Moved huge music library to external drive...now iTunes cannot find it

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Level 1

9 points

Moved huge music library to external drive...now iTunes cannot find it

My massive music library was taking up all the room on my hard drive, so I moved everything to an external drive. I then deleted the library from my hard drive.

The music is located in a folder named "iTunes Music" on my external drive. iTunes cannot locate the songs now.

I've changed the media folder in preferences to: volumes/externalharddrive/iTunes Music and it still won't play the songs.

I've also tried selecting "Get Info" by right-clicking on a song, then manually directing iTunes to song. It will play that individual song, and asks me if I want to use the folder to find other songs. I click "Yes", but it's still not working.

Any ideas? I've searched these forums and I'm stumped.

Thanks!

imac, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jun 10, 2013 7:26 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 10, 2013 11:28 PM in response to drewbie27

Quit iTunes. Re-boot it while holding the option (alt) key down. You should be offered the chance to locate your library. Navigate to the 'iTunes' folder containing it.

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Answer 2

drewbie27 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 14, 2013 5:45 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Thanks. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I located the library but it still wouldn't find the songs. I wound up creating a new library, and just dragging all of the songs into iTunes. Now iTunes has the songs, but for some reason I can't sync all of them to my iPhone.

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Answer 3

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Jun 14, 2013 10:38 PM in response to drewbie27

It sounds like you may be moving the Library incorrectly. To move your iTunes library to an external drive you must copy the entire iTunes folder to the external drive.

This one:

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Answer 4

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Jun 15, 2013 2:17 AM in response to drewbie27

Our iTunes guru Terence Devlin advises the following:

1. Quit iTunes

2. Drag the iTunes folder from your internal hd - located in ~/Music folder - to your external hd. DO NOT delete the original one from your internal hd... yet!

3. When the transfer is complete, press and hold the Option(alt) key and fire up iTunes.

4. A "Choose iTunes Library" window will come up. Click on the "Choose Library" button.

5. Navigate to where the iTunes folder is located in the external hd.

6. Within the iTunes folder, select the iTunes Library file and click Choose...

That's it. iTunes will now display all your playlists, songs, movies, podcasts etc. At this point, should you wish, you can delete the iTunes folder from the internal hd to free up space.

More info:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751

Or if you prefer a more complicated explanation:

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

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Answer 5

drewbie27 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 15, 2013 8:32 AM in response to Klaus1

Thanks! The problem was the way I had the folders set up on my external drive. I was directing the library to the main iTunes folder instead of of the iTunes Library subfolder as Klaus mentioned below. iTunes could only find some of my tracks. Once I re-directed the library it found them all. Thanks for all your help!

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