How can I redirect my iTunes library to an external hard drive?
Solution 1
This article may help you.
Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive
Solution 2
Okay, here's my brief summary for users of iTunes 9:
I've purchased a new SSD system drive and wanted to migrate my old iTunes Media folder (~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
) to a harddisk. At the same time I wanted to rename the folder from iTunes Music
to the new name iTunes Media
. Apart from that I also wanted to keep the iTunes database (referencing the media files) on the system SSD (for better performance). Here's how I accomplished this:
- Create a new, empty media folder on the 2nd harddisk. In my case
/Volumes/WesternDigital320GB/iTunes Media
. - Go to iTunes
Preferences->Advanced->iTunes Media folder location
and change it to this new location. iTunes now updates the file paths in its database to the new location but does not copy the files. - Then go to
File->Library->Organize Library...
and selectConsolidate Files
and clickOkay
. Now iTunes copies the files from~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
to the new location. - Verify that the contents of both directories is the same. Afterwards you can manually delete the media files at the old location (
~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
).
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leora
Updated on September 17, 2022Comments
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leora over 1 year
Right now, I have all my music on my internal hard drive, but it is running out of space.
So, I bought an external hard drive, copied all my music over and went into the advanced preferences in iTunes and changed my music location. However, when I view the iTunes music library XML file in notepad, I still see a lot of things pointing to my regular hard drive.
I didn't check the
Keep music files organized
tickbox because I didn't want iTunes trying to copy everything over from my regular hard drive, as I already did that.Is there any other way to simply refresh a music list that's been given a new root directory?
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leora over 14 yearswill this just update the XML library file or will it try to copy over files from my hard drive to the external hard drive.
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leora over 14 yearsas mentioned in the post, i have already moved the data, i just need the XML file to be regenerated. I guess i could manually do it in notepad (find / replace)
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user8095 over 14 yearsLike I said, Consolidate Library just puts all the media in the location you specified in the Advanced options. The XML never moves nor do you need to do anything with it manually. Let itunes handle it.