iTunes on external drive

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Hi i've done this before and it all worked well but i've just been doing some 'housekeeping' and now i've got little footprints next to my songs and i have to locate it on the external drive then it imports it.

Surley there is a way to do it all at once as i've loads of songs.

Any ideas?
 

Slydude

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There are a couple of reasons you might have this problem all boiling down to iTunes being confused about where the music files are. Here are the two fixes I end up using most often though someone may have a better idea.

The easiest solution is to make sure iTunes knows where the music has been moved to. Make sure your external drive with the music is mounted (on the desktop). Launch iTunes and see if you are still having issues. If so go to Preferences>Advanced and point iTunes to your music. Now quit iTunes and relaunch. Hopefully the problem will go away now.

If the problem persists you can try something that is a bit more time consuming but less hassle than locating each song. This assumes you have tried the first suggestion and it has failed.

Select music in the left side of iTunes. Now click in the main window where all the track names are usually listed. Now choose Select All from the Edit menu and hit Delete. You will be warned about removing the songs. This is OK what you are actually removing is the pointers used to organize the library

Next you will be asked whether to delete the files. DO NOT delete the files. When all the "pointers" have been removed go to the File Menu and choose Add To Library. Navigate your music library and re-dd the tracks.

I don't have this problem often anymore. I have my music on a Time Capsule and often use Automator to make sure that drive is mounted before iTunes launches.
 

Slydude

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Glad to know that worked. Which method did you end up using?
 

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