iTunes move to external hard drive

Question

Level 1

0 points

iTunes move to external hard drive

I have run out of space on my 2007 Mac and have purchased an external hard drive in order to free up space on my Mac hard drive. I have moved my itunes library to the external hard drive. Before I delete the itunes library in my mac hard drive, I would like to be sure that the entire library has been moved. The problem that I can not figure out is when checking on the storage capacity of my hard drives, the mac hard drive shows 117.91 gb of audio storage and the external hard drive only shows 6.18 gb of audio storage. The descrepancy scares me. When I open the external hard drive's library, it all seems to be there. I have over 70 classical albums, plus another 70 pop/jazz/etc albums. The first time I moved itunes to the ext. hd, I just dragged the icon. The second time, I consolidated my entire itunes library into a folder and dragged that over. It didn't show any change in the external audio usage. Can some one give me advice?

iMac, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Feb 18, 2014 2:48 PM

Reply

Answer 1

CarlAVII

Community Specialist

Feb 20, 2014 12:44 PM in response to metalau

Hello metalau,

If you're unable to verify the transfer, I'd suggest following through the article linked below (in the interest of avoiding data loss), as it provides step-by-step instructions for transferring your media to an external drive.

iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

Cheers,

Allen

Reply

Answer 2

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Feb 20, 2014 2:04 PM in response to metalau

I HIGHLY suggest you keep the entire iTunes library together inside the iTunes folder.

Quit iTunes.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder from /Music/ to the external drive.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder you copied to the external.
You can then delete /Music/iTunes/ on the internal.

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 28, 2015 4:46 PM in response to Chris CA

I just recently moved my library onto my external drive. But my hard drive doesn't show any new free space based off of the removal of all the music. Is there a file I need to delete other than the entire iTunes folder in order to see this free space?

Thanks

Mike

Reply

Answer 4

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Jan 28, 2015 6:48 PM in response to MikeChuckran

Make sure you empty the trash

Reply

Answer 5

Jan 29, 2015 7:19 AM in response to Chris CA

I've done that. I wish it were that simple. Could the files be saved somewhere else?

Reply

Answer 6

Limnos

Level 10

411,121 points

Jan 29, 2015 7:37 AM in response to MikeChuckran

If you really moved your library as indicated in ChrisCA's post a year a go instead of moving just media (which leaves part of your library behind and still essential) as outlined in the Apple document you can trash your entire iTunes folder on the computer (personally I would always back up first, just in case).

Note, it is generally regarded good form to start your own topic when asking a question about a specific case, particularly when piggy-backing on topics a year old where new software versions may require different procedures. 🙂

Reply