ITunes :: Media Folder Relocation And Consolidating Files To External HDD?
Jul 4, 2012
My internal hard drive is FULL so I am planning to relocate the entire iTunes media folder of music and movies to an external hard drive. I found this article which describes the exact process:Â
[URL]
But here is my problem... Step 11 starts me down the path of organizing the library and consolidating the library. Keep in mind, I have long used the option to keep my media organized by Apple's naming convention and suggested location. But when it comes to consolidating, I am very hesitant. The reason being, I have media files, which I do not want to incorporate into iTunes. Like stuff relating to old jobs, my own crappy mp3 files, home movies of the kids, etc. I fear that consolidation will seek out every possible media file which iTunes is capable of reading and suck it inside. I do not want that. All my media files for iTunes are already inside the iTunes Media folder. I just want to move that external.Â
Another important goal for me is to maintain my precious playlists and the "date added" of all existing media files in the iTunes library... I love sorting music by date of purchase (or date encoded) and would be VERY upset to lose my long history.Â
Info:
imac, Mac OS X (10.6.7)
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Jun 28, 2012
I've recently got a new MacBook Pro, and for at least 6 years or more, I've been using Windows to handle my iTunes library. At one point, when trying to transfer my library, somehow I lost ALL my music. As a result, I learned to back it all up...And I learned to be patient when doing so. Any way, I want to make sure that when I transfer my files THIS time, I do it right. I just need to consolidate my iTunes library that I have backed up to an external hard drive to another folder on the same drive.
Then when I move it to iTunes on my Mac, I only have to put the files into the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder. That said, I'm fairly decent with using the terminal; I've used Ubuntu for a while, and right now I'm using Fedora. I would use the terminal on my Mac, but I really don't want to use it there; I'll stay safe and let my Fedora computer do the work. That said, I know that both Mac and Fedora have "rsync" and "find" as part of the UNIX kernel both are built off of. With all that out of the way.
My question is simply which commands I ought to use to manually consolidate the files in the iTunes folder to a separate folder on the same external hard drive. I also happen to have a number of duplicate files, for some reason, except the duplicates are sometimes .mp3 files, while others are .m4a files. While the majority of my music has been restored because of "Purchased" section of the iTunes Store, I'm unsure of which files I'm looking to preserve; Do I just copy the mp3 files, or both? I hate doing music database repair.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Dec 22, 2009
When importing songs into iTunes, the software by default is set to copy the music files to the iTunes media folder and convert them to .m4a format. This, of course, results in having two copies of each song after the import is done. Before I disable this option I'd like to know what you think are the pros and cons of having this option enabled/disabled.
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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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Jul 3, 2012
I have music files in both media folder and on another drive, not copied to media folder. I know I can highlight and delete individual and multiple files in iTunes. Time consuming.What i'd really like to do is tell iTunes I want it to only see the files in my media folder.I want undo what I did when I told it to bring these other files into the library.
Info:Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
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Aug 28, 2014
I had deleted my files from iTunes media folder, but as luckily I had the same files located in other place I just copied them to the iTunes Media but iTunes rejects to play them (in my iTunes Library). I'm only able to play them if I go through the procedure as followings: Play - "iTunes unable to open this file because the original file not found. Do you want to find it?" (or smith like that) - Find - Open and then it plays, but I have to perform these actions with every file separately and I have quite a lot of them. Oh, and after that first popping-up window the next one appears "Would you like iTunes to find other missing files from the same location as [the file's name]?" But when I click on "Find" it says "iTunes were unable to find other missing files". Why? How do I accomplish the same task but with all my albums at once without necessity to add them one by one? Does there some way exists to tie the tracks from my albums with original files without importing them to my iTunes library?Â
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
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Apr 24, 2012
I recently changed the iTunes Media Folder default location to a different area on my drive. I waited a couple minutes and the files did not move. I was unaware you had to go into your settings and also select to consolodate files. Since the files didn't move I reselected my default location and kept trying to go back and forth a couple times. After letting it sit for a couple more minutes I noticed over 200 GB's of files were missing. I looked in each folder I tried to change the default Media Folder location to but they were not in either of them. I have also ran multiple system file recover programs and been unable to find them.Â
Info:
MacBook
Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Jun 28, 2012
I recently had an external 500 gig Western Digital that stopped working. I took to store and had them transfer the data onto a new external portable hard drive (1.5 gig). At store they hooked up to Mac Book and showed me the files in the itunes folder, however when I connect the drive at home to my imac running tiger 10.4.6 none of the files are visible in the itunes folder.
