Red Pod

Q: Hi.  I need very simple directions on how to remove iTunes completely off my iMac hard drive and have it moved to my Seagate 3 Terrabyte hard drive.  I have a huge music selection and I want to digitize as much of it as I can.

I want to move the entirety of my iTunes to my Seagate hard drive.  I also have another hard drive I can use for back-up, but I want to completely remove iTunes from my iMac hard drive.  I need in very simple terms, instructions on how to do it.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Jul 8, 2015 10:23 PM

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Q: Hi.  I need very simple directions on how to remove iTunes completely off my iMac hard drive and have it moved to my Seagate ... more

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  • by kostby,Solvedanswer

    kostby kostby Jul 8, 2015 11:55 PM in response to Red Pod
    Level 4 (2,799 points)
    Jul 8, 2015 11:55 PM in response to Red Pod

    I'm under the impression that the iTunes program must remain on the OS X boot drive and cannot be moved.

     

    The iTunes Music Library with the music files CAN be consolidated and moved to an external drive.

     

    First you need to consolidate your iTunes library and back it up.

    Back up your iTunes library by copying it to an external drive - Apple Support

     

    Then you relocate the iTunes Music Library to a different external drive.

     

    The above article used to contain a useful link to the exact process, but now the link self-references back to the article above, and is useless.


    This non-Apple site gives instructions, but has not been updated for the latest release of iTunes, 12.2, and may contain some inaccuracies. Shouldn't be a problem if you're still on OS X 10.7.5, but one of the first instructions is to always update to the most recent release of iTunes.


    http://macs.about.com/od/appleconsumersoftware/ss/Move-Your-Itunes-Library-To-A- New-Location.htm#showall

     

    I've not tried following these instructions myself. I'm awaiting new disk drives for my Network Attached Storage before migrating my own iTunes music library off my iMac in a week or so.

  • by Red Pod,

    Red Pod Red Pod Jul 9, 2015 6:41 AM in response to kostby
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 9, 2015 6:41 AM in response to kostby

    I asked the same question a year ago, from and employee at an Apple store, seemed simple enough, yet when I tried it, it didn't work.  I will try this, and if anyone else has a different solution, I'm all ears.