Adding just iTunes favorites on external 2 my laptop

[Learjet035]

I have 2 libraries- All my music is on an external drive
On my laptop I only carry a few. I'd like to get all my "starred" or rated songs added to the laptop without trying to remember what songs the were, or what album they are on.
Right now I have to open one, look, then close, then open the other and copy that to the library. Is there an easier way??? Thanks a MIL.

 

[wngraham]

You could create a smart playlist and set the parameters as "only tracks with 5 star rating" or something similar. Then just copy that whole playlist....

 

[Learjet035]

Makes sense, like I could use my "Top Rated" or whatever but they all live in different areas.... ie: iTunes/iTunes Music/Backstreet Boys (JK)......
iTunes/iTunes Music/Boy George.......
and so on for each artist.
As far as I know I can't have 2 iTunes open @ the same time can I?
So how would I get that playlist from my external to my laptop without going through each one?

 

[Learjet035]

Is it possible??

 

[orangemacapple]

Multiple iTunes Library Fix

Multiple iTunes Library Fix

You have a complete iTunes library on your airdisk.
You want a small library on your laptop.

It takes forever to change the library to the one you want, and then it shows the complete library that you can't play, full of exclamation points.

Try this: with iTunes quitted :

MOVE (NOT COPY) (COMMAND-DRAG) your DATABASE for your megalibrary (probably less than 100 meg) in: music/iTunes :
(3 files consisting of "Album Artwork"; "iTunes Library"; and "iTunes Music Library.xml" to another location) [maybe into a new folder named "tuneschange/large"]

DELETE your itunes song library on your laptop (maybe a few thousand songs) (make sure it's on your airdisk first)

on your laptop there should now be no songs in your iTunes folder and the 3 previously named folders should be in a different location

OPEN ITUNES
CHANGE LOCATION PREFS to the laptop ( ~user/music/iTunes Music)

SETUP iTunes for your portable library (the same named files will appear in the same spot as before) by telling iTunes to ADD TO LIBRARY from your airdisk. DO it this way so you get the album art. If you just move the songs, you will still show the ENTIRE library and you'll exclamation points for the songs that are missing.

QUIT iTunes

MOVE (NOT COPY) (COMMAND-DRAG) this same set of files to another location. [maybe in a new folder named "tuneschange/lsmall"]

when you're at home (BEFORE opening iTunes) copy/replace (OPTION-DRAG) the contents of tuneschange/large to music/iTunes. Open iTunes and Set iTunes prefs to External/iTunesMusic (or whatever you named the location).
Play your HOME library.

when you're at work copy/replace (OPTION-DRAG) the contents of tuneschange/small to music/iTunes. Open iTunes and Set iTunes prefs to ~user/music/iTunesMusic (or whatever you named the location).
Play your WORK library.

it should also work to have multiple libraries on the same disk -- i haven't tried that yet.

you can write a small script to do this if you like.

Works for me. takes about 10 minutes to do it [large -- about 5000 songs] when i get home. only a few minutes to make it do the small library. tell it not to update library.

 

[Learjet035]

Excellent! Thanks for taking the time to explain all that.

I burned a CD with just my fav's on it, and then just imported them onto my laptop library. Not exactly a high tech way of doing it, but it worked. The big downside is any additional songs I add to my big library won't get added to the laptop list.

Thanks again for the lesson!

 

[orangemacapple]

Excellent! Thanks for taking the time to explain all that.

I burned a CD with just my fav's on it, and then just imported them onto my laptop library. Not exactly a high tech way of doing it, but it worked. The big downside is any additional songs I add to my big library won't get added to the laptop list.

Thanks again for the lesson!

sure it will. just, while in laptop mode, click ADD TO LIBRARY. follow the finder to your airdisk and click on the songs you want to add. it'll copy them over to your laptop and put them, and their artwork, into your laptop library.
of course you'll have to make the script you wrote so it will copy your 3 library files back to "tuneschange/small"