Monday 12 August 2013

How to move an iTunes library to an external drive?

Description


Now, it’s time to offload your iTunes library to an external drive or a separate internal drive. This tutorial contains step-by-step instructions to move iTunes library.





Solution:


Connect the hard drive to your computer. Make sure that your computer should recognize the drive. To measure the size of the media library, open iTunes, select one of your libraries from the left pane and look at the numbers written at the bottom-center of the iTunes window. It is important to measure the size of your library so as to know how much space you need. Also, you can delete those programs or shows which are very old and you don’t want to watch them again.

For PC, open the iTunes preferences under iTunes Edit menu. But, for Mac preferences live under the iTunes menu. After opening it, click under the “Advanced” tab and where it is written "iTunes media folder location," change the location to the desired folder on your external hard drive. Before tapping the “OK” button, check the "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" option.

After this, iTunes may or may not ask you to organize and move your library to the new location. If the prompt comes up, click yes. While transferring, click on iTunes “File menu”, go to “Library” and select “Organize Library.” When you will see a window with options for consolidating and organizing your library, check them both if you can.

Now, your iTunes library has migrated to its new location. For checking it, open “iTunes”, choose a song and select “Get Info from the File menu.” You will see a window with all the attributes of your song file, including the location of the file. Also, keeping your original iTunes library as a backup is not a bad idea. But, if you are confident that the entire music library has successfully copied to its new location then you can delete the files available in the original location.

PC users will find their original iTunes library content in this directory:

C:\Documents and Settings\"USERNAME"\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music

The default iTunes library folder for Mac users is:

/Users/"USERNAME"/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music

Using either Time Machine on a Mac or the "Back Up To Disc" feature in the iTunes File menu (located within the Library submenu) on a PC, you can back up your iTunes library. Never delete "iTunes Library.itl" file if you want to access your old songs and playlists which you have created. You should delete those iTunes content which is available within iTunes Music, Music, Movies, Audiobooks, Podcasts, or TV Shows folders located on your computer. If your external drive is not connected and you are going to run iTunes then you will get a prompt asking if you'd like to locate the file. Just reply no. Furthermore, if you want to play music when your external drive is not connected then use “Consolidate files” command which can copy all the new downloads to the new location.

This is how you can move an iTunes library to an external drive. For more from the XpertCrewTM team, please follow us on Twitter @Techvedic or contact Techvedic’s computer support helpdesk, as per below contact-details


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