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pilotkid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 22, 2006
979
143
Chandler, AZ/Chicago, IL
Hello Everyone! Quick question, is there a way to save ONLY movies and tv shows to a external hard drive? I want my music library to be saved on my computer hard drive like it is now. But, I would like to have tv shows and movies saved to my external hard drive so they dont eat up all the space on my computer hard drive. Can this be done? Thank you!
 

sandman42

macrumors 6502a
Oct 23, 2003
959
59
Seattle
If you deselect 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library' in iTunes preferences (under the Advanced tab), you can save your movies and TV shows to your external drive, then 'add to library' and they'll stay where they are. I believe that music rips and ITMS purchases will still go into the iTunes library, though this would probably be true for purchased movies and TV shows too. For those, I suppose you could copy them from the iTunes folder to the external drive, delete them in iTunes, then re-add them from the external drive.
 

RumMunkey

macrumors 6502a
Nov 3, 2006
692
2
Canada
Even better you can temporarily override the "Copy to iTunes folder" preference by holding down the option key when you drag your files into iTunes.

As for purchased stuff, yeah you'd have to move it out of iTunes default location to wherever you want to keep them, then option-drag them back in. this will probably require a re-authorization (no big deal if it's the same computer that it was purchased on).
 

uva25

macrumors regular
Feb 2, 2008
160
0
If you deselect 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library' in iTunes preferences (under the Advanced tab), you can save your movies and TV shows to your external drive, then 'add to library' and they'll stay where they are. I believe that music rips and ITMS purchases will still go into the iTunes library, though this would probably be true for purchased movies and TV shows too. For those, I suppose you could copy them from the iTunes folder to the external drive, delete them in iTunes, then re-add them from the external drive.

I am trying to do the exact same thing. Do you reselect the copy option once you are done saving? Also, does this process mean i have to "Add to library" all the files again and if so, can you do this by selecting multiple files? Thanks.
 

gazzzmoly

macrumors regular
Jul 3, 2007
168
0
Hello Everyone! Quick question, is there a way to save ONLY movies and tv shows to a external hard drive? I want my music library to be saved on my computer hard drive like it is now. But, I would like to have tv shows and movies saved to my external hard drive so they dont eat up all the space on my computer hard drive. Can this be done? Thank you!

Save 1 movie and 1 tv show in itunes. then move them from your music folder to your external drive make alias and then move the alisas to your music folder


alternatively you could create reference videos using quicktime and import those they are tiny and you can move your videos anywhere and itunes will still play it even formats itunes will not normaly play like wmv' etc
 

sandman42

macrumors 6502a
Oct 23, 2003
959
59
Seattle
Even better you can temporarily override the "Copy to iTunes folder" preference by holding down the option key when you drag your files into iTunes.

Hey I just tried this, and it didn't work. I dragged the movie onto the iTunes icon in the dock while holding down the option key, and iTunes started copied the movie to my iTunes music folder. Did I do something wrong?

EDIT: I tried it by holding down 'option' and dropping the movie into the movies library in the iTunes window and it worked.
 
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