Move iTunes library to external hard drive?

Thank you SOOOO much for this answer!!! It worked perfectly!

so here's my issue: I don't want to put any music on my new macbook cause I have a ton of it and it takes up so much space. So, I backed up my itunes library to my external hard drive and am using the location of the external as my itunes library. The only kicker is I cannot seem to manually drag and drop songs from the library to my iphone - I have to do a manual sync and can only sync entire artists, or albums, and not individual songs.

This is super annoying because there are lot of albums that I don't want all the songs on, and whenever I go to sync again, it always throws back on all the songs on the album even after I delete them on my iphone.

Anyone have any idea why I can't just drag and drop songs or if there's a way around this going through the external?

Yes - delete the original.

So here's my problem: I have this massive (1.2 TB) itunes library (Windows Vista). I got a new computer and moved the "C" drive from the old Vista machine and installed it as the "E" Drive in the new Windows 10 computer. I SHIFT-OPEN Itunes on the new computer and point to my latest itl library file. All the songs and playlists show up, but they want me to "Locate" them each time I play them. (If I go to 'get info' on the song I see that it is still thinks the file is on the "C" drive). I can manually browse for it and correct it.. but I dont see anyone else describing this in their process so I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong.

It allows me to try to find other files based on where I find the first file, but that doesnt seem to work, or it seizes itunes.

See Re: Problem finding music after installing Windows 10.

tt2

Hi Limnos or any other who is willing to help; pretty desperate here 😟😕.

Limnos wrote:

There's a difference between moving your iTunes media to a different drive (reference in another post) and moving your whole iTunes library. It's up to you but some prefer to keep it all intact versus media on one drive and library files on another.

iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music [library] to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 - a somewhat bewildering and not always easily understandable set of options.

Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. Open iTunes and immediately hold down the Option (alt) key (shift on Windows), then guide it to the new location of the iTunes Library.itl file in the moved iTunes folder.

For the record there's this reference for iTunes 11 but it really doesn't strike me as having the specifics you need. iTunes 11 for Mac: Move your library to another computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12168

I have done exactly as you suggested in the 3rd paragraph above (underlined text). I have a relatively old iMac (purchased in 2007, 3 GB Memory) and updated my OS to Yosemite - v10.10.4 now. As a result, I can indeed see in iTunes Preferences under the 'Advanced' tab that the migration has worked, because it points to the iTunes folder I have 1-on-1 copied to my external hard drive. However, if I now try to play music from within my iTunes, none of the songs will play because iTunes can't find them, despite the seemingly successfully executed migration exercise. What did I do wrong? I have more than 23,000 songs so I definitely can't manually try to point each and everyone of them to the new location on my external hard drive.

Many thanks in advance for your help!

See Make a split library portable for some background. If the source library isn't/wasn't in the portable layout then it may not work after moving/copying it. What are the original and current paths to the library and media folders?

tt2

Thanks a lot turingtest2 for responding so quickly! The original path to the library files on my internal hard drive was: "MacIntosh HD>users>...>Music>iTunes", while on my external hard drive it now is "Root>Music>iTunes. In both cases, this directory contains(-ed) the following subdirectories and library files:

subdirectories:

- Album Artwork

- Garageband

- iPod Games

- iTunes Music

- Mobile Applications

- Previous iTunes Libraries

library files:

- iTunes Library.itl

- iTunes Library Extras.itdb

- iTunes Library Genius.itdb

- iTunes Library.xml

- iTunes Music Library.xml

Reading your post 'Make a split library portable', I'm not sure that applies to me since I didn't try to split files from the iTunes Library, but perhaps I'm missing something there.

Thanks again for helping me out further.

The presence of iPod Games, Mobile Applications and the fact that the media folder is called iTunes Music shows the library in the old school layout. It is possible that although iTunes has correctly picked up on the new media path of Root>Music>iTunes>iTunes Music it has decided that you should be using the newer layout for this library, and then cannot find the media files at the expected paths.

Select a song that will not play and use CMD I to Get Info. Say no when asked to locate the file, then look at the file tab of the dialog box. What path is listed? Where is this file really? If the difference is an extra \Music folder above the <Artist> folder then there should be a simple workaround I can explain. Otherwise I will put on my thinking cap.

tt2

Hello again tt2, as per your question, the path listed when CMD I to Get Info when selecting a song is as follows:

file:///Users/rolfvdm/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/<artist>/<album>/<song>

Rolf

OK, that is showing the old path. Presumably that file is now at <Volume>/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/<Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<Ext> and the media folder in preferences is pointed at <Volume>/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music ? Is there still a copy of the file on the original path? 😕

If you make iTunes realise that there are a number of broken tracks and fix one it may offer to scan for and fix others. Could you confirm if you copied the entire iTunes folder, or moved it? If you copied can you switch back to the original library and does it work if you do?

tt2

Yes indeed, the files are now at 'ROLF BUP/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/<Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<Ext>' and the media folder in preferences points at '/Volumes/ROLF BUP/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music' (it actually mentions '/Volumes/' before the name of the external hard drive, which is 'ROLF BUP', so that might be an inconsistency in the path?

I have deleted the original library on my internal hard drive because it was dangerously full. In theory I could copy it back the way it was, but I'm kinda scared that this will max the capacity of my internal hard drive out and make it crash for good. If that could help solve the problem I could try that though.

Thanks, Rolf

In the iTunes Music folder there should be a hidden preference file called .iTunes Preferences.plist. If you examine this with a text editor you will find a section like this:

<key>Layout Version</key>

<integer>1</integer>

An integer value of 1 indicates the modern layout, 0 the old one. If the layout is wrong then iTunes won't detect the new paths so may be sticking with the old ones. You should have a value of 0 in there at the moment.

If the value is wrong close iTunes, correct and save the file, then start iTunes again, otherwise try this idea:

If you make iTunes realise that there are a number of broken tracks and fix one it may offer to scan for and fix others.

tt2

Good morning tt2, I've solved it!!! It was actually something you suggested before, not to forget that I first also changed the value 0 into value 1 in the hidden .iTunes Preferences.plist file, as per your suggestion in your last answer above. What I then did was that I manually fixed the link to 1 song, which then (to my surprise) disappeared from where the rest of the songs were located. iTunes subsequently was NOT able to do the fixing for the rest of the songs itself, but when I looked at where it had gone (pressing CMD+I while having selected the song I fixed and then going to 'Get Info', tab <file>), I noticed that the new location iTunes had made was: '/Volumes/ROLF BUP/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Music/<Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<Ext>'. So what it did was adding an extra subdirectory layer '/Music' into the '.../iTunes Music' folder. Then, I made sure that I manually did exactly that for all the songs, i.e. creating that extra subdirectory and moving all my music there. After which iTunes found ALL the songs without any problem 😀.

So it had to with those 2 things, putting the right value in the .iTunes Preferences.plist file (in my case '1' instead of '0') and then create the right path manually that apparently is the iTunes normal standard for locating the music files (in the iTunes version I have).

Leaves me to say THANKS A MILLION !!!!! for thinking along with me all the way to really help me find the actual solution (when I least expected it 😁😁😉). I'm really happy and relieved!

All my best to you! Rolf

You're welcome. 🙂

You should move your iPod Games & Mobile Applications folders down inside iTunes Music. Is the GarageBand folder one you made yourself rather than one automatically created by exporting projects from GB? You might want to move that too. Another suggestion would be to close iTunes, rename iTunes Music as iTunes Media and then restart iTunes. It should pick up on the folder name change automatically and will complete the transformation of the library into the modern layout.

tt2