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Old iTunes Library on External Hard Drive to new Mac Catalina Music App External Drive

My old Mac has an iTunes library on external drive. The external drive has a Music folder that contains an iTunes folder with all playlist, ratings, etc, plus all of the actual music files.


I want to keep all of this on the external drive but plug it into OS Catalina Mac, and still have it have all of my library information -- I don't just want to import the songs into the new Music app -- I want all of my years of info to stay with it.


How do I do that?


In days of old I would go into the app on the new computer, and change the settings to point to the directory with my itunes folder, and that was it.


Is it the same now?


Thanks.

Posted on Dec 20, 2022 12:13 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 20, 2022 6:21 PM

If you want to place your library on a different path, typically the root of a drive, then press and hold down shift (Win) or option (Mac) as you start iTunes to get the option to create or choose a new library, select choose, then browse to the folder that contains your library and select the iTunes Library.itl file inside. See Open a different iTunes Library file or create a new one - Apple Support for details.


For more info, see:

Move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Community


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2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 20, 2022 6:21 PM in response to jweisler

If you want to place your library on a different path, typically the root of a drive, then press and hold down shift (Win) or option (Mac) as you start iTunes to get the option to create or choose a new library, select choose, then browse to the folder that contains your library and select the iTunes Library.itl file inside. See Open a different iTunes Library file or create a new one - Apple Support for details.


For more info, see:

Move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Community


Old iTunes Library on External Hard Drive to new Mac Catalina Music App External Drive

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