Transfer iTunes library to new MacBook Pro while maintaining playlists, ratings, etc.

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Transfer iTunes library to new MacBook Pro while maintaining playlists, ratings, etc.

I just got my new MacBook Pro for college, and I need to transfer my entire iTunes library (19,000+ songs) from my dektop Mac to my new computer. I have tried a lot of people's methods concerning transfering libraries, but everytime, I lose my playlists, play counts, and ratings. I have tried a lot of methods, but none seem to work. I have tried consolidating libraries and other methods. Does anyone have any ideas of what I might be doing wrong.

(I have a 1TB hd that houses all of the music for my iTunes library for my desktop. I am attempting to move it all to the MBP. My MBP has two partitions, one of which is for storage and music (not my Macintosh HD) which is where I am attempting to copy my library to from the 1TB drive.)

Thanks in advance!

CB

Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 24, 2011 5:29 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,855 points

Aug 24, 2011 5:38 PM in response to chrisbraun5

Hard to know what you've done incorrectly until you tell us what you did. You need to copy:

/Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iApps.plist

/Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist

/Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist

/Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunesHelper.plist

/Home/Music/iTunes/ - entire folder

/Home/Music/imm Media/ - entire folder (if present)

/Home/Library/iTunes/ - entire folder

Copy all of the above to their corresponding locations on the other computer.

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Answer 2

chrisbraun5 Author

Level 1

1 points

Aug 24, 2011 5:47 PM in response to Kappy

i don't think any of my itunes information is stored in any of the home folders. what i have done so far is use my 1TB hd which stores all of my music for my desktop mac and plugged it into my new MBP. from here i copied the iTunes folder from the hd to my deignated location for music on my new computer which is a partition. from here i have gone into itunes on my new mac: prefrences>advanced and changed the location of the itunes media folder to the location of where i copied the itunes music folder (the partition.) from here, i dragged the itunes music folder into itunes. no playlists, ratings etc

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,855 points

Aug 24, 2011 5:53 PM in response to chrisbraun5

You need to copy all the preference files which are not stored on the external drive but are on your startup volume.

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Answer 4

chrisbraun5 Author

Level 1

1 points

Aug 24, 2011 5:56 PM in response to Kappy

ok, i'll give your initial steps a shot. do i just copy those files to same location on the new computer and just replace them?

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,855 points

Aug 24, 2011 6:04 PM in response to chrisbraun5

Yep. Copy everything related to iTunes to the new computer. Start with the preference files (.plist extension) then copy the /Home/Library/iTunes/ folder. If you get an error on the latter, then copy the contents of the folder into the same folder on the new computer.

Be sure you quit iTunes before copying the above data.

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Answer 6

Jan 4, 2012 8:45 AM in response to Kappy

This is what I need to do as well. As I am not computer savy, can you give step by step instructions including hooking up firewire or USB wires and how to get to the folders to copy and where to put them on the new computer?

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Answer 7

Kappy

Level 10

361,855 points

Jan 4, 2012 10:57 AM in response to Lawrence Chai

Perhaps you should take it to an Apple Store and let them help you out.

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Answer 8

Limnos

Level 10

418,975 points

Jan 4, 2012 11:34 AM in response to Lawrence Chai

Here's one way to connect two computers. There's other ways but we have absolutely no idea what hardware you have. - How to use FireWire target disk mode - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661 - includes description of hardware and software requirements.

As for files and folders to copy and where; Kappy has already made a list above, including showing locations. As for how; using drag and drop in Finder will probably work, but it will depend upon how you eventually connect the computers, or use a hard drive, or a flash drive... Currently there are too many unknowns about your system to provide a detailed list without itemizing for hundreds of different scenarios.

By the way, feel free to start a new topic for a question. This one was really about sorting out chrisbraun5's issue.

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