ITunes For Mac :: Set Up A Library On External Drive That Can Download All Of Media
Jun 3, 2014
I've searched through all of the threads pertaining to this issue and i've yet to find a solid, good answer. Basically, I have a macbook pro retina machine with 250 GB. I have over 100 movies purchased in iTunes as well as multiple TV shows that if I were to attempt to download onto my local disk the shear size would make my HDD .
I have a 1TB external drive and am just wanting to make hard copies of all of my videos and music on my external. Is there a specific way to use my external disk to not only backup my computer via time machine, but to also use it to backup all of my videos and music. I don't mind watching all of my content via the iCloud but I'm having difficulties creating a library on my external and then using that to download all of my movies. As I can't download all of them on my local disk and then transfer a copy, I need to figure out a way to set up my library on the external disk and then download everything to the external.Just to clarify my questions to you powers at be:
1. I need to set up a library on my external drive that I can download all of my media to.
2. I want to still be able to use itunes on my macbook and just watch all of my media/music on the icloud
3. Can I still use the same drive that has all of my backed up media as a backup through time machine as well?
I've scoured all of the forums and really all I could find was how to set up libraries on an external disk. None of them ever mention whether or not I can basically use my itunes library locally however I want, knowing that everything I've ever bought is backed up on my external.
Info:
MacBook Pro with Retina display, iOS 7.1.1
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Apr 27, 2012
I've followed several tutorials on how to get this done, as it seems so simple but it's not working on my end. I've moved the iTunes folder from the /music/ to an external hard drive. I'm opening iTunes, going to Preferences, Advanced, and replacing the iTunes Media folder location to the correct one /Volumes/Volume E/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media
I'm checking Keep iTunes Media folder organized & Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library, clicking on the "OK" button, and nothing happens.
Funny enough, Spotify finds it in seconds and I can play my music from that player instead.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Oct 22, 2009
My iTunes library has apparently filled my entire iMac (according to the computer I have over 97 days' worth of music). I would like to know 1) how to properly save my iTunes library to an external hard drive and 2) how to use iTunes so that it uses the library on the external drive.
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Mar 27, 2012
I have a 3TB USB 2.0 "media" external hard drive attached to my iMac. I use it to store all itunes media only, since I have over 300 movies. I also have tv shows, music etc. I just got a new 2TB thunderbolt LaCie Big Disk external drive. I want to transfer all stuff in "media" USB hard drive to new thunderbolt drive. Reason for doing this, sometimes current USB "media" drive lags on responding when I come back to use itunes from sleep or inactivity. I'm thinking about just dragging all content from old drive to new drive, eject old drive, name new thunderbolt drive "media", and relaunch itunes. Would that work successfully? I'd like my itunes to remember my play count. If my content play count is lost, does iMatch remembers play count and once I update my iMatch with new thunderbolt drive installed, will my play count be updated to my itunes?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2), 27", 3.4 GHz, 12GB RAM.
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Jun 27, 2012
I had all of my iTunes music files stored on an external HD, which I used whenever I used iTunes. Maybe 200GB worth of tunes.I now have a new MacBook Pro, and I would like to import all of those music files to the internal HD of this laptop.So, without fishing around in the ancient old system for the Library file... I'd like to start fresh. I have no interest in keeping any ratings or play counts of the tunes. Do I simply go to the Add To Library command under the File menu, and select the iTunes Music folder on the external HD? Will this copy over my entire collection, and build a new Library file? Will my music library appear the same as it was before, in the iTunes application window? I imagine that this operation will take a bit of time. I seem to recall doing something like this, years ago, and noticing that the copying process missed entire albums etc.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 2.6GHz, 8GB RAM
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May 9, 2012
I have recently started using a Time Capsule with an external hard drive attached. I have moved my music and video to the external hard drive to free up space on my MacBook Pro hard drive. I have set up iTunes to play from the external hard drive (which works fine), however, although I have changed the location of the iTune media folder in Preferences it keeps reverting to the iTunes media folder on my Mac's hard drive.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
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Jun 29, 2014
step by step directions for moving the actual media ‘files’, ie the mp3s, as well as the necessary library files, to an external drive, when ‘keep media organized’ and ‘copy files to media folder’ are NOT SELECTED?I am running OS X 10.6.8 and iTunes 10 [and prefer a solution which does not require updating software. I prefer to maintain my own customized folder and file structure for my mp3s; and have therefore deselected
1] Keep iTUnes Media folder organized and 2] Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library. All the directions in the various posts seem to require selecting these options. Is this critical for success?
From the many posts I have read, it seems there’s more to it than just drag and drop, that I need to ensure that iTunes is ‘pointed’ to somewhere? Not the mp3s themselves, but to a ‘library” [is that yet another copy of the mp3s? somewhere on my hard drive?].
Additionally, over the years I have moved about 45GB of mp3s to ‘storage’ external hard drives to create more space on my laptop. Not ideal interim solution. I am again low on space and have decided to buy new external drive for holding all of my mp3s, ie the 45 GB in ‘storage’ and the remaining 75 GB from my laptop. Ideally, I would like to also keep all my artwork, playlists and ratings and the like [which I guess are in the ‘libraries’???]
