Opening iTunes while holding down the option key?

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Level 1

4 points

Opening iTunes while holding down the option key?

Hi there

I keep all my photos on a 1TB hard drive and therefore plug the hard drive into my MacBook Air, open iPhoto holding down the 'option' key and bingo! iPhoto opens the photos on the hard drive and I can mess around with / edit my photos using the screen of the MBA as the "screen" of the hard drive.

I want to rip a whole lot of videos and DVDs into iTunes, but of course that will use up shedloads of memory / storage on my MBA.

Can I do the same thing, i.e. store the videos and DVDs on a hard drive and open iTunes while holidng down the 'option' key and so open iTunes on the hard drive? That way, I hope I can simply download individual movies onto my iPad or iPod from the hard drive, to watch on journeys etc and dump them when watched, thus preventing the iPod / iPad getting full up, whilst not 'losing' the (laboriously ripped 🙂) DVDs...

Is this possible?

Cheers!

Alec

MacBook Air

Posted on Aug 19, 2013 11:33 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Michael Allbritton

Level 6

16,951 points

Aug 20, 2013 12:06 AM in response to AlecLondon

iTunes doesn't really care where the file resides. Once the videos are added to the library it is not necessary to launch iTunes while holding the Option key. So put the videos on an external HDD, in Prefs unselect the option to "copy files to the iTunes Media folder...," then use the Add to Library command in the File menu. The videos will then be in the iTunes library and as long as you have the HDD plugged in when you launch iTunes the software will know where they are. If you do not have the HDD connected you'll just get an exclamation point on the video. Then all you have to do is quit iTunes, plug in the HDD, and relaunch it.

Message was edited by: Michael Allbritton

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Answer 2

AlecLondon Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 20, 2013 12:57 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Michael -

Forgive me for being a techno-numpty, but having ripped a DVD last night, it is now nestling in my iTunes on my MBA - what do I do to move it to the external hard drive so that iTunes recognises it as residing on the external hard drive, rather than on the MBA?

Cheers!

Alec

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Answer 3

Aug 20, 2013 2:07 AM in response to AlecLondon

First delete it from the iTunes, but do not delete it from the HDD. Now drag-n-drop the video to the external HDD. In iTunes Prefs > Advanced unselect the option to "copy media to the iTunes Media folder..." and cick OK. Now pull down File > Add to library, navigate to the video on the external HDD, select it and click OK. The video will now be added to the iTunes library.

Message was edited by: Michael Allbritton

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