Transfer Library to new MBP from old MBP with music on an external HD

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Transfer Library to new MBP from old MBP with music on an external HD

I purchased a new MBP a few months ago and haven't got around to setting it up properly just yet. I'm finally getting to it and have come across some issues with transferring my iTunes library and reusing my music files on an existing external drive. I always kept my music files on a separate drive in order to keep the laptop drive as empty as possible for other tasks.

Old MBP info:

OSX 10.6.8

iTunes 11.4

Library was on the MBP hard drive

Music files were on an external drive called "LACIE_MINI"

New MBP info:

OSX 10.10.5

iTunes 12.3.2.35

I copied the old iTunes library to the same location on the new MBP, and have pointed iTunes to it. Library loads fine however, even though the LACIE_MINI drive is connected to the laptop, the files cannot be located in iTunes. When looking under 'Get Info' for the file location, it is pointing to the correct spot (file://localhost/Volumes/LACIE MINI/Music/<folder name>/<track name>) but it will not 'locate' and play the audio file.

To make things a touch more confusing for myself, I purchased a WD MyCloud NAS with the intent to have it store/host all of my music and video files. My goal was to eliminate the need to always have my external plugged-in when working with iTunes. I'm not sure how reliable this setup would be.

From this I have a few questions:

1. When staying with my files on my external and not using the NAS, how do I have it correctly locate all of the music files?

2. Which is the more reliable way to access my music? Through the plugged-in external, or NAS?

3. Should I proceed with keeping my music on my external and load from there or make use of the NAS?

Thank you,

K

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Feb 11, 2016 6:19 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 11, 2016 6:51 PM in response to kierownik

I copied the old iTunes library to the same location on the new MBP

You copied over the complete iTunes folder from the user account Music folder of the old Mac to the same location on the new Mac?

I noticed that the external drive is named LACIE_MINI on the old Mac. On the new Mac, in the song file path, it says LACIE MINI with no underscore between the words. Is that a typo in your post or actual difference?

For your other questions, a directly-connected external drive is more reliable, and faster, as the location of your iTunes media files.

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Answer 2

Limnos

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Feb 11, 2016 6:52 PM in response to kierownik

I hate it when people say "point". How did you "point"? When you say library do you mean the iTunes Library.itl file (for iTunes that is the library)?

If you had the entire iTunes library on the external drive, not just media, you point by starting iTunes while holding down the option/alt key and guide it to the library file.

If you only had media on the external drive you copy the entire iTunes folder to the same location on the new computer and start iTunes after starting up the external drive.

If neither of the above work there is something non-standard about your setup but you will have to tell us what that is. I am presuming this is not on the NAS yet (otherwise that could easily explain any kind of trouble you see with iTunes).

One thing you can try. Play a track. When iTunes asks you to find hte file, do so, then when iTunes asks you if you want it to find others let it try (be patient).

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Answer 3

kierownik Author

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Feb 11, 2016 8:04 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Kenichi Watanabe wrote:

You copied over the completeiTunes folder from the user account Music folder of the old Mac to the same location on the new Mac?

I noticed that the external drive is named LACIE_MINI on the old Mac. On the new Mac, in the song file path, it says LACIE MINI with no underscore between the words. Is that a typo in your post or actual difference?

You are correct about the underscore. It seems that iTunes removed it in the library file. The drive has always been named LACIE_MINI with the underscore.

Kenichi Watanabe wrote:

For your other questions, a directly-connected external drive is more reliable, and faster, as the location of your iTunes media files.

I've played around with this some more. I found that it works well for me to use the NAS as my media folder while keeping a new library file on my MBP. I can copy everything from my external through iTunes and it's been copying the files on to the NAS. This way I can still download to my MBP, add to my NAS through the iTunes library and then create a backup copy on the external LACIE drive.

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Answer 4

Feb 11, 2016 8:16 PM in response to kierownik

With iTunes not running, you can try changing the external drive name to remove the underscore, so the it matches what iTunes expects to find. Then run iTunes. Does iTunes find those "missing" song filers?

