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How to get my itunes off external hard drive to new computer

T

troye

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 10, 2012
26
0
Lubbock, TX
I just got a brand new iMac and I have all my itunes music on my External hard drive. And what I would like to do is have all my music on my iMac so I can listen to my music without the hard drive always plugged in.

So what I did was plugged my hard drive in and copied the itunes folder on to my iMac then in iTunes, I went to: iTunes>preferences>Advanced and changed the itunes location to that folder. But when I disconnect my hard drive. None of my songs play and it says the files need to be located.

What else do I need to do to be able to get all the songs to work in iTunes?

Thanks.
 
D

dakwar

macrumors 6502
Nov 2, 2010
322
17
troye said:
I just got a brand new iMac and I have all my itunes music on my External hard drive. And what I would like to do is have all my music on my iMac so I can listen to my music without the hard drive always plugged in.

So what I did was plugged my hard drive in and copied the itunes folder on to my iMac then in iTunes, I went to: iTunes>preferences>Advanced and changed the itunes location to that folder. But when I disconnect my hard drive. None of my songs play and it says the files need to be located.

What else do I need to do to be able to get all the songs to work in iTunes?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

With your external hard drive plugged in, go back to iTunes>preferences>Advanced and change the iTunes location again, this time to /Users/{yourusername}/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music . Make sure "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" are checked. Click Ok.

Then, go to File>Library>Organize Library. Make sure "Consolidate files" and "Reorganize files in the folder iTunes Music" are checked. Click Ok. Give lots of time. Done. Your music has now been copied to your internal hard drive (assuming there was enough free space there for it). Eject your external hard drive, test iTunes to make sure you can play all your media files, and then, if you like, delete your music off your external hard drive to clear out some space there.
 
T

troye

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 10, 2012
26
0
Lubbock, TX
dakwar said:
With your external hard drive plugged in, go back to iTunes>preferences>Advanced and change the iTunes location again, this time to /Users/{yourusername}/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music . Make sure "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" are checked. Click Ok.

Then, go to File>Library>Organize Library. Make sure "Consolidate files" and "Reorganize files in the folder iTunes Music" are checked. Click Ok. Give lots of time. Done. Your music has now been copied to your internal hard drive (assuming there was enough free space there for it). Eject your external hard drive, test iTunes to make sure you can play all your media files, and then, if you like, delete your music off your external hard drive to clear out some space there.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that worked perfectly :D:apple:
 
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