Moving ALL music files to external hard drive (NOT just iTunes folder)

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Moving ALL music files to external hard drive (NOT just iTunes folder)

Hey guys! The age-old question here. I've searched previous posts but haven't found anything that's as specific as my question, though. I have run out of room on my computer, and wish to transfer all my music to an external hard drive to save space. However, here's the details:

I have ALL my music in my "My Music" folder. Within that, there's my iTunes folders, and a folder called "mp3s". ALL my mp3's are in that folder. So when I use iTunes, it finds all my songs in THAT folder and shows all the ratings and "last played" info that's associated with each song.

I want to move ALL these songs onto the external hard drive WITHOUT losing this info. The only way I've figured out for SURE how to do this is to individually cut/paste each song from my "mp3s" folder onto the hard drive, and then try to play the song in iTunes. Then when it asks "do you wish to locate this file" I go and find it on the hard drive, and that seems to work.

This could take a while with thousands of songs to move.

Does anyone know a way to move all my mp3s (my whole "mp3s" folder, not just my iTunes folder) to the hard drive, and NOT lose any info/play info/ratings from iTunes?

Please help if you can! Thanks in advance!

HP, Windows XP Pro

Posted on Feb 11, 2007 12:45 PM

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Answer 1

WARlrus

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Feb 11, 2007 1:18 PM in response to undies78

Set the iTunes Music Folder to the external HDD (Edit-Preferences-Advanced-General) and then Advanced-Consolidate Libraray

I did exactly the same thing with my Library 🙂

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Answer 2

WARlrus

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Feb 11, 2007 1:41 PM in response to undies78

No, that's what the "Consolidate Library" does, it moves every single file across to the location of the iTunes folder (which you change to the new drive), organising the files into the correct folders as it goes 🙂

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Answer 3

undies78 Author

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9 points

Feb 11, 2007 1:43 PM in response to WARlrus

Wouldn't that just move my iTunes folder over to the hard drive though? I need to move my "mp3's" folder over, not my iTunes folder over..

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Answer 4

undies78 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 9, 2007 8:36 PM in response to WARlrus

This didn't work. Not only did it copy everything into individual folders by artist, it lost half of the mp3s. I managed to find them all, however. THIS is why I asked this question like 10 times...now I have ALL my mp3s, but they ALL have exclamation points next to them, and I'm having to go through 4000-some mp3s and individually relocate them to the hard drive.

More to come on that later.

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Answer 5

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Mar 9, 2007 8:40 PM in response to undies78

To move your iTunes music...

1 Quit iTunes.
2 Move the entire iTunes folder including music to the external drive.
3 Restart iTunes holding the Shift key in Windows, Option key in Mac.
4 iTunes will ask to Create new library or Choose existing library. Select the library in the folder you just moved.
5 Move the old iTunes folder to the trash but do not empty it.
6 Restart iTunes normally and verify the songs work. If they do, empty the trash.

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Answer 6

undies78 Author

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9 points

Mar 9, 2007 8:45 PM in response to Chris CA

My mp3s are NOT in the itunes folder. They are in a folder called MP3s in my "My Music" folder in Windows. I simply want to move them all onto a hard drive without losing the play info. I have NO music files in my itunes folder.

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Answer 7

undies78 Author

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9 points

Mar 9, 2007 8:46 PM in response to undies78

Imagine having 4000 miscellaneous mp3s, not associated with itunes at all other than I use iTunes to PLAY them. I want to move them all to an external hard drive, so that I don't lose play info, ratings, etc.

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Answer 8

Chris CA

Level 10

82,434 points

Mar 9, 2007 9:12 PM in response to undies78

Any reason you don't want them in the iTunes folder?

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Answer 9

undies78 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 28, 2007 7:03 PM in response to Chris CA

Just because I already have 4000+ songs in another folder, and it would be a pain in the butt to move them all.

When I download a song, either in iTunes or from a friend, etc...I change the filename in Windows to Artist - Song Title. I have all of these files now on an external hard drive, and I'm having to go through them one by one and manually relocate them into iTunes.

Yet once I've located them, I'll get through a few hundred and then notice that iTunes loses the location for some of the ones I've already relocated, and I'll have to do it all over again!

I'm not changing filenames or locations or anything else- iTunes just seems to be "losing" these files somehow.

Any ideas on why this is happening? Help please! I don't want to relocate 4000 mp3s and then have iTunes lose them all over again...

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Answer 10

TATTAES

Level 1

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Aug 5, 2007 7:53 AM in response to undies78

Simply move them as you would like.

Then, Under 'file' go to 'add folder to library'

Just be prepared to delete all the duplicates. It does work though!

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