Am I correct, that I will need to also move to the new external hard drive that folder which holds the .itl and .xml files and which is named ‘iTunes’??? and then there is another step to link the ‘media’ to the ‘library’ to ‘itunes’?
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Nov 22, 2010
I transferred all my itunes library to an external hard drive.I had all my songs in itunes and then went to "preferences" and set itunes to look on my external hard drive for my itunes. Then I went to "library" and then "consolidate", and it moved all my library over to my external. I can verify that my songs are all there on my externalHowever, now, itunes won't play any songs of mine. I double click on the song in itunes and it just wont play. There's no error message, there's no exclamation point, it just won't play. Any idea what is goign on? Preferences still shows that my library is directing to the external
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Jun 2, 2010
I'm running out of space on my harddrive and am wondering. Is there a way to move some of my library to an external harddrive? Like TV shows and movies that I don't need to access all the time. I don't want to delete anything. I don't want to carry around a harddrive all the time.
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Dec 8, 2014
Working on an iMac with a FCX library that links to an external media folder which has all my video. I'm not using managed media, but external links to the video source footage.
I make an exact duplicate copy of my FCX library on a USB drive, including the external media folder with all my video clips -- using the same folder structure and everything, But when I move that to another computer (MacBook Pro), open the exact same FCX library, open the same project -- I get missing links on every clip on my timeline. The library doesn't connect to the external media folder.
Re-linking causes an error and doesn't work either. The FCX library just won't take my "external media" folder which it links to fine on my iMac. All my projects on my MacBook Pro, have red "missing file" icons instead of the clips.
Running FCX 10.1.4. and Yosemite.
Info:
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion
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Jan 6, 2010
I have a Mac Mini connected to a Lacie external HD that houses all of my iTunes library. I've just bought a new iMac to replace the Mini and want to keep the iTunes library on the external, just point the new machine's iTunes to the existing library on the external.
How best to do that? I don't want to restore from TM because I want to start fresh from this Mac and there really isn't a lot to keep other than the iTunes (most of it is on the external). If I point to an existing location, I don't need to Consolidate, do I? Any risk of losing the library? Do I need to unlink the library on the existing Mac?
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Mar 11, 2012
What is the best way to transfer the iTunes library from the internal drive to an external drive and use it soley from the external drive?
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Apr 27, 2012
my itunes library is on an external hard-drive. I have another external harddrive that is portable and I'd like to have this one to travel with and be able to update it from the main library on the other ext. hd. Right now I have just copied over the entire library of music - no itunes involved - but I realized that this doesn't work for me as I want to be able to update that music file with the newer stuff found on my other main ext. hd.
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3), external harddrive
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May 16, 2012
I have an older Mini with about 600 gigs of losses files on an external drive. I have a new mini and I want to use the same drive. Can I somehow point the new mac to the same location?
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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May 26, 2012
I have had a series of hard drive issues. My iTunes library is kept on an external drive. This is the second one that failed. I am unable to copy the files enmass from one drive to the other using the normal method for relocating an iTunes library (due to drive errors). However, I was able to do a folder-by-folder finder copy from the failed drive to the new external. Then, I went into iTunes preference and repointed the iTunes Media folder location to the new drive. I had the "keep organized" and "copy files to library" boxes checked. Then, iTunes wanted to update the files, which it did. However, all of my file paths in iTunes still point to the old, damaged hard drive. How do I get them to have the correct path to the new drive? I had this situation once in the past, but I cannot remember how I solved it.
Info:
MacBook
Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), 2.5 Ghz, 4GB Memory
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Jun 3, 2012
The mini mac is full and I want to be able to use the 2 tb drive as storage and time machine. How do I get the content onto the external drive and access it it and hoe does new content get downloaded and stored to the drive not the mac? Also can I have 1 drive playing storeage and back up or do I need a second?
Info:
Mac mini
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Jun 8, 2012
I need to move my iTunes library from one external disk to another, because the original disk is about to fail. So, I went into iTunes Perferences --> Advanced, and set the library to a new, empty folder on the new drive. Nothing changed. I expected all my music to vanish from iTunes, so that I would have to re-import it. However, all the music remained, still on the old disk. At this point, if I were to recreate the library on the new disk, I would have all of my music twice. Is it possible to move an iTunes library from one external drive to another, or am I stuck with my original choice until I buy a new machine? If I can move it, can one of you clever folks explain how it could be done?
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Jun 24, 2012
So, my iTunes library is getting too large for my computer's storage capacity. I'm thinking of moving some of my library to an external, USB hard drive. However, I've never done iTunes through an external hard drive before and I have some questions. Can I copy new discs (import) straight onto the external hard drive? Or do they need to go onto my computer first then get transferred to the hard drive?Can I still use iTunes Match and pull songs from the library on my hard drive and from the main computer?To partition a library between a computer and an external hard drive, do I need to activate sharing or anything special? Or will the computer/main iTunes library just consider the external drive to be a different location for some of the tracks?How would I backup the external hard drive? Would Time Machine (running off a separate hard drive) back up another external hard drive if they were both plugged in?Can you burn the entire library to data discs anymore? Or do you need to make a playlist of your entire library? If the latter, is there a way to turn off the message about iTunes in the Cloud playlists only accepting songs matched or uploaded? I have some songs that erroneously did not get matched or uploaded. If I try to put them in a playlist and burn it to a data disc for backup, iTunes won't do it.
