I cannot access iTunes songs showing in external hard drive

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I cannot access iTunes songs showing in external hard drive

I recently closed my dropbox account and moved its content to an external hard drive. This included iTunes songs and now the songs and related albums no longer show in iTunes when I open it up, although I can see the individual songs (but not in albums) in the external hard drive. There are a limited number of albums still showing when I open up iTunes but they are albums I have recently added to iTunes.

However I can see the albums and tracks in the iTunes media folder on my Mac internal hard drive, but they do not show up when I actually open up Itunes.I have followed advice found on this website and have tried to move my iTunes folder to the external drive so all the music is in one place, but i keep getting an 'error code 50' message appearing. I have also tried to select the individual songs on the hard drive and move them to the media folder but there are no 'albums' to move them into and they just sit there as individual songs. I have a macbook air which is one year old and a WD My Passport ultra 1TB external hard drive. I am using OSX version 10.9.5 with 8GB of memory. As you can tell from my endeavours, I do not really understand the way iTunes works and it may be that the various songs and albums in the media folder need to be organised in a different way perhaps, so that they are visible when I open up iTunes?

As I have lots of space on my external hard drive and am running out of space on my Mac hard drive, ideally I would like all my iTunes folders to be held on my external drive, as it is always plugged in to my Mac, and for iTunes to be 'pointed' to the hard drive. Any advice please?

Thanks

Elizabeth

MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Jan 30, 2015 2:41 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,121 points

Jan 30, 2015 6:03 AM in response to bize-lize

All kinds of things going on.

About the error code. Do you men "50" or do you mean "-50"? It is critical things get reported exactly here. Error -50 is a very unhelpful generic communications error with a number of possible causes. Something between the drive to which you are downloading and the drive from which it is all coming is not working correctly, with probably dozens of possibilities. I guess one simple possibility is if this is a brand new drive it likely came formatted for Windows use and needs reformatting for Mac.

Kappy's brief drive formatting instructions (12/2012) - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4597657?answerId=20571091022#20571091022

Pondini: Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks... - http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html, specifically http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html

Basic workings of iTunes. When you add a file to iTunes it puts the file in a specific location designated in you Media Folder preferences setting and makes a note in a database file (library.itl) of where it put it. When you want to play the track iTunes looks up where the file should be, goes there and plays that file. iTunes does not inventory its media folder for new additions. For iTunes to recognize tracks they have to be added to iTunes either by importing, dragging to iTunes, or dragging to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder. If files added to iTunes are later moved by you in Finder, particularly to another drive, iTunes loses track of them completely and give you a broken link indicator " ! ".

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

Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.

I don't know exactly how Dropbox works but basically by moving all your files instead of letting iTunes do the relocating you have broken all the links to your older files in iTunes. You can either repair them one by one, by one, by one.... or you can rebuild your library, or essentially create a new library and start over again (you did read those links I provided didn't you?). If you are prepared to start over, hold down the option key while starting iTunes. Create a new library on the external drive. Drag all your media files to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder in the iTunes folder on that drive.

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Answer 2

bize-lize Author

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Feb 1, 2015 4:50 AM in response to Limnos

Hi Limnos and many thanks for your advice. I decided to create a new library on my external hard drive and add files using the "automatically add...' function, which has worked a treat! However I now appear to have four copies of all the iTunes folders on the hard drive, e.g. 'automatically add..' 'Music' etc - any idea why and if I could just leave it as is, or do I need to do something about this?

I have also now 'pointed' iTunes to go to the iTunes folders on the hard drive, but read in another thread that the Media file should sit there, but that the Library file should be left on my Mac's hard drive - is this correct and if so, which Library file exactly should be left?

Secondly, can I now delete all the iTunes folders on my hard drive so I can release the space on the drive, which was the whole point of my moving the iTunes music from the internal hard drive to the external one?

thanks

Elizabeth

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Answer 3

Limnos

Level 10

411,121 points

Feb 2, 2015 2:14 PM in response to bize-lize

Anything dropped in to Automatically Add should get moved to the correct folder.

Again, I am not sure how you would end up with 4 iTunes folders on the external drive if you are starting with bare drive. Maybe I am missing some details?

The only way you should "point" iTunes to use media is using the option+start method to point it to an entire library (which you now understand what this means, having read all the links I provided). Doing so in preferences does nothing to link up old media, it only tells iTunes to store new media there.

Unless you have specific reason for keeping library files and media files on two separate drives it is not the best way to do it. If you have done that I would recommend you re-read the link on making your library "portable" so it is all one the external drive. Once that is done you can safely delete the whole iTunes folder on the internal drive. If it is not done correctly deleting that folder (and personally I would make a backup first before doing so) will result in your losing the file that gives iTunes all the structure you see when you start the application.

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Answer 4

bize-lize Author

Level 1

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Feb 3, 2015 8:48 AM in response to Limnos

Ok thanks for your response Limnos - I am now a bit worried about deleting the file on my internal hard drive in case I have not done everything properly- however if I back up the hard drive using time machine, will that be my safety net? Also if I move the iTunes folder on the internal hard drive to the 'trash' but do not actually empty it, just to be sure nothing untoward happens on the external hard drive, would that work?

Elizabeth

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Answer 5

Limnos

Level 10

411,121 points

Feb 3, 2015 10:10 AM in response to bize-lize

Moving it to the trash but not emptying it should remove it from iTunes view.

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