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Answer 5

kierownik Author

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Feb 11, 2016 8:16 PM in response to Limnos

Limnos wrote:

I hate it when people say "point". How did you "point"? When you say library do you mean the iTunes Library.itl file (for iTunes that is the library)?

If you had the entire iTunes library on the external drive, not just media, you point by starting iTunes while holding down the option/alt key and guide it to the library file.

If you only had media on the external drive you copy the entire iTunes folder to the same location on the new computer and start iTunes after starting up the external drive.

If neither of the above work there is something non-standard about your setup but you will have to tell us what that is. I am presuming this is not on the NAS yet (otherwise that could easily explain any kind of trouble you see with iTunes).

One thing you can try. Play a track. When iTunes asks you to find hte file, do so, then when iTunes asks you if you want it to find others let it try (be patient).

It's a big of a pain to always have my external drive it plugged in when at home so ultimately I want to have the files on the NAS. I've been having trouble being able to use the NAS correctly. It wasn't working well for me the last few days when trying to transfer large amounts of data over to it so I thought I'd go back to my old ways of having the external drive plugged in.

From that point, I had copied the entire iTunes folder to the new MBP and loaded iTunes (opening with option/alt) with the old .itl file in the same default location in the user folder. When I loaded iTunes like this, and had my external drive plugged in, iTunes loaded the library perfectly fine but couldn't 'locate' the files.

See my post above for what I'm trying now. I'll see how this works and update on here.

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Answer 6

kierownik Author

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Feb 11, 2016 8:18 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Kenichi Watanabe wrote:

With iTunes not running, you can try changing the external drive name to remove the underscore, so the it matches what iTunes expects to find. Then run iTunes. Does iTunes find those "missing" song filers?

I'll try that out shortly. I created a new library and am currently trying to transfer a bunch of files to the iTunes media folder that I created on the NAS.

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Answer 7

Feb 12, 2016 6:34 AM in response to kierownik

Since you are keeping the iTunes folder (with iTunes library file) on the Mac's internal drive, make sure you are using the Consolidate command in iTunes to have iTunes copy your media files from the external drive to the NAS. That way, iTunes keeps track of location for its media files. That command is at

iTunes menu bar -> File -> Library -> Organize Library -> Consolidate files (checkbox)

But first, you need to get iTunes to find all of its existing media files currently on the external drive. Then, put an empty folder called iTunes Media on the NAS, at the desired location. In iTunes preferences Advanced pane, point the iTunes Media folder location to that iTunes Media folder on NAS. The TWO checkboxes for Keep iTunes Media folder organized AND Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library should BOTH be checked, if they are not already. Finally, use the Consolidate command to have iTunes copy ("consolidate") all of its media files to the designated iTunes Media folder (on the NAS).

Since this is over a network connection, it may take a long time (depending on your iTunes library size).

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Answer 8

kierownik Author

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Feb 12, 2016 6:39 AM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Thanks Kenichi. I'm currently copying the files to iTunes which is transferring everything to my NAS. It is taking quite a while because I have roughly 420GB of music.

I'll be sure to consolidate the files once the transfer is complete. I'll let you know how it goes.

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Answer 9

Feb 12, 2016 2:21 PM in response to kierownik

If you are adding your song files to a new iTunes library, you don't need to use the Consolidate command. My advice to use the Consolidate command was only if you wanted to keep using your existing iTunes library, after you got your existing iTunes library to find all of its media files on the external drive. The Consolidate command would then copy all of your media files from the external drive to the NAS. But you are doing that already by adding your song files to your new iTunes library. The difference is that, if you start using a new iTunes library, you'll be starting "fresh" without your supporting data, such as playlists, play count, ratings, date added, etc.

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Answer 10

kierownik Author

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Feb 15, 2016 6:45 PM in response to Kenichi Watanabe

Kenichi, thank you! I think what you explained above works properly. I removed the underscore from the external drive name and the files were found with my old iTunes library. I'm now consolidating all the files to my NAS.

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