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Sep 7, 2014
I cannot find where my library is on the hard drive in order to save it to an external drive
Info:
iPod classic
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Dec 18, 2006
I want to copy my iTunes library from one external drive (currently connected to an iBook) to a 2nd external drive (connected to an eMac). The library is almost 60GB and so can not fit on either machine's hard drive.
The music currently plays through the iBook from the first external drive.
I want to be able to play the same music on the eMac (through the 2nd external drive).
Which is the best way to go about this?
Should I:
a) Connect the 1st external drive to the eMac and manually drag and drop the music from there to the 2nd external drive, or
b)Use Silverkeeper Basckup and do a backup of the Music folder in the 1st drive to the 2nd drive, after connecting the 1st to the eMac?
or is there not much difference in doing either? Or is there a more efficient option using iTunes?
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Nov 1, 2008
I just bought a MacBook Pro. I have my iTunes library on an external firewire HDD. I want to keep it there, but have iTunes on my new Mac access it. However, even though I have put the path to that drive in iTunes Preferences, the songs there don't show up in iTunes.
The new Mac is authorised, and I have bought a song on the iTunes store, which was saved to the external drive.
So what do I need to do? Do I get one of the library files copied over from the old machine (also a Mac)?
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Apr 13, 2009
I was able to do it on my pc. Is there anyway I can remove my music from my harddrive (Macbook) and place in my external hard drive. And everytime i open itunes it will grab the music from my external hard drive. Also my external hard drive is hooked up to my airport extreme.
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Jun 22, 2009
I want to get a mac but one thing that concerns me is my itunes. I have a massive library and if I get a mac I will need to copy the library to my external hard drive from my pc then copy it again to the mac. How could I do this without losing my playlists, rating etc? And also if you have all your photos in iPhoto can you access them without opening iPhoto? If you can how? Because I have played around on Macs in the Apple Store and couldn't see where they would be!
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Dec 12, 2009
so i followed all of the steps in this support article from apple.
now heres the twist that i need help with.
i recently bought a new imac and i had a 1TB external hard drive from before. all of my music and movies are already on the drive but i didnt have it with me when i first was using my imac so i setup a itunes library on my imac. so when i hit consolidate in itunes none of the music and movies that i had from before are showing up in my itunes.
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Mar 15, 2012
I have a very large itunes library, is there a way for me to store some of my music on external hardrive and have this music still be in my itunes library when the hardrive is plugged in.
Info:
macbook, Mac OS X (10.7.1)
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Mar 17, 2012
I have two itunes libraries, a library of current podcasts and music on my internal drive (ID) (which runs the operating system) which is running out of space, and an external drive (ED) with old music (from CDs) that I keep in stoarge for special occassions when I am away from home and I want to play music.
The ID and the ED have their own itunes library.
I am running out of ID space, so I want to move all my pre-2012 podcasts from my ID to my ED. I will then have the podcast when I am away from home and I want to play them for myself or others.
How do I transfer just the podcasts dated prior to 31 December 2011 from the ID to the ED? After I transfer them, i can delete the podcasts from the ID and get more free space.
Info:
Mac OS X (10.7.1), Itunes
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Apr 24, 2012
I have almost 180 gb of music. It's taking a lot of space. Can I use an external drive as the file location for my iTunes library?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Jun 22, 2012
I moved my iTunes library to an external drive, but now my apps are gone? I do have iTunes match and iCloud, so my songs are all on the cloud, but none of my apps are showing... I copied everything over, consolidated, but I must have messed something up as I think I have too many library files on the external drive now. I can see all my files on the external drive, but they are not showing up when I open itunes. It looks like it linked to a new copy of a library as only my most recent apps are showing, nad none of my existing ones are on itunes. What should I do to fix this? How do I know which files to delete?
Info:
iMac, iOS 5.1.1
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Jun 5, 2014
for capacity reasons, i currently run itunes on an aging macbook pro with media stored on an external hard drive. how can i transfer my library to a new macbook air and keep the media as-is on the external? the library size is still too large to keep on the computer itself and i'm actually content with this setup. i'm trying not to affect the song ratings, playlists, apps, podcasts, settings, etc..
the macbook pro is currently running snow leopard, while the air is up-to-date with mavericks, if that makes a difference.
both machines are running the latest version of itunes (11.2.something-something).
Info:
MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)
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Jun 3, 2014
Awhile back, I'd run out of space on my internal HD and transferred all of my content to a larger external HD. I don't remember "repointing" my iTunes Library (as you can do in iPhoto) but somehow, iTunes recognized this and has since been backing up and restoring my iPhone to/from it.
This however, has created quite a few problems (too numerous to mention) and so, having recently installed a larger HD in my internal, I now want to re-point iTunes back to it.
How is this achieved?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6)
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