All the other backup files are fine. And when I right click on iTunes folder >Get Info. It says zero kb in the folder. However I know the files are there because itunes is working and playing them fine. And when I search for a band and open the folder of say "pearl jam" folder it then magically shows just those sub folder for that group in the itunes folder. It seems that the files are definitely there I just can't view them.
Info:
IMac (intel), Mac OS X (10.5.1)
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May 15, 2012
I have a new iMac with an SSD and a 1TB second drive. I backup the iMac 2nd hard drive to an portable external drive so I can carry my entire iMac file storage on an extended trip...5 months. What is the easy way of connecting my MBP iTunes app to the iTunes on the portable exernal hard drive so I can access stored movies, music etc.
Info:Mac OS X (10.7.3), Nikon Cameras, 2MacBook Pro, ApTV
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May 17, 2012
My computer was full so I moved my iTunes media folder to a 3T time capsule following the 15 steps from the article ïTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media Folder", everything went smoothly, no problems when I reopened iTunes, tested on a song, a tv episode and a movie to make sure I could watch them and no ! symbol or warning appeard. Afterwards, I downloaded an episode from the iTunes store and when I tried to watch it appears a warning "THIS MOVIE REQUIRES QUICKTIME WICH IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THIS VERSION OF ITUNES", I checked iTunes version (10.6.1) and Quicktime (no updates available).
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Oct 2, 2010
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.
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Dec 8, 2010
I have 100% of my songs for iTunes stored on a USB Hard Drive.
I dont let iTunes organise my library, nor copy to iTunes library when adding
The default iTunes Media Folder is located on this drive where about 70% of the songs are (songs that have been ripped from CD or downloaded.
My USB HD was plugged in correctly, but a song couldnt be found...so I tried another and it found it straight away...odd
I then hit 'Get Info' on the bad songs, and the location that Itunes was looking in, was changed to a new Default iTunes Music Folder on my Macs drive
Very strange as I have never known iTunes to change the location of a file before within the library?
Ive come to the conclusion that it was only the files that were stored in the Default iTunes Media Folder that coudnt be found.
So I then checked in preferences, to see where the Default iTunes Music Folder was, and it was on my Macs Drive, instead of the USB drive (possibly due to starting iTunes up, without my HD plugged in)
Changed this back to location on my USB Hard Drive, and all of a sudden iTunes re-writes my library to show all the files in the correct position again! Ive never known it do this before on my PC, is it a new feature?
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Sep 23, 2009
I just noticed that instead of the normal iTunes folder structure in my home dir of Music/iTunes/iTunes Music now the iTunes Music folder as well as the Mobile Applications folder have been copied into a new folder called iTunes Media. Is this something to do with iTunes 9 or Snow Leopard. Also what folders are safe for me to delete? Because everything has been duplicated I am wasting about 30gb of my hard drive and I'd like the space back.
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May 9, 2012
I want to duplicate my iTunes media folder onto my new MacBook from my desktop Mac. Can I hook computers together and move it or is there more to it than that?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
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May 20, 2012
My iTunes media folder location is set to my iTunes media folder, which is stored on my external hard drive connected to my network via aiport extreme router. The problem is everytime I turn my mac off and back on my iTunes reverts the location back to my itunes media folder on my mac and I have to manually set it back to my itunes media folder on my external hard drive. Why does it keep changing?
