10-16-2011, 08:17 AM

I'm about to upgrade my Macbook Pro's hard drive and I'm going to reinstall Lion and I have several questions. I have a specific folder for music that I purchase outside iTunes. Whenever I imported that folder, iTunes made a new copy of each song. When I reinstall lion again, is there a way to prevent iTunes from doing this ?


Also, I've made a ton of playlist and I want to keep them, is there a way to save playlist data or will I have to build them over again ?

10-16-2011, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by redchannel

I'm about to upgrade my Macbook Pro's hard drive and I'm going to reinstall Lion and I have several questions. I have a specific folder for music that I purchase outside iTunes. Whenever I imported that folder, iTunes made a new copy of each song. When I reinstall lion again, is there a way to prevent iTunes from doing this ?

You have iTunes set to "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library". This is set in iTunes preferences under "Advanced".

This is actually a VERY good thing, because it keeps all of your music managed and in one place. So, if you ever need to port between machines or operating systems, there's only one place you need to be concerned about. But to each their own....

Also, I've made a ton of playlist and I want to keep them, is there a way to save playlist data or will I have to build them over again ?

Assuming you port your iTunes library over to the new install (which can be easily done using the Migration Assistant that runs directly after OS X is installed), yes it will all port over.