Applications :: Consolidate ITunes Library (Move Files To One Folder)
Dec 29, 2010
When you consolidate your itunes library does it actually move all your files to one folder or does it just make a copy or reference them? Because my itunes media is scattered throughout my computer and an external hard drive and I'd like to move it all to one spot.
I have a large iTunes library which I manually moved to an external HD about 2 years ago. Back then I did this by literally moving the contents of my "Music" folder to the HD, then launching iTunes while holding the alt/option key and pointing iTunes at the library on the HD. Since then I have learned about the feature of iTunes to change the location where music is stored, then consolidate your library so that the library files are stored locally and only the music resides on the external HD.
Are there advantages to this setup? I am thinking in terms of speed and what happens if you launch iTunes without the external HD attached. I ask now as I have just bought a new MBP with ~250GB free which would allow me to copy my music back to the internal HD then move it back the "proper way".
I have a WD external hard drive that I got for the holiday's last year.Here lately I've been using it as my iTunes library. A great way to free up some space on my Powerbook g4. Question is, why does iTunes keep changing my library folder after I'd already changed it when I initially set up the hard drive as my iTunes library destination?
Another question is how do I make sure that all my music files automatically go to the folder on the external hard drive when I download music. For example I may snag a free song from a website and will double click it after downloading and it plays in itunes. I want that file to be saved on my external hard drive as well (yes it's plugged up and plugged in).
I only have an 8g ipod so I have to constantly check and uncheck songs that I want to hear, so I want to be sure they are all in the same locale. And one way I know that certain files are on my internal and not external is when i unplug my external those files still play when they shouldn't unless it's plugged up.
I tried to consolidate iTunes to the default media folder but when I click ok nothing happens. It worked once before but doesn't now. I have the latest iTunes...
I've downloaded mp3 files from various websites that give away free music. They download as zip files and once I unzip them, I move the folder to the "Music" folder. Then I import them into iTunes (File ---> Add to Library). I'd like to make the "Music" folder more organized. Right now I have the "iTunes" folder within the "Music" folder, in addition to SEVERAL folders I've added from the free music I've downloaded. Even though I've already added this music to iTunes, if I delete the folders within the "Music" folder, iTunes will no longer be able to play it because it will say it cannot find the source. I get this, but was hoping there was a way to get it into the iTunes folder (the way it gets loaded when you import a CD or buy a song online- it automatically goes there).
I want to move the location of my iTunes library music files. At present they are all on my time machine . I want to move them all to my imac. Can I do that and keep all my playlists and play counts?
its 1000s of songs . Originally I used the time machine as a networked drive but it can cause the songs to pause so I'm thinking it would be better to have the songs on the internal imac drive
how can I move the songs so I can re-open iTunes and the playlists (with plays in the 100s) find the song in the new place?
I'm just got my new iMac and started moving my iTunes library from my PC to Mac.
This is how I did it.
My iTunes library is already organised in my PC, i.e. all music in the iTunes folder.
So I just copied the my entire iTunes folder onto an external hard drive and then to my mac.
Then I use the "add to library" function on itunes so my mac can organise all my music.
The "keep itunes music folder organised" and "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library" check boxes are ticked on both my PC and Mac.
I look at my itunes library on my mac. Everything is good with artists and albums and song names looking good and organised. My playlists and other data is missing - no big deal, since I can make new playlists (BUT if anyone can tell me how I can get my old playlists and data on to Mac iTunes that would be great). However, the biggest problem is that all the .wav files have lost their artist and album names! How can I get these back?
My problem- I've Mroogled, googled, and searched high and low for an answer- and i could only find old info (itunes 7!). Is there a way to move my library (itunes 9.0.3) over to PC (Win 7) without losing anything? I have lots of playlists I would love to keep as well as play counts.
*itunes manages and adds songs to my library when i add a song~*
my roommate got a new PC and she would like to know what is the best way to move the iTunes library to the new PC. She was on XP and now is on Vista. (didn't listen to me when I said mac) She ripped some of her cd's but mainly bought stuff from the store itself. There are few she got in mp3 form already but not much. So, anyone knows how to transfer this to the new computer and have the library, playlists etc the same?
I recently moved my music library to an external library by changing the pathway in Edit/Preferences/Advanced and then consolidating the library. Everything worked for a while but now when I open itunes it is not able to find all the files. Bizarrely for a lot of albums it can find one or two of the songs but the rest all get the "Unable to locate original music file" error message. The music is all there on the hard drive but I don't want to have to manually locate each one. Does anyone know what is causing this or have a script to locate the rest of the music automatically?