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011)
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Jun 6, 2012
I have about 250GB of music in my iTunes Music folder, too much for any of my player devices with the exception of the computer itself. The "iTunes Music" folder is located on an external drive. I want to create multiple libraries to simplify syncing with individual devices, named something like "Nano silver 16", "classic 160", "iPhone", "iPad", etc. I know how to create the new libraries from info at: [URL] Questions:3) Is there a way to switch the "iTunes Music" folder to sort by album, (instead of by artist, then album, which lists each individual song of a compilation (Greatest Hits of...". "soundtrack", "duets..., etc. in separate folders with one song each). Royal pain! 2) How do I populate the individual libraries from my media folder once I have created them? I can't find any info to do this. Am I right that these just reference the real files, and don't duplicate them in a new location/folder? I don't want to increase the space taken up by new library files. 3) Where should all of the library files live to make it easy to find and switch from one to another? At present, I have to check/uncheck individual files to sync onto separate devices, and this becomes impossible with so much to begin with. --WWmac mini, OS 10.7.4, iTunes 10.6.1Â
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Jun 22, 2012
Generally you have itunes/itunes media/music and all your stuff is in there but on this iMac with lion, there is not a 'music' folder in itunes media. i cannot find my music anywhere.
Info:iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Aug 29, 2014
I renamed certain tracks in iTunes 11 with macbook pro retina,I then tried and lookup the same song in finder,it shows the same old file name before the change.
How can I make the iTunes media version of the song change the same name I have in iTunes.
Info:
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), late 2013 mac book pro retina
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Sep 7, 2014
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...
Info:
iPod classic, Windows 7
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Aug 26, 2014
I use an Apple T.V. and I keep all my media for it on an External Hard Drive. Is there any way to add files to iTunes from the External without actually transferring them into the iTunes media folder - and without having to change the "copy to iTunes Folder" setting in preferences back and forth as I do want certain media such as songs to be moved into my iTunes media folder? In previous versions of Mac OS X there used to be a keyboard shortcut that would accomplish this. If you held down (either control or option) can't remember which it would import the media into iTunes but not transfer it to iTunes media folder. It would sort of import a "shortcut" to the desired media into your iTunes library.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
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Jun 23, 2012
I never really used the iTunes media folder system. All my music is on extrenal drive and I was only importing it into iTunes manually to keep my own folder system, for example once a week Ive created a folder with a date of creating and there I had all the releases from that week (some in their own folder or separately but all in this one folder named by a dat eof creation). So on my ext. drive I have lots of these folders by date. And the names of folder always correspond with the date added to iTunes as well..My ext. drive is full now. so Ive decided to take a next step and put out the dvd-rom and put another internal drive (1TB) into my macbook pro which will be used for music and movie data only (the system stays on the old one).What I want to do now is somehow move all these music folder to my new internal drive, so they can be accessed from iTunes without reseting all its features.
Ive read that one solution can be creating the new iTunes Media folder on that new drive and Consolidate all music from iTunes to this location. Problem is I cant even try it, because when go to iTunes Preferences to change the location of Media folder a hit Create after selectin the new location (new internal drive) after fee seconds the progress freezes and Activity Monitor says that iTunes are not responding. Ive tried to leave it for about half an hour and no changes, even tho theres not much to copy/move cause the Media folder has no music in it, only playlists etc. So question number one is - why its freezing? any other way to trasfer all my collection and keep its organiation as it is without loosing the iTunes list and be able to use it after transfer?
Info:
MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Nov 23, 2010
I've just brought a new MacBook Pro. I used to have my iphone apps one mac's itunes that I've got at work, and keep my music on itunes at home. Is there any way of consolidating everything to my new itunes?
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Dec 26, 2010
I consolidated my iTunes library because some files were on an external and the rest on the computer and when I did this it made copys of most of the songs in my music folder. Also it didn't consolidate the whole library it still shows many songs on the external.
