Is there a way to have TV Shows and Movies located on an Airport Extreme external hard drive and music on my internal drive but it still all be in one iTunes library?
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Split iTunes Folder?
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You could try going to preferences>advanced and uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" when you add your TV Shows and Movies. Change it back once your done and these files should effectively be referenced from the external hard drive. I've never done this so I can't be sure, but it goes along with logic from Aperture's libraries. Try it with one or two files and see how it goes.
Just wondering if you tried it and if it was successful. I am wanting to do the same thing, Thanks.
Would be nice if itunes had a feature like
Music -> This Specified Folder
Videos -> That Specified Folder
Would be nice if itunes had a feature like
Music -> This Specified Folder
Videos -> That Specified Folder
How to split a single iTunes library over two or more media locations
To split your iTunes media over two or more drives, go to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced and leave both of these boxes unchecked, so you can manage your files without iTunes interfering or making duplicate copies of files.
![ScreenCap 2.PNG]( "ScreenCap 2.PNG")
You can add files to your iTunes library from any internal or external drive. All files don't have to be in your iTunes Media folder. Be sure you have your external drive(s) mounted before launching iTunes and it will find everything you've added. If you travel without the external drives and launch iTunes, there will be exclamation marks on the files that reside on the external drives, since they're not mounted, but you can still see all the contents of your library, even if you can't play them all.
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When you reconnect the external drive(s) and then launch iTunes, it finds them again.
Be aware that when deleting songs from your library, if the file resides in your iTunes Media folder, you will be prompted and given an opportunity to move the file to the trash. If you delete a song that isn't in the iTunes Media folder, it will simply delete the song from your iTunes library, but will not delete the file. You will have to manually delete such files. The best way to do this is to right-click the song in iTunes before deleting it and select "Show in Finder". Then delete the files in Finder. Now go back to iTunes and delete the songs from your iTunes library.
Finally, while you can have your iTunes media located anywhere, it's better to leave your iTunes library files on your internal hard drive. These are usually located in ~/Music/iTunes Libraries and contain your iTunes Library.xml file, as well as folders for artwork, playlists, etc.
To split your iTunes media over two or more drives, go to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced and leave both of these boxes unchecked, so you can manage your files without iTunes interfering or making duplicate copies of files.
You can easily do this. Using what I posted, store one folder on your internal drive and the others on any external drive(s). Then add all to your iTunes library.
Be aware that when deleting songs from your library, if the file resides in your iTunes Media folder, you will be prompted and given an opportunity to move the file to the trash. If you delete a song that isn't in the iTunes Media folder, it will simply delete the song from your iTunes library, but will not delete the file. You will have to manually delete such files. The best way to do this is to right-click the song in iTunes before deleting it and select "Show in Finder". Then delete the files in Finder. Now go back to iTunes and delete the songs from your iTunes library.
Finally, while you can have your iTunes media located anywhere, it's better to leave your iTunes library files on your internal hard drive. These are usually located in ~/Music/iTunes Libraries and contain your iTunes Library.xml file, as well as folders for artwork, playlists, etc.
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This lovely little app (I have no connection with it) will help you do it at quite a sophisticated level - by artist, tv show, etc:
http://www.tunespan.com/
http://www.tunespan.com/
I am trying to split my iTunes folder as well for my new RMBP. I have about 30 gb of mobile applications that I am trying to store on an external hard drive. I want to keep my music and a few movies internal. I read that you can create an alias of the mobile applications folder, but the article was a few years old. Will this method still work and what happens if I use iTunes when my external drive is not attached? Here is a link to the method I read about:
http://tntluoma.com/apple/store-iphone-apps-on-an-external-drive/
http://tntluoma.com/apple/store-iphone-apps-on-an-external-drive/
Can I do this using multiple drives? The thing I am trying to do is to use 4 different programs that are similar to Dropbox, they each have ~5gb of space and I want to split my music between them, I have ~20GB of music. Would this method work? Also if I drag the music from Dropbox into iTunes, wouldn't it be put on to my computer? Or would disabling the settings stop this?
If you have a local copy of the files on your machine in the Dropbox folder, yes, it should work. If you mean just having the music on their servers and not also on your own machine, it wouldn't be possible for iTunes to catalog the files. iTunes can only catalog files that physically exist on one of your mounted drives.
Is it possible to have multiple iTunes libraries though? I will have the Dropbox folder on my laptop but I was planning on using 4 different cloud programs: CX, Dropbox, Google Drive and Sugarsync. Will I be able to split up the library and have four different libraries in iTunes? Or do I not understand how all these work and when you keep it in a local file everything is still on your hard disk? (sadly this sounds like it makes sense)
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Yes, you can have music from separate locations in your iTunes library. You just need to make sure the two boxes in the advanced settings menu (see the post above by GGJ) are unchecked. The reason this works is because iTunes just stores the path of the file and not an actual copy of the file. Drag and drop the files into iTunes like you would if they were all in one location.
Yeah, by local copy, I mean a physical copy on your hard disk.
Also, to clarify, you only have one iTunes library (it is possible to have multiple, but I won't go into that). Every song listed in iTunes is part of that single iTunes library, even if the files are split up into multiple physical locations like the set up you're describing.
sorry to bring up old post, but need help along these lines
i want to store my TV shows on an external hard drive, but want them in the itunes media folder so it can be kept organized. also dont want to move the entire itunes media folder over to the external. so is there a way to place the TV shows folder onto the external, thinking about something with aliases or something, but dont know how to move that folder so itunes still thinks its part of the media folder
i want to store my TV shows on an external hard drive, but want them in the itunes media folder so it can be kept organized. also dont want to move the entire itunes media folder over to the external. so is there a way to place the TV shows folder onto the external, thinking about something with aliases or something, but dont know how to move that folder so itunes still thinks its part of the media folder