Shifting my Music

[rohan]

hi....i just got a new hard drive which i plan to transfer all my music to...is there any way to preserve the connections with the itunes library? or will i have to remove the old stuff from itunes & start over?

incase it can be done please let me know how it has to be done...

thanks

 

[getuptogetdown]

I'm pretty sure what you want to do is just drag all your files to your new hard drive then open up itunes and go into Prefrences>advanced and then change the "itunes music folder location" to the new location on your HD and you should be good to go.

You might also want to go to file>export library and drag that folder along with everything so it keeps everything organized.

 

[mrplow]

As far as I know the easiest way to move your library, keeping all links, ratings, playlists etc intect is this:
1. Go into itunes - preferences - advanced - tick - Keep itunes Music Folder Organised
2. Change itunes folder location to point to your new folder on your external
3. Click OK, go to the Advanced menu and Consolidate library
4. Once done, Drag your old library to the trash and empty it.

Apples 'official' way is here

 

[rohan]

the problem is that the stuff in my library was spanned over multiple hard drives....my collection was too large to put in one location till now...so im not sure how i can do this...any more idea now that you'll know that the stuff is in different locatons...my itunes library only links to files on my external hard drives...i have almost no music on my internal drive...

 

[mrplow]

So itunes is currently 'happy' keeping track of your music over multiple disks? (internal/external doesn't matter)

 

[louishen]

Keeping your iTunes collection on an external

The following assumes you want to keep all your iTunes music and movies on an external disk and ensure new music is always stored on the external drive.

First, you need to consolidate your iTunes Library to a folder you have chosen of the external drive.

Select the command consolidate library from the Advanced Menu. This will copy all your itunes media to the external folder and link the itunes library file to it

The files will now be on the external while the library.xml file (the index as it were) will still be in the Users > Me > Music folder of your mac.

If you want this file on the external as well as well, copy it to external iTunes folder, start itunes with the alt key pressed and you will have the option to select the library file now on the external



Select the library file you just copied and now both your music and the library are on the external

You can now delete the old Itunes folder off your mac

You can also use the choose library dialogue to switch between a large music collection on the external and a smaller music folder on the mac if you wish