How can I Move some tracks/artists to another Folder using Itunes? I have read all about moving my entire itunes library to an external HD using the "consolidate library" function and I have read all about importing NEW tracks into a new folder by unchecking the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" box BUT I have not yet heard of a way to split an itunes library between an internal and external HD by moving certain artists/tracks from the default Itunes library folder to a new folder on my HD. If possible I would like to do this without losing my playlists/playcount/etc for the tracks that I would be moving. Does anyone have any suggestions? * The reason why I would like to do this is that my laptop's C drive is almost full. Therefore I need to free up some space by removing some music from it. BUT I would like to still have access to SOME of my music library when I am using the laptop away from the external HD (not connected to an external HD)
I want to Move the iTunes library database files to another location other then the default /User/Username/Music/iTunes.
I want it on my secondary drive. I have found countless link to moving the media files, that is not what I want. I already have them exactly where I want those.
I do not what the Library files on my Boot drive under my username. I want to place it on my secondary drive under a folder called iTunes.
i have a Western Digital MyBook Studio external hard drive on which i keep my music and media in general. My music alone takes up around 160gb so i needed an external drive.
I've changed the default iTunes Library folder to one in my external drive and have let iTunes organize everything inside it and it all works well... the thing is though that when i launch iTunes and the external HD is not detected (power failure for example, no power for the HD but my macbook pro works fine) it defaults to the folder it had set at first, the Music folder in my Home folder.
I know the prevailing opinion is to move the Users folder (i.e. all home folders) off an SSD boot drive and onto an HDD in order to increase available space and avoid thrashing the SSD. However, it occurs to me that by moving the users folder the Library folder is also moved (~/Library/). Doesn't this compromise the speed increase gained from having an SSD? The application will start quickly but then have to wait for the HDD in order to load preferences.
I have manually backed up all my files under User folder without using any of system backup tool(due to technical issue, i have no other option rather than copying manually). I have erased all hard disk and would like to copy everything back to Macintosh. Then the problem is when I tried to copy old Library folder to Macintosh HD user folder, it is saying I need to input password to continue, then I entered password and it still says i don't have permission.
I have the vast majority of my iTunes library on a NAS device. When I first got my MBP I set the library's location to the folder that I had moved off one of the desktops to the NAS. Everything works fine.
However, it seems that the library location will reset itself to the local location on the MBP (possibly whenever I run iTunes when I'm not on this network). So, if I add files to the iTunes when I'm not on this network, they get placed into the local library.
I have my iTunes library set to an external drive. The boxes in Pref/advanced are check. I have checked my internal drive in the old iTunes location and see new podcasts and music living there. I need to perform a organize library to move the files.
This seems to have happened in iTunes 9 and 10.
The iTunes Music library does point to an external.
I'm using OS X 10.4.11 and iTunes 8.1.1. I'm not very computer literate. When I started iTunes today, I went straight to copy some files into it from another folder. I got an error message about the .xml file and then told files were damaged (I think). I think iTunes started rebuilding the folders but I stopped it and ended up with only 30-something gb of tunes instead of almost 100 gb. All my music is still there in the iTunes/Music folder (I also have 30 back-up DVDs of the library), but I really, really want to be able to keep the Date Added information as this is how I view the music, as well as all the artwork I've manually added. The iTunes Library (Damaged) file is there, as are several Previous iTunes Libraries file.
After a web search, I did the following: i. Quit iTunes and copied the most recent "Previous iTunes Library" file to the desktop. ii. I trashed the iTunes Library.xml and iTunes Library (with the logo) files at the top of the folder structure. iii. I then dragged the copied Previous iTunes Library file into the iTunes/iTunes Music folder and launched iTunes. Should it be dragged into the top-level iTunes folder or where?
It opens, but with absolutely nothing in it. I've tried dragging the Previous iTunes Library file everywhere I can think of (trashing the existing .xml and Library file each time), but still no joy. This latest Previous iTunes Library file is only a couple of months old and I'd much, much rather re-do the last two months music than lose the Date Added and all Playlists etc.
Over the years, I have amassed GBs worth of music, spread over many different iTunes libraries, as a result of having desktops, laptops, replacement machines etc. When I first started my collection, I stupidly "let iTunes manage my library" which has resulted in all my tracks being put into thousands of different folders because iTunes likes to create a separate folder for each artist. I was wondering if there was any way of exporting all my music in the iTunes database to a new location, organized by album. eg. A State of Trance 2010 Yearmix being exported to a folder called that, not each of the 80 tracks going into a separate artist folder.
