I am trying to back up my music to my ext hard drive. I do use my hard drive for a windows computer and my mac but when I go to move my iTunes music folder over to the drive it has a gray x and will not let me move it to the drive.
iPhone 6, iOS 9.3.1
If you use iTunes in Mac OSX: format the external drive as OSX Extended (journaled).
Quit the iTunes app.
MOVE the iTunes Library to the external disk, then open iTunes while holding the Alt(option) key, it will ask you to direct it to the iTunes Library, point it to the new location of the external disk. It will remeber that the next time...
Macs can read Windows formatted (NTFS) drive but not write to them (hence your X when you try to copy files to it)
Windows cannot read or write to Mac formatted drives.
You can buy utilities or check if there are free ones which enable read/write for drives with both. Backing up a Mac drive to a Windows formatted drives is not something I would normally entertain.
The "iTunes Library" to which Lexiepex refers is your entire iTunes folder.
In iTunes->Preferences->Advanced : first field is what I am referring to....
Lex
That doesn't put the library on the external drive, it only puts the media there. The library is everything in the iTunes folder working together just like a city library is all the books but also the building, the librarians, other facilities, etc.
Yes, it works perfectly:
everything, even more than iTunes needs/can use is in there.
Lex
As I observed it says "media location", not "library location". What you are instructing is not moving the "library" it is moving only part of it. There is a big difference. If you only copy media to the external drive and then take that drive to another computer iTunes will not display that media unless you add it as brand new files. Things such as artwork may no longer be there, ratings are not part of the media files, nor date added or playcount. You only see those items because as far as iTunes is concerned the library is the iTunes Library.itl file. A split library (which is what you are partly instructing but forget to mention that you then have to consolidate media to the new location) is where media files are in one location and the rest of the library files are in another. This will work but adds complexity to later relocating the files to another drive, using a new computer, or backup.
everything, even more than iTunes needs/can use is in there.
No, it is not. It is critical to make the distinction between a library and media. Think of a city library with a building, books, staff, catalog, etc. Moving only media to the external drive can work but it would be like a brick and mortar library having off-site storage for its books, in which case that storage is not the "library" it is a storage facility that does not have library functionality. If the user's computer crashes the media will still be on the other drive but the rest of the support files will not be on the external drive.
How to copy music to Ext Hard drive
