Why do I lose my iTunes match files when I move my music library?

Question

Level 1

57 points

Why do I lose my iTunes match files when I move my music library?

I matched my iTunes library, but then since my hard disk was full I had to move my itunes library files to an external hard drive. I was hoping that I would still have access to my iTunes versions of these music files (and could just use/download them selectively), but no luck. I thought that this was one of the advantages of iTunes Match (ie, not having to keep hard copies of all music files). Any ideas what to do? Thanks.

MacBook 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Dec 11, 2011 6:15 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Michael Allbritton

Level 6

16,951 points

Dec 12, 2011 8:47 AM in response to DW00

No, that's not how iTunes Match was designed to work in iTunes.

If you wish to only stream your music via iTunes than you've got a couple of options. The easiest and least destructive, in my opinion, is to create a new, empty library in iTunes by holding down the Option key when launching the app. This will allow you to then stream your library.

The second option is to simply delete all the files in your iTunes Library.

Reply