Moving iTunes Media File Folder to an external drive

Instead of moving only the media folder, do this...

1. Quit iTunes.
2. Move the entire /Music/iTune/s folder to the external.
3. Hold Option, launch iTunes.
4. Select Choose library… and select the iTunes folder on the external.

This is all you need to do. You don’t need to change the preferences

Might be labelled Alt.

tt2

Thank you, this also helped me. For some reason when I was holding alt and launching iTunes I wasn't getting the prompt, tried quite a few times. Decided to take a break and came back a couple days later. Decided to restart (first reboot since I had moved files to external) before trying again and BINGO the prompt window to choose another library was there. Thanks again.

Help needed for large library

My iTiunes library is large and I am adding to it. I have close to 2TBs of music that I ripped from CDs that I own and I am not finished doing so. At present, the database or library files are on the Macs internal SSD and the media/content is on a 2TB external hard drive. I have copied the media folder from the 2TB HD to a 4 TB HD, but have not yet put the new drive into use with iTunes. Will moving the database/library files to the 4 TB external hard drive slow down operation of iTunes., such loading library with artwork on start up, selecting albums to play, etc? If so, are there step by step instruction for keeping the database files on the internal SSD drive while having iTunes recognize that the media is on the 4TB HD.

See Make a split library portable.

If you've manually copied the media from one drive to another there isn't a simple way to tell iTunes to start using the new path. You either wipe out what you've done and consolidate to that new path, so that iTunes is in control of making the new copies and updating its references, or you can make the 2Tb version of the library portable, then copy the library files over to the 4Tb version and make whatever other tweaks are needed to match the original, then alt/option-start iTunes to switch to the new copy.

A locally connected external drive in a portable shape should be reasonably responsive, and a cloned backup of it can be immediately put into service. An iTunes library can also be run from network storage, but then there is likely to be a performance hit. It can however be useful to temporarily manipulate a network library into a portable shape for migration.

tt2

If you've manually copied the media from one drive to another there isn't a simple way to tell iTunes to start using the new path.

This probably also doesn't fall under "simple" but if you have let iTunes organize your media in the past if you find one broken link and then tell iTunes to try to find others it may eventually crawl through your collection and repair the rest. The other way is to use the identical folder structure you used on the original drive and the identical drive name (will get confusing) and iTunes may not think anything has changed.

Incidentally, it is normally better to not add this to a topic that was marked as "solved" several months ago by a different originator, and to start your own topic.