The actual iTunes library is right, just not all songs point to the computer hard drive.
I have about 100 gigs worth of duplicates that I have no idea how to delete besides doing them one by one.
Any ideas on how to fix this?
This is how my iTunes folder looks for most albums.
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Dec 30, 2008
First one was a portable 500gb freeagent, and also I put it in a folder in my 1.5tb time machine drive. Tonight I am updating the second, and I think I'm noticing a problem, but not sure. First of all, when I move my library locatation in preferences to the ext. drive in preferences, and do consolidate library the "info" on a few of the songs still shows a filepath leading to the built in hard drive on my mac (the original library). Also, when I perform the Library>consolidate library function it seems like it copies all of the files that are already on the drive, too. So they only appear in itunes once but they appear in the actual folder more than once, in appended form. Anyone else think this is unnormal. How do you manage a library on mulitple drives? The original reason I did this was to clear some space on my macbook's hard drive, but I'm always too scared to delete the files on it.
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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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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 . Â
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: Â
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? Â Â
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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Oct 21, 2010
I've been trying vigorously to connect my itunes library with my Time Capsule Media files.So that I can keep the music I acually listen to on my Macbrook Pro's harddrive but have the rest of my music stored onto my time capsule and listen to when I am at home.What I thought to do was put the music i listen to in the itunes library folder on the harddrive and then change the media location to the TC media file folder.Turns out my idea was wrong.. any others care to elaborate on this issue? I'm pretty much confused with this and i haven't been able to find it on the forums anywhere
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May 22, 2010
I am still pretty new to Mac and OSX and i had a question about itunes.
Ok, So if i add say 1 album and 1 Movie. Lets say the the album is in My Music folder and the Movie is in My Movies folder.
Now if i go to add to library in iTunes and add them then i am done. If i go and delete the 2 files from the folders i notice that the album and movie is still in itunes and still playable? How is that if i deleted them from the folders on my Mac?
Does iTunes actually COPY the movie and music i add to its own folder? so that way if i do delete it from my mac, its still in a iTunes folder somewhere?
Like with windows, WMP copies the location of that media, So if i add a album and later delete it from my PC and go and try to play it in WMP, it will say NOT FOUND or just no longer show it.
Reason i ask this is because i do not want to have double of everything on my HD and take up more space then i should...
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May 6, 2012
I have imported a number of Caf del Mar CD's to iTunes, and iTunes keeps scattering the tunes into several different folders in iTunes Media. It also has trouble finding album information, unless it has been downloaded from iTunes Store. Previous versions of iTunes I have tried didn't have this problem.I've tried to tidy the files manually in iTunes Media, but that usually results in duplicates, so I stopped messing with it. I actually wouldn't mind iTunes blowing up my albums into a nightmare file structure of hyper categorization in iTunes Media (Album, Album Artist, Artist, etc.) if only it recognised its own mess when I transfer the library from one iTunes library into another.
An example: I downloaded Cafe del Mar - Essential Elements featuring 13 tunes, two of these can be found in the files Cafe del Mar/Cafe del Mar Essential Elements, iTunes also created the folder Cafe del Mar/Cafe del_Mar Essential Elements containing 0 tunes!?! and the rest of the tunes are found under Rue de Soleil in the root folder, indicating ONE of the artists as the criteria for creating a folder of tunes!?!
I am trying with every fiber NOT to hate this program, and would appreciate it if someone could explain to me how I can move an iTunes Media library of aprox 54 gb from my desktop via an external harddisk onto my laptop. I have tried 4 times, and everytime the result varies. Sometime I transfer 3000 files, other times 4000. Which files follow and don't is random. I lose files tranferring to the external harddisk and lose even more files from the external disk to the new library on my Lap. Do I have to transfer song for song or can this genius program actually transfer a larger amount of files without losing half the files and duplicating the rest?
Is there a limit of size or amount of files?
Info:iTunes, Windows7
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