Moving iTunes library to new MacBook

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Hello again,
I just received my new MacBook Pro 15”.

I am trying to figure out how to pull all of my music, currently saved on an external hard drive, into the iTunes library.

The issue here is that I don’t want all of my music (It’s a lot of music) on my computer‘s hard drive.

I know it’s as easy as dragging my music from the external into the library. But that would automatically fill my laptop’s “iTunes music” folder with all 6,000 songs, right?

In short, I want to save space on my laptop. But I want to be able to see all of my songs in the library when I click on iTunes...click on whatever music, and have it play (from external HD).



Thanks
 
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Well, if you are going to use the external drive, which has all your music, with your new MBP, then you will need to copy your iTunes folder (found in your user accounts Music folder), from your old computer to your MBP.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204318
 
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Well, if you are going to use the external drive, which has all your music, with your new MBP, then you will need to copy your iTunes folder (found in your user accounts Music folder), from your old computer to your MBP.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204318

All of my music is on the external. No music on my old computer.

I have a folder with a billion sub-folders of bands, albums, songs, etc. on my external.

I want to put all of THAT into my iTunes library...without the music being put into a folder on my actual lapto (saving space). I don’t want any music files on my laptop.

On my old MacBook Pro, if I clicked on a song in my library it would not play unless I had my external hard drive plugged in...which was how I wanted it. But I forget how I set it up that way. And this is a new machine so I’m essentially starting fresh.
 
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Yup, my link will explain how to do that.
 
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Ok, so when I open iTunes (holding option), choose a library (the folder that has my music), I get a message that says

“An iTunes library file could not be found in the folder “_____”. Please choose a different folder.”

There’s literally no other folder that I can select. This is the only one with my entire collection of music.

Also, now I can’t even open iTunes without it prompting me to choose a library.
 

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If you have follwed the directions in the article you should be OK. Assuming that the iTunes folder has been copied to the right place simply launch iTunes on the new computer without holding down the option key​. If that does not work post back and we will track down the problem.
 
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If you have follwed the directions in the article you should be OK. Assuming that the iTunes folder has been copied to the right place simply launch iTunes on the new computer without holding down the option key​. If that does not work post back and we will track down the problem.

I followed the directions starting with the
-open iTunes while holding the option key

All of my music is in one folder on my hard drive already. The folder that I am unable to choose as my library.

It’s the same music that has been on my external hard drive for years.
 
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It was not copied as an iTunes folder from my previous laptop.
 
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I was unable to open iTunes WITHOUT holding the option key without the message popping up saying “ an iTunes library file cannot be found in the folder ___”

So I clicked “create a new library”...I named it “new iTunes library” and in the “where” box, I selected my external.

So now I can open iTunes but I guess it’s opening from my external HD? No music in there or anything.
 

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OK. Lets go at this from a different angle. If I understand things correctly the actual music / song files are already located on an external hard drive. If that's true, try this:

1. On the old computer go into your user folder and open the Music/iTunes folder.
2. There are several files there that have the name iTunes library with different file extension. Copy those files you're going to move them to the new computer. If you like it's ok to copy them to the external drive.
3. Eject the rxternal drive and cconnect it to the new Mac.
4. Find those iTunes library files that you copied and move them to the Music/iTunes folder on the new Mac. Let them replace the ones you just created.

Lauch iTunes and see if things are working as expected. You may need to go into iTunes Preferenes and advanced tab to set your library locatopn. If things are not back to9 normal you may need to grab the other folders in the old iTunes folder but you should be able to skip the Music folder.
 
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There is no music on my old computer.

There are maybe a dozen albums that I downloaded over the past couple of years. I removed all other music forever ago...again, just so I could keep some space on my hard drive. I only played music from my external in iTunes.
 
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I am able to go into advanced settings, like you said, and select the iTunes media folder location (the folder on my external with all of my music).

But I guess the problem is getting the ACTUAL songs into my library...like where I can see a song and select it.

