Change movie location iTunes?

[Che Castro]

i want to change the location of my movies from one external drive to another


currently the itunes media folder is located in my main mac OS drive /Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

but my movies and tv shows are located in an external drive

how do i go about changing the location of the movies and tv shows? i dont want to move the itunes media folder, im just moving the movies and tv shows to another drive



i have keep itunes media folder organized checked


and copy files to itunes media folder when adding to library blank

 

[Omne666]

In this case because you've got a split library (I use to do that also) other then deleting all the tv shows and movies from iTunes, moving them to your desired location and re adding them to iTunes, which loses things like play counts, is all I can offer.

As I said, I use to split it also, but play counts and date added have become more important to my smart playlists setup. Doing this messed up to much for me, so I got an external to hold it all at the one local.

As a thought, do a search on the web for Dougs Scripts. He writes some brilliant stuff. I just had a quick look and he has one called 'relocate selected tracks'. It might suite your needs. And don't be fooled by the word track. As far as iTunes is concerned, movies aren't any different then music videos. It's just our tagging that sets them apart.

 

[Che Castro]

So in terms of play count and stuff like that I'm all out of luck ?


I should just start over and put the iTunes folder in my external along with the movies in it

So in the future if I want to change drives I won't play count

I like when I click on a tv show it goes to the episode I haven't seen , oh well

 

[salohcin]

There are two things you could try, though I'm not sure either will work.

1. Rename the new drive's volume to the same name the old drive's volume was (after changing the name of the old volume to something else). For example: if your old drive is named "MyExternalDrive" rename it to something else and then name the new drive "MyExternalDrive." This might work, I've never tried it myself, but in theory iTunes would just assume that your stuff is still on the same drive as it always has been. iTunes should of course be closed while you're doing all this.

2. Open the iTunes library file in TextEdit and do a find and replace on all references to the old drive's name and replace it with the new drive's name. I have done this before, but it was a long time ago on a much older version of iTunes. I believe it worked pretty well for me then, things might have changed though. This of course won't work very well if the name of your drive is "movies" or anything else that could show up inside the iTunes library file, but if it's a pretty unique name it could work. I would suggest making a backup of the iTunes library file before attempting this one.

I can't guarantee these will work, but I think it's at least worth at try. They are both reversible if they don't work.

 

[Omne666]

There are two things you could try, though I'm not sure either will work.

1. Rename the new drive's volume to the same name the old drive's volume was (after changing the name of the old volume to something else).

2. Open the iTunes library file in TextEdit and do a find and replace on all references to the old drive's name and replace it with the new drive's name.
.

1. Maybe. As a double backup, don't have the old external plugged in when you first do start iTunes. The mac works with drives a little differently. The name don't mean that much. I think perhaps it goes deeper when it identifies a drive.

2. good luck with that. Tried it. The db is horrendously riddled with reference address.

Your only going to lose play counts and such if you remove from iTunes and re add. If you manage to actually move them by either of the above methods, all will be fine.

Like I said, I have entire library on external. Beauty of that situation is I also have the actual iTunes db on there also. I can copy the library to a new external no problem, keeping all records intact. My libraries now approaching 6Tb. I have 90% of it on another drive in another offsite location. TBH...another country.

When I travel, I take the drive and update it at the second site. Name of the drive doesn't seem to matter like I said. My main one here is a thunderbolt WD named iMovies (as is the library itself), the backup is an old second gen Drobo, named, Drobo. Works every time.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

You can also use links to fool iTunes into thinking the data has never moved. When I moved my iTunes library off to an external drive, I simply created a symbolic link (ln -s) from ~/Music/iTunes to the new volume - copied my library to that new drive - and fired iTunes back up. It didn't know anything had changed.

 

[Che Castro]

I just realized I have a 3TB EXTERNAL drive that almost full with movies , so I plan to get another soon


Since I'm going to get another drive, is not a good idea to have the iTunes media folder in the same location as my movies? Because I'm going to split my movies into 2 drives in the future
Is this correct ?

 

[Omne666]

You can also use links to fool iTunes into thinking the data has never moved. When I moved my iTunes library off to an external drive, I simply created a symbolic link (ln -s) from ~/Music/iTunes to the new volume - copied my library to that new drive - and fired iTunes back up. It didn't know anything had changed.

Actually....you know, I never thought of doing this! Great idea. It's actually a good solution.

----------

I just realized I have a 3TB EXTERNAL drive that almost full with movies , so I plan to get another soon


Since I'm going to get another drive, is not a good idea to have the iTunes media folder in the same location as my movies? Because I'm going to split my movies into 2 drives in the future
Is this correct ?

Hmmmm....seeming you will still have the library split, I don't suppose it matters. I'd probably be inclined to keep the library db itself on an internal drive, but really, we're talking 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. It's users choice. The internal will load the db a bit quicker, especially if you have power saving setup on you machine putting the externals to sleep.