Move iTunes library to external hard drive?

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

Hi turingtest2, it's me again...

So I continue to battle with moving my itunes library from my computer to an external hard drive. I've moved everything over and saved my playlists, but then discovered it didn't recognise some the location of some of my music. Sigh. I've since sorted this out, but have just noticed that the data on my external hard drive is 53GB while the data in my itunes folder on my computer is 75GB. Clearly I don't want to lose 20GB worth of music. Is there some explanation for this? When I do a quick spot check all appears in place...

thanks again for your help.

Where is iTunes looking for the media? Is the external supposed to be a clone of the main library? If so what are you using to clone one copy to the other?

tt2

It's looking for the media on my external, which was supposed to be a clone, I think... I followed the directions from apple so I could move my files but keep my playlists (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449).

Hey there,

I have a mac mini that's getting full so wanted to move my 65gb itunes library to an external hard drive. I followed the Limnos post at the beginning of this discussion and just copied the whole itunes root folder over to the external hard drive and selected the alternate library on startup. That seems to work fine.

I had forgotten though that a while back, i had moved the itunes media folder to Mac HD>Users>Shared>Shared Itunes Library so both my wife and i could access the same media library from our respective user profiles. Remembering this, i then also copied the "Shared Itunes Library" media folder to the external hard drive and used Preferences>Advanced>iTunes media folder location to redirect to the external hard drive. Both the "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized" and "Copy Files to iTunes Media Folder when Adding to Library" boxes are checked.

Everything seems to function well, when i restart iTunes the library consistently goes to the external drive library and the path for hte media folder remains on the external hard drive. However, when i select 'show in finder' for any given song in the library, it keeps going back to the file in the "shared" root folder on the startup drive. I havent deleted the original library yet b/c i've gone through the headache before of needing to delete and reimport the whole library and losing all of the ratings, song counts, etc..... I'm hoping to avoid that.

I'd like to see, when i select 'show in finder' on a song in the library, that it is showing the file on teh external drive. at that point i'll feel confident i can delete the files on the startup disk without trouble.

Any thoughts or advice?

thanks.

I read through part of this thread and several others closely related. I think there is probably two different processes that may be confused into one. Most people replying are confusing "moving" a library and "repointing" to a library.

My example: I have an old Mac Mini that I use solely as an iTunes server on my home network. I have a small portable Seagate 4TB external drive that I had setup to store all of my media. I traveled out of the cournty for a month and grabbed my Seagate to take with me in order to setup my laptop as my portable iTuners server.

I thought I could just open iTunes and go to Preferences=>Advanced=>iTunes Media Folder location and point the library to the Seagate iTunes folder. No go! Tried all of the suggestions in many threads. Still no go.

Simple solution: I went to the original iTunes folder on the Mac Mini server (on the computer drive) and copied the default files in the iTunes root directory (there are 5 - two are .itdb; two are .xml; and one .itl). I copied to the root directly on the hard drive of the laptop. Voila! Everything came right up as normal.

I guess that when you go into preferences and point the media folder to an external drive, the databases that iTunes uses to "point" to everything is still saved in the local drive in the iTunes root folder. Just wanted to throw that out there, because I wanted just point my iTunes to a new folder and everything I found on the help groups only addressed "moving" the media to a different folder.

This method save me hours a messing around.

HI again,

JUmping in this post with a question, my iTunes library is stored on external drive which is now full before I try and screw things up again can I use the link method to move from one external drive to another?

THanks. blackrockguy

Hi,

I am in a similar position as the thread - I have too many Gb of legal iTunes media on my PC's hard drive. I therefore want to move it off. I also want the media to be accessed and 'enjoyed' by the seven of us in the family.

So my plan is to attatch a powered USB hard drive to the Router, move MOST of our iTunes media onto it, and allow each family computer to be able to access any of the family's iTunes media.

However (being somewhat of senior years) I thought I would just run through an outline of my plan - in case you guys can spot a mistake I am going to regret.

I would appreciate comments before I do a thing.

Thanks

My 'Plan A' 😀

1. Backup any iTunes library files and iTunes media on all the family's computers before I start

Reason: In case I mess it up, and can therefore restore it 'how it was'

2. Format my 3Gb WD MyBook external hard drive to exFAT. -

Reason : I would like both PC and the one Mac we have to have write/read access the media on this external drive

3. Plug the external drive in the router and configure computers to access the drive.

4. Somehow create 7 iTunes areas on the external drive.

Reason: One area for each of the family, but all can listen/watch

This will minimise arguments of "You've messed up my iTunes library by putting your stuff in it." 😮

( Note: Only 4 at present are serious iTunes users, but I want to allow for all seven of us in the future. )

5. MOVE the iTunes files that people don't mind sharing from our computers into one of the 7 areas.

Still retaining some files on our computers. i.e. Each computer has access to iTunes files on their own computer AND on the external drive.

6. Configure each computer to access any of the 7 iTunes areas on the Hard drive which will be plugged in the router.

Reason: That's the end result. To be able to watch and listen to our media, and be able to add media to our own areas.

Plan B

If Plan A is not workable / possible, I would want to just move MOST of my iTunes stuff across ato the external drive and let others in the family access it.

A 'Fly in the ointment' to take account of

My own iTunes was installed to the usual C drive defaults without putting any media on it.

I then altered the root location of all the media to D:\MyiTunes

Example:

D:/MyiTunes/books; D:/MyiTunes/Mobileapplications; D:/MyiTunes/Movies; D:/MyiTunes/Music; D:/MyiTunes/TVshows;

Reason: When using the default C:\Users\Me\Music\iTunes\ ...plus adding the usual Tunes Media and the tune name etc... the length of the path was too long. D:/MyiTunes seems to work fine as the root.

I would appreciate any advice even before I start anything!

Flobbyblob 😎

Thanks so much Limnos! Your instructions worked perfectly. Why is the official Apple method so convoluted??

Some more instructions on moving media. Interesting read (I hope) if you do not let iTunes manage your paths.

http://cojabo.blogspot.de/2014/10/moving-itunes-media-moving-your-itunes.html

I haven't read every post on this thread but I haven't seen any mention of emptying the trash before the extra space on the hard drive becomes available. I've just gained an extra 70Gb after following the early posts to move the iTunes library (Mac), deleting the original library on my hard drive THEN emptying the trash.

James King-Holmes wrote:

I haven't read every post on this thread but I haven't seen any mention of emptying the trash before the extra space on the hard drive becomes available.

Perhaps because move (as opposed to copy) implies that you don't leave anything behind on the source drive that needs to be trashed. 😉

tt2

You seriously just saved me I don't even know how much time, thank you!

I have read though all on this post. Really really useful. So I'm nearly there I think. I have a new library and have copied iTunes library and media files to an external drive as described in the early post. Then used the option method. Great. But I'm new to OS and my confusion is an insurance really.

Should I now delete the entire original iTunes folder under Users or just the media folder within it?

My intention is not to create a clone, but to store all the audio on the external drive as well as other future media.

It also appears to be difficult to recognise which is the internal and which is the external drive when I open them as they appear to be identical. In Windows they are named by their drives.

As a test - I have just imported an audio track, which now seems to be standing within the music folder/ media files on both the internal AND external drives. It would seem to me that deleting the whole media folder on the internal drive is now the step I need to take.

Many thanks!

@Limnos. Worked a treat and super easy too!