferences>Advanced>iTunes Media Folder Location under both conditions (i.e., G-Drive off and on). As you can see in 4th and 5th screen shots, they are identical with no location shown for this folder under either condition. I've got additional screen shots if needed of Finder on my Old Mac showing the location of iTunes and similar screen shots for how things look on the New MacBook (things look different as expected.)

I find all this very interesting and know that when I set this system up on my Old Mac approximately five years ago, I did some serious research on how to get iTunes to perform this way with the G-Drive, and it's performed flawlessly ever since. It's just doing all this great stuff on old machines and I'm stumped on how I set this up or how to transfer the setup over to my New Mac.

This is very helpful-I'll take these steps this evening and let you know the results. To answer your question, the iTunes Library.it file is located here on the Old Mac

The iTunes Library.it file is located at the same location on the New MacBook Air

Unfortunately, I don't believe I can use my old G-Drive with my new MacBook Air as the library folder for iTunes. This is an older model G-Drive that I've had for about 6 years. It only comes with a Firewire 800 and mini-USB connectors for transferring data. I tried using a Firewire 800-to-USB cable to connect the old G-Drive with my New MacBook Air, but consistently got a message saying there was insufficient power (mind you the old G-Drive is plugged into the wall.) After explaining all this in some detail, the good folks at the Apple store did not think the old G-Drive could successfully be connected to their new MacBooks. That's why I got the new G-Drive and started moving files over from the old G-Drive (ITUNES G DRIVE) on my Old Mac to use on the new MacBook Air when the problem started. It would be great if there was someway to address the connectivity issue for the old G-Drive; this potentially might solve all these problems.

So, it sounds like what I should do, in lieu of getting the old G-Drive to connect to my new computer, is make a copy of my active library files and the other steps you mention on my new G-Drive. Only question I have before starting all this is where do I find "option-start-iTunes" to get iTunes to connect to that copy of the database?

OK, using my new external hard drive (G-DRIVE 2019) I've followed instructions all the way through the media folder becoming /Volumes/G-DRIVE 2019/iTunes/iTunes Media. I've also confirmed that I'm using the most current active set of library files and that my content still plays. After clicking OK for the new media folder location, iTunes is asking about consolidating the library. I just want to confirm what comes next before clicking YES. Here's the current screen shot

So, if I click "YES," this will begin the process of moving all of the audio files off the old G-Drive onto the new G-DRIVE 2019? Will the audio files be removed from the old G-Drive, rather than copied over? Reason I ask is that I want to maintain the Old Mac using the old G-Drive as a music server when needed for as long as possible. If the audio files are moved rather than copied, I imagine I could manually copy the files back over to the old G-Drive from the new G-DRIVE 2019, disconnect the new G-DRIVE 2019 from my Old Mac and then reverse the process to reselect the original library and reset the media folder location to blank (or maybe /Volumes/ITUNES G-DRIVE/Music/. Please let me know if I'm on the right track here and I'll be off and running...

Yes, the dialog is stretching a bit-sorry for not being clearer with the question. I went ahead and clicked "YES"; the file updated for about 30 seconds with lots of sub-files uploading during that time. I imagine this organized certain files outside the media folder into the folder. I confirmed content still plays through iTunes on the Old Mac.

While this is all good, I think I still have to copy all of the 835 gigs of music that are still sitting on the old G-Drive. These are the audio files iTunes on the Old Mac is using to play content. These files aren't on the the new G-DRIVE 2019 yet so I don't think I can use the drive in its current shape as a self-contained portable library. I've been wondering where in this process I needed to this (I've avoided it until now because of how long the process will likely take) and sorry if I gave the impression that I had already copied over these files to the new drive.

Right now, these files are sitting in a folder called "Music" on the old G-Drive

Should I do the same on the new G-DRIVE 2019? If not, is there another folder I should use to I copy over these audio files? Perhaps iTunes/iTunes Media?

Everything has been working fine with iTunes on both computers. The next step for me is keeping my library up to date with new music. I normally buy CDs and upload them to iTunes. Today I tried to upload a new CD to iTunes on my old 2011 iMac and I suddenly got this message

Following these directions, I accessed File>Get Info for the Music folder, iTunes folder, and iTunes Media Folder on the iMac's internal hard drive. Here is what permissions look like for these folders in Get Info

So, with all the permissions showing both Read & Write, I don't know why this is occurring. Of course, all this occurred AFTER I successfully created the new self-contained portable iTunes library for my new MacBook Air. I now want to begin updating my library in two places by uploading new CDs to my library on the old iMac and then going through the transfer process you described to bring the audio tracks and newly configured iTunes library over to the new MacBook. I don't plan to do this very often (I buy about 30-50 CDs a year) but thought I should try the process out before too much time went by. I'm taking these steps because my new MacBook doesn't have a CD reader and I don't own one to attach to the MacBook. Perhaps an easy fix would be for me to just buy a CD reader and manage my library entirely from the new MacBook. Suggestions?

Hi-

Thanks for the link for this fix. As you saw from the previous post, I think all the security permissions are correct for the folders. However, I don't think the Multiple tags (MP3 files only) remedy is going to work given that every audio file I have in iTunes is Apple Lossless. Also, I was a little unsure from the directions on how to apply File > Convert > Convert ID3 Tags... > None and then File > Convert > Convert ID3 Tags... > v2.3 to build a fresh tag. Is this done on a song by song basis? If not, how does this work for all my music in iTunes? Here are screen shots of what came up after I followed the instruction. First is with no audio track selected

Then with an audio track selected

I confirmed that this track is Apple Lossless and my import setting is Apple Lossless Encoder. I've also confirmed that the iTunes folder location is correct and that iTunes plays audio tracks.

So, I can't help thinking this is all related to the multiple steps I took to create the portable iTunes library for my new MacBook. I'm going to experiment and bring over the external hard drive from the MacBook and connect it as my iTunes library on the iMac. Then I'm going to try to import a CD and see what happens.

Well, it appears I can't use the iTunes library I created onto my new external hard drive as the library on the old iMac because this new library has somehow been updated/created by a more recent version of iTunes than is available on the old iMac. Here's the message that comes up on the old iMac when I try to choose a new iTunes library

Here's the MacOS I'm currently using

And finally, the iTunes version currently on the old iMac

This is an old machine, so I don't think there are any OS updates available right now, at least none at the App Store or showing through About This Mac under the Apple logo upper left corner. Next, I'll confirm permissions for iTunes folders on my new MacBook just to confirm its setup correctly. Any other thoughts on additional remedies for my old iMac? Just seems strange to me that after uploading thousands of CDs into iTunes over 8 years on this machine it just suddenly stops working, freezing my music library at a point in time.

Ah, the proverbial mystery! I’ll forward screen shots early next week after returning from a short trip.

Thank you for the additional info and it’s a relief that my intuition was correct that the library fix happens on the external drive.