If this can be done, I'm hoping to consolidate my music collection into one library, once and for all! It's probably worth noting that I'm now on Windows, but I thought I would ask here as iTunes is an Apple product. I have access to a Mac should I need to do anything "Mac-specific" to make this happen. Tune up looks like a promising piece of software. However, it only seems to clean up the music files themselves, not their organization within my music folder. Does anyone have any experience with it? Sorted! I'm sure there are loads of people out there that would like me reorganize the file structure of their music after iTunes obliterates it...so here's what I did.
1) Downloaded Songbird. What a great application! It has addons! 2) Went into the applications options. (Tools >> Options) 3) Selected the 'Manage Files' tab. 4) Ticked the box to 'Allow Songbird to manage files'. In the 'Structure Folders' section underneath I changed it to 'Album/Song Files'. 5) Clicked OK at the bottom to save changes and Songbird then wizzed through my collection and put all my music into Album folders! 6) Uninstall iTunes.
I had to move around my files recently so needed to change the location iTunes looked for them. I ran across a hack whereby you edit the iTunes Music Library.xml file and then intentionally corrupt the iTunes Library.itl file so that it reimports the next time you restart iTunes (I'm sure many of you may already be familiar with this hack).
It almost works. Problem is that it doesn't import all my files. I have over 10000 files but it only imports 6445 of them. I noticed that the original xml filesize is 16MB. After importing, it gets chopped down to 10MB. What the heck is happening here?
in my itunes file in Windows directory, there is a compilations file. this file has albums in it that should not be there, but with other albums by the same bands. i have tried relocating the albums, but then itunes cannot play them, and when i locate the file it is automatically placed in a new compilations folder.
in short i am asking how i can change the location of a file in the itunes library. Any ideas?
After installing Lion, I can no longer move program icons from my applications folder to a sub folder. When I do, it makes a copy and leave the original in the applications folder. When I then try to delete the icon in the applications folder it tells me it's required by the OS and won't let me delete. I'm forced to keep certan applications such as Time Machine and Stickies in the application folder.
However, I am apparently too dumb to figure out how I can move (cut and paste at the same time) a folder from on location on my hard drive to another without going back to the original area and delete the folder after the "fake" moving process. It seems that MAC does not support the physical movement of a folderfrom location A to B.
Scenario: I have a folder called A I select the folder (click with mouse) I drag the folder to the desired destination B I release the mouse and what happens: MAC starts to copy the folder and its files.
I read on several forums and pages that it is possible if you hold down the command key (after you click the folder you want to move) but it does not work for me. Does anyone has a simple, short answer whether it is possible to move a folder which contains files from location A to B on my mac (same hard drive)? This cannot be true that this does not work in the FINDER. Even if I select the folder go in the Finder menu to "Edit" (cut is grayed out and not clickable) it does not give me the option to perform a cut and paste. So, does cut and paste work for folders on a MAC or not.
I need to know if it is possible to open two different folders that are in "MY Documents" folder at the same time so I can drag files from one to the other. I'm use to doing this in windows and can't seem to do it on a mac. It won't let me open two at a time.
In my iTunes folder User/Music/Itunes (I'm running Windows if that matters..*ducks*) I have tons of It .tmp files. Each one has a number next to the It - ex. It 5.tmp....I have 570 of these to be exact. it's safe to delete them?
Thought I'd start this thread for people to discover/add any info they have on what iPhoto Faces is doing behind the scenes to help with troubleshooting, since Apple doesn't have any preferences for Faces in the iPhoto GUI. This is only for people who like to understand what is happening behind the scenes. Please note this is not for everyone and anytime you do anything to your iPhoto library you risk corruption and should have a backup copy. What I've noticed so far:
- iPhoto scans the library the first time it opens, and creates 2 faces .db files with the iPhoto Library:
face_blob.db face.db
- iPhoto creates Faces thumbnails files and places them in the iPhoto Library/Data folder along with the other thumbnails it creates................
Using migration assistant (via ethernet) to transfer files, some apps, and most importantly my itunes music library. Old system is 2010 MacBook with SL, new MBA with Lion. All transferred that I wanted except no itunes library. Support help says (after long discussion and level up person got involved) if I have ripped music from CDs library will not transfer using migration assistant.