Maybe I have to just drag the huge music folder into iTunes, go into my user/iTunes (or whatever it’s stored as) on my laptop, remove the actual files, and THEN map the file location to my external music folder?
 

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I wasn't really expecting there to be music in that folder since you have previously told iTunes to store your music on the external drive. Now that I have a little better idea of what I think is happening that helps.

If you open your user folder on the old Mac and go to yout user folder/Music/iTunes are there any library files there. Depending upon your version of iTunes there may be three or four. Those are the files to transfer to the same location on the new computer. Whe you are done make sure you go to iTunes>Preferences>and select the drive/folder that has your music

When you were using the old Mac was iTunes behaving the way that you want it to? If so look at the iTunes Preferences>advanced settings and use the same settings on the new Mac. If it ewas not working the way you want let me know. That will determine what we do next.

Hang in there. We can do what you want. I've done it before but want to go forward carefully so we don't end up with the mess I did.
 

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I re-read your post above (#12) and I think I missed/misread something earlier. Let me try this again. I am assuming that the actual music files are on the external drive in the folder that you want them to be in but you cannot see them in iTunes. If that is not true ignore the remainder of this post
1. In iTunes Prefernces>Advanced click change and select the folder on the external drive with the music and any other media in it.
2. Make sure the first checkbox is checke. Deselect the second box tempoorarilly. If you don't there will likely be duplicate files.How you set the third and fourth boxes are up to you.
3. Now you can close that window and driag the folder with your music into iTunes You can also go to the File menu and choose Add to Library.
4. It may take iTunes a while to import your library depending upon how many files are involved.

Once this process is done you can go back and check box number 2 to make sure new songs/meida are pulled into the correct folder.

If you start iTunes without the external drive attached new files will be added to the iTunes folder on your internal drive.
 
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I re-read your post above (#12) and I think I missed/misread something earlier. Let me try this again. I am assuming that the actual music files are on the external drive in the folder that you want them to be in but you cannot see them in iTunes. If that is not true ignore the remainder of this post
1. In iTunes Prefernces>Advanced click change and select the folder on the external drive with the music and any other media in it.
2. Make sure the first checkbox is checke. Deselect the second box tempoorarilly. If you don't there will likely be duplicate files.How you set the third and fourth boxes are up to you.
3. Now you can close that window and driag the folder with your music into iTunes You can also go to the File menu and choose Add to Library.
4. It may take iTunes a while to import your library depending upon how many files are involved.

Once this process is done you can go back and check box number 2 to make sure new songs/meida are pulled into the correct folder.

If you start iTunes without the external drive attached new files will be added to the iTunes folder on your internal drive.

Hey, thanks for working with me here. Huge help!

So I’ll try to do what you suggested and see if that works.

Now in the last part you said if I start iTunes without the external HD plugged in it will take all that music and stick it into an iTunes folder on my computer.

So if I’m messing around on my laptop without my external attached and (for whatever reason) I click on iTunes, it’s going to stuff thousands of song files and data into my internal drive?
 

Slydude

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Hey, thanks for working with me here. Huge help!

So if I’m messing around on my laptop without my external attached and (for whatever reason) I click on iTunes, it’s going to stuff thousands of song files and data into my internal drive?
The last part of my previous post may have been poorly worded. Assume that your music is on an esternal drive as you want it to be. If you don't have the external drive attached and you launch iTunes three things become true:
1. iTunes starts looking for content in its folder on your internal hard drive.
2. Any new content added to your iTunes library will be put in the iTunes folder on your internal drive. It does not try to add everything that was in the library AFAIK.
3. If you attempt to play something that is not on the internal drive iTunes warns you that the song is unavsilsble and asks whether you want to locate it. I do not remember with 100% certainty whether it attempts to download the file from the cloud.

Hopefully that helps sore things out for you. Trust me when I say I have messed up my library a few times so I feel your pain and understand why you want to avoid that.
 

Slydude

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Give these directions a try. Keep what I said in post #16 above in mind. Once you have moved everything to the external drive if iTunes is launched without the drive new content will be added to the internal drive.
 

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