Do I need to store purchased movies on my local drive?

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Level 1

1 points

Do I need to store purchased movies on my local drive?

I have always downloaded a copy of music, movies, TV shows, etc to iTunes on my desktop after purchasing. The problem is, I have purchased so many movies that I am running out of space on my iMac and back up drive. With the advent of the cloud, do I really need to keep these downloads? I have three MacBooks, one iMac, four iPhones and three Apple TVs that I utilize for my movies. Since any of them can download my purchased movies from the cloud, do I still need to store locally on my "master" computer?

Follow up question. Where would I find the files of those movies I have already downloaded so I can delete some and free up some space? 1 terra-byte just doesn't hold what it used to (and my Time Machine back ups are taking forever.)

Thanks much!

iCal 6.0 (1645)-OTHER, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), MacBook Pro

Posted on Jan 7, 2014 5:55 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Jan 7, 2014 7:21 AM in response to ADVRTIZR

It's strongly recommended that you keep a backup copy, yes. The content owners can remove any item from the iTunes Store at any time without warning, making it impossible to then re-download it, so if you don't keep a backup, you risk permanently losing something you've purchased. Hard drives are relatively cheap, so if you're running out of room on your current backup drive, I'd suggest buying another drive, perhaps that you would use only for your media backups.

Where would I find the files of those movies I have already downloaded so I can delete some and free up some space?

In the iTunes Media folder, which is usually in iTunes/Music in your user's home directory.

Regards.

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Answer 2

ADVRTIZR Author

Level 1

1 points

Jan 7, 2014 2:26 PM in response to varjak paw

Hmmm. Didn't know that could occur. I'll heed your advice. Thanks very much!

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