Moving music to micro SD - trouble with itunes?

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Level 1

8 points

Moving music to micro SD - trouble with itunes?

I am seriously considering using a micro SD card to store music so that I can free up space on my mac. I've researched into this quite a bit so pretty sure I'm going to go ahead with it.

The only problem I have at present, is that much of my music is stored in the 'downloads' folder on my mac. I realise that if I move these files to the SD, when I open itunes, the programme won't be able to find the location of these tracks. This means I will have to manually go through each track to match the correct location. This would be a very effortful task as I have quite a lot of music.

I was wondering if there is a quick fix for this? I don't want to spend money on an SD card only to realise it isn't really worth the effort.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Gabby

MacBook Air

Posted on Oct 28, 2015 4:15 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

richard grant

Level 4

2,923 points

Oct 28, 2015 7:40 AM in response to gabbbush

Hi Gabbbush,

Are you sure your iTunes music is stored in the downloads folder? Unless you've changed the default settings in Preferences > Advanced, iTunes will have copied those tracks into the Music/iTunes/iTunes Media folder, leaving the originals in place. If that's the case, you can free up a lot of space by deleting the originals.

You can test this by selecting any track, opening the Get Info window, and looking at the File tab to see where the music file is stored.

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Answer 2

gabbbush Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 28, 2015 7:41 AM in response to richard grant

Hi Richard,

Turns out they were copied! Thank you that is so helpful will save me a lot of space!

I am still looking to get a micro SD to save my itunes on, what does this mean for moving my files/itunes folder onto the SD? Will i still have the same problem?

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Answer 3

Limnos

Level 10

411,193 points

Oct 28, 2015 8:41 AM in response to gabbbush

Moving a library: Quick answer if you use iTunes' default preferences settings: Copy the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its sub-folders and files) intact to the other drive. Hold down the option (alt) key (shift on Windows) and open iTunes. At the select prompt choose the iTunes Library.itl file in the copied iTunes folder.

You are finding things in your downloads folder presumably because you are downloading them using a web browser or other non-iTunes tool. You will have to stay on top of that. If you relocate your library to a SD card future files will be copied there when you add them to iTunes.

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Answer 4

gabbbush Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 28, 2015 8:42 AM in response to Limnos

You are amazing!!!!!! Thank you so much, this has been very helpful!

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