iTunes Library (technical question)

I am having a question, which I could not solve by just searching for it on Google.

At the moment I have an almost empty iTunes library (just a few movies and 2-3 CD's). As I recently got a 1TB external drive, all my movies,music and ebooks (that I hadn't placed in iTunes in the first place) are on that drive.

The 1TB external drive now has 4 folders:

- Backups.backupdb (Time Machine Backups)
- Ebooks (with subfolders)
- Movies (with subfolders)
- Music (with subfolders)

Now my question is, when I use the option ”add to library” in iTunes and select for instance the ”Music” folder on my external hard disk, does it merely import the metadata or does iTunes copy all the actual files into its library (as in moving a copy from the external hard disk to my Macbook Pro's hard disk).

For instance with iPhoto I noticed that I have duplicate picture files (one set is imported in iPhoto, while I also have them saved in individual folders on my Macbook Pro hard disk).

Does iTunes work the same? Does it import the actual files into its library, or simply ”linking” to the original location (e.g. external harddrive).

It can be either way depending upon how you have the preferences set. If they are set to copy files to the iTunes folder they are copied there. If not the original files are left where they are. This is a look at the dialog. The photo is for the Windows version of iTunes but the Mac version has the same dialog in the same location. How to Add Music File to iTunes 11 - Import Music to iTunes

Thank you for the answer. The ”copy files to iTunes” is unticked and as far as I can see it simply adds the video to iTunes without copying it (merely linking to the original location on the external drive). Problem solved

That's exactly what happens. Glad to help.