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Cool iTunes Trick!

TheSpaz

TheSpaz

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jun 20, 2005
7,032
1
I store all my video content on another drive that does not contain my music library and I want iTunes to copy files to my music folder most of the time. However, when I add videos, there's no sense in having the same video in 2 locations but, it's bothersome to go into iTunes prefs and turn off "Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder When Adding" each time I wanna add a video to iTunes but, not copy it. Tonight I found out that if you hold down the option key while dragging files into iTunes, it adds it without copying it to the Music folder! Nice!
 
ARRRGH. Why didn't anyone tell me about this 3 months earlier!!??:mad:
this really should be on the apple support site

thanks though. I can use it from now on.:)
 
Sorry, I didn't realize it was in the help documentation... I just was annoyed at the fact that iTunes ALWAYS copied to the Music Folder so I decided to try and hold some keys down while adding to see what