Repointing iTunes to new drive

Question

Repointing iTunes to new drive

I was trying to move my library to an external drive. I followed the steps on the Apple site but I got an error part way through, "File XYZ cannot be copied because it is in use" I guess that song had been playing and the whole copy stalled because of that. It copied about 80% of my music. At this point, I don't know if iTunes sees that 80% on the external AND the other 20% from my old internal drive (even though ALL of the music is still on the internal) or if it's looking only to the external now. I know that in general iTunes will want to copy files from the original location to the new location when doing this. Is there a way to repoint iTunes back to my internal drive without its wanting to copy all of the 80% it originally copied to the external drive back to the internal drive?

I just want to put things back the way they were, then reformat the external drive to Mac OS extended (it's ntfs now), close any song that was open and retry to repoint to the newly formatted external drive. I don't really need to reformat the drive, I really just want to make a clean, full transfer to the external but I figured it would allow my Mac to use Spotlight to search on that drive. Right now, Spotlight cannot search an NTFS drive from what Apple tells me.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1), 16GB Ram, 350GB SSD internal drive

Posted on Jan 19, 2015 7:08 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,313 points

Jan 19, 2015 7:17 AM in response to Craig Wollman1

Macs can read but not write to NTFS drives without special software. How were you achieving this in the first place?

What "steps on Apple's site" were you following? You say you were moving your library to an external drive but a "library" is everything in the iTunes folder. If you were using preferences to consolidate/organize your music to a different location that is only part of your library. In most situations it is better to move your whole library to the external drive by copying the whole iTunes folder to the external and starting iTunes with the option/alt key held down and guide it to the library on the external.

I'd make a backup (you didn't happen to do that before starting this major file relocation, did you?) just in case something worse happens, then try reversing the procedure of what you did.

I may be old-fashioned but I would definitely not have had any music playing while doing this.

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Answer 2

Jan 19, 2015 7:33 AM in response to Limnos

Limnos, thanks for the quick reply. I did attempt to copy the whole library. I used this procedure. iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder - Apple Support

I was not playing a song while I was copying but I did listen to part of a song a few hours before, must have paused it and didn't realize it was "in queue." But I wouldn't have thought that that would have forced an abort so I wouldn't have thought to close itunes then reopen it without any song selected. It's pretty silly that the copy would be aborted because a song was paused. Ok, I could see that it might want to skip that song (even that doesn't make a lot of sense) but now I have no idea what songs were copied and which ones weren't.

In any event, I do have the music backed up but Apple was suggesting I do a time machine backup before I try to repoint the library back to the internal drive. I don't have a spare drive right now to do that. They refused to tell me other options. They literally would not answer my question of "Can't I just repoint iTunes back to my internal drive?" This world has become so concerned about liability that this rep would not even answer my question with, "Well, off the record..."

So, rather than following Apple's steps, you would copy the whole iTunes library manually, then open iTunes as if it were just installed and reimport all of the music?

Craig

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Answer 3

Limnos

Level 10

411,313 points

Jan 19, 2015 7:46 AM in response to Craig Wollman1

Yes, as the document says, it moves your media folder. There's more to iTunes than just media and it is most stable when all kept together.

What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660

More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management

What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html

Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391

iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6477809?answerId=26404702022#26404702022

As suggested before, I would back up your current iTunes folder (but don't overwrite any earlier backups in case you have to go back that far). I have never had or seen this happen to anybody else so I cannot say for sure what will happen but reversing the process should work to put it all back together.

Check to see if your library is working again and then re-read my library relocation method carefully. You are not simply opening iTunes as if it were just installed. You are holding down the option/alt key while starting. This will cause iTunes to prompt you for a library to select. You will, after having manually copied the entire iTunes folder to the external (and I still don't know if it is a NTFS which is probably a bad thing and I have no idea how you got it to work in the first place), have two libraries, one of which is a copy of the other. You want to use the copy on the external drive. Do no "import" anything. I didn't say that.

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Answer 4

Jan 20, 2015 5:41 AM in response to Limnos

I read most of the content of the links you posted, thanks

I did a new time machine backup of my Mac so the iTunes folder has been backed up.

I formatted a drive for Mac OS Extended and copied the Music folder to that drive.

I launched iTunes holding down the option key. iTunes asked if I wanted to choose a library

I choose the Music folder that I had just copied to the newly formatted drive.

I tunes gave me an error dialog telling me it couldn't find a library file even though I see the iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml files in the (formatted drive)/music/iTunes folder

At this point I'm stuck and am not sure how to progress. When I open iTunes and "get info" on a song, it tells me it can't locate it. So I thought if I pointed to one song, the rest of the library would know where to look for the rest. That didn't happen even with the other songs on the album in which the song I pointed to were on.

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Answer 5

Limnos

Level 10

411,313 points

Jan 20, 2015 7:53 AM in response to Craig Wollman1

What you are saying you are doing is not what I am saying to do. As far as iTunes is concerned the file it latches onto it the "iTunes Library.itl" file You say you are guiding it to the Music folder. You need to guide it to that particular file, though often it is enough to select the "iTunes" folder containing that file. Anything else and I don't think iTunes is going to look that far down the folder structure. You can have it inside the any folders you want on the external but I said copy the iTunes folder and select that.

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Answer 6

Jan 20, 2015 9:46 AM in response to Limnos

Sorry Limnos, I should have said in addition to "seeing the .itl file" that I DID try choosing that when iTunes started up after I tried it just by selecting the "music" folder. When I chose info for a song, it still didn't know where the song was.

The library would consist of pointers to the old MUSIC folder location, right? So how would choosing the .itl file allow iTunes to know where the music is?

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Answer 7

Limnos

Level 10

411,313 points

Jan 20, 2015 1:06 PM in response to Craig Wollman1

If one moves a library as a full package, i.e., the whole iTunes folder, it works as a self-contained package on whatever drive to which you move it.

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Answer 8

Jan 20, 2015 4:55 PM in response to Limnos

Hmmm, I guess I'm at a standstill here. I copied the whole music folder as I mentioned. That included the iTunes folder inside along with the library files. I'm fairly computer literate (outside of iTunes) so I'm fairly sure I've done as you suggested. Any last suggestions before I shoot myself? 😉

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Answer 9

Limnos

Level 10

411,313 points

Jan 23, 2015 9:22 PM in response to Craig Wollman1

If finding song does not get iTunes to find others then it means your file names and/or folder structure inside Media is not standard. This usually happens when you deactivate the preference for iTunes to organize your media. Whatever, it isn't working. You will have to rebuild you library. If you truly think all that is wrong is some major part of the path you can try rebuilding it from the .xml version of the file using a text editor to do a global replace on part of the path. Note, rebuilding using the .xml will lose ratings, play count, and date added.

iTunes: How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1451 - use .xml version of library file to restore most of the information in your library. <-- but you may also wish to edit the path beforehand.

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