Can I use itunes when I am separated from my media drive

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Can I use itunes when I am separated from my media drive

I currently keep my itunes media on a Time Capsule at home. I have two questions really...

--every time I open itunes I have to re-locate my itunes library file (which is located on the Time Capsule). An annoying step, but not the end of the world. Is there a way around this? Can I keep the library file on my computer while the actual media is on the external drive?

--which leads to the next question: is there a way to open and use itunes on my laptop when I am separated from my media drive (accessing the items I have on icloud)? Whenever I am separated from the media drive I don't have access to the aforementioned library file and I have been afraid to click on 'create a new library' or to move the file. Is there a way to safely open itunes and access whatever media I can access from icloud?

Thanks so much community!

MacBook Pro 2.4 Ghz, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Feb 28, 2015 11:26 AM

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Limnos

Level 10

411,187 points

Feb 28, 2015 12:22 PM in response to razini

The reason this is happening is your Time Capsule is not fully mounted before starting iTunes. If you put your library files on the computer iTunes will find the library but then all your media will show as broken links. If you then mount your TC the media will still show as broken but if you play one it will have a second look and find -- just that one.

Again, you can use a library with broken links as long as it doesn't irk you.I don't, however, think iCloud is a solution. Usually it will react to broken links by thinking you still have the file on your computer. It is usually necessary to completely delete a broken link entry in iTunes to get iTunes to re-download a track (and then it won't know you have it on your TC when you reconnect there), and a computer won't stream music from the cloud servers.

Basically iTunes has limitations and no ideal solutions have been found for huge libraries and small drives that computers have these days by comparison.

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