iTunes to external HD

In article <iBob-3BB7FA.15452610092003.RemoveThis@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>,
Bob M <iBob.RemoveThis@fairuse.org> wrote:

 > Can I move everything over to an external hard drive (I'm thinking going
 > for the biggest firewire rig 800 back-compatible to 400 to ensure I
 > won't be throwing it all in the trash 4 years from now)?
 >
 > If so will I be running iTunes from the external drive? Any thoughts are
 > greatly appreciated. Any pointers to yahoo groups or web-based mac audio
 > forums also greatfully accepted.

Yes, you can move all of the songs to an external hard drive. You will
have to make a change in iTunes preferences. In the advanced section of
preferences, uncheck "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to
library".<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: iTunes to external HD 

In article <iBob-3BB7FA.15452610092003.DeleteThis@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>,
Bob M <iBob.DeleteThis@fairuse.org> wrote:

 > My iTunes library has overwhelmed my 40 gig hd. After two years of
 > converting my huge cd collection to mp3, then aac, and months of
 > spending my wife's hard-earned cash at the itunes store I am running out
 > of space.
 >
 > Can I move everything over to an external hard drive (I'm thinking going
 > for the biggest firewire rig 800 back-compatible to 400 to ensure I
 > won't be throwing it all in the trash 4 years from now)?
 >
 > If so will I be running iTunes from the external drive? Any thoughts are
 > greatly appreciated. Any pointers to yahoo groups or web-based mac audio
 > forums also greatfully accepted.
 >
 > iBob

Yes, I just went through this in a series of postings in newsgroups
finding out the methods myself. I wanted to get my large folders of song
files off my boot drive to and another drive and keep my existing
playlists intact.

When I had tried to do this a year ago ( and did not know or understand
how iTunes stored its file information formats) I made a mess of it and
lost the playlists links every time and had to rebuild playlists
manually or tediously "find" each and every song file to re establish
links.

It probably is easiest to use a utility like iTunes Library Manager to
do this with multiple music libraries of different playlists & locations
of song files.

To do it manually yourself via iTunes, do this:
Don't attempt to manually move your song files from one location to
another yourself.

1) open iTunes preferences/advanced tab
2) click CHANGE
3) choose any location on any drive you like via the file dialog, making
a new folder and name it anything you like if you wish.
4) choose CONSOLIDATE LIBRARY under ADVANCED in menubar of iTunes

If you stop at step 3 your existing song files stay right where they are
and existing playlists and their links to the existing original files
still work, but new songs added to iTunes and future playlist info will
actually be stored in the new chosen locations of step 3.

If you had gone further and included step 4, all your original song
files will be copied to the new location (leaving the original song
files intact & NOT erased) and all playlist data will be stored in new
location and updated to link copies of the original playlists to the
same songs but links point to the song files in the new location.

At this point all the old iTunes playlist files and original song files
still exist in original location but are no longer used and can be
trashed if you wish.

In my case I have many GB of song files and the steps 1-4 outlined above
created 10GB of files & folders on my 2nd hard disk drive I chose for
the new location. I could then erase the original 10GB of data off my
boot drive.

I have not tried iTunes Library Manger myself but others are pleased
with it. There are other Applescript based utilities that can accomplish
other operations in iTunes. Do a search for iTunes utilities at
Macupdate or VersionTracker, or Google.

Morenuf

Morenuf<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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