Q: Why can't I drag and drop large quantities of music files into my external hard drive?
I simply wish to backup my very large iTunes library onto my external hard drive. I cannot consolidate my library into one folder for I have not enough room on my hard drive to do so. My music is located in 3 or 4 different folders which all contain large amounts of duplicates that I would like to avoid copying to my hard drive. Is there a way to drag and drop large quantities of files into my external hard drive? It will only allow me to move a small number of files at once and would be incredibly time consuming to continue doing it this way. Or is there a way I can consolidate my iTunes library to a folder that's on my external hard drive? Why when consolidating my library is the iTunes media library on my computer the only option?
Windows 8
Posted on May 11, 2015 11:54 AM
What kind of error are you seeing when you try to backup the music. This should not be an iTunes error, but a Windows error in file management. You shouldn't even need to be using iTunes to do this, since all you are doing is copying music from one drive to another.
As far as the consolidation, you can point the folder to consolidate music in with iTunes Preferences in the Menu. Go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced and select a location. See if this support document helps. Back up your iTunes library by copying it to an external drive - Apple Support
Posted on May 11, 2015 12:00 PM