Transferring 50GB of music from Macbook to iMac

I have just bought a brand new iMac and was told in the Macshop that the best way to transfer my iTunes library (and keep playlists, dateadded, ratings intact) is to use the Migration Assistant software utility.

So I purchased the recommended Firewire 400/800 lead and connected my macbook to my gleaming new iMac. I then employed 'migration assistant' to transfer info from my macbook to my new iMac. It took 4 hours to do this.
THE ONLY THING I Wanted to do was transfer my 50GB iTUNES library to my new computer, however it did not indicate what exactly it was transferring.

I then realised that the files from my old computer were only available on my new iMac if my old macbook was connected to the iMac with the firewire cable.

I have 2 problems:

1) Even when my old macbook is NOT connected to my new iMac, the iMAC still states that 400GB is used of its 1TB hard drive - how do I delete this crap?!!! It's doing my head in! I don't even care about transferring the music any more - I can easily do it in bits and bobs, but I do not want my new iMac to say it has used 400GB - that is the main problem.

2) If easy, how do I start again and actually TRANSFER my iTUNES library keeping playlists intact and "date added" intact too (is this possible? - Apple website is poor! - does not really answer my question as I need to transfer 50GB and that is too much to transfer using my iPhone as they suggest).

Thanks for your help
JezJ

i have eventually worked out the comprehensive answer to this question, so if anyone else has a similar problem I can help for sure - ta

Transferring music library from MacBook to iMac

Hi Jezj. I'd like to know your solution - I, too, want to transfer my music library from my MacBook to my iMac. I have OSX Lion on both. Only the music that I've bought on iTunes has transferred via iCloud but I have much more that I'd like to transfer. Any help would be much appreciated. Malpate

Hi and welcome to the forums malpate.

The easiest way to move just your music is to navigate to ~/music/iTunes/iTunes media/music and drag the whole music Folder to the exact same location on your iMac. It might take a while depending on the size of the music folder but will work.

HTH

Cheers

It seems to be working

I checked a couple of sites to copy my iTunes music library from my iMac to my MacBook. What was posted here and in other threads seems to be working. I’m relatively new to this, messing with computers this way in general and Macs in particular, so I needed very clear instructions.

I’m copying about 50GB of music. It said it’ll take ~6hrs. It looks like it’ll take less, unless there’s a second step after the actual copying. Sad for me, while both computers have USB and FireWire, only the MacBook has Thunderbolt.


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Set both computers for file sharing to the other. This is in System Preferences > Sharing.

Connect using FireWire (I had to disconnect the FireWire from my backup for this as the iMac has only the one FireWire port).

Open two Finder Windows on either computer (Finder > File > New Finder Window).

In each Finder Window, go to the applicable folder: In one, the source folder; in the other the receiving folder. For music, as noted in the above posts, Music > iTunes > iTunes Media > Music.

Highlight the files and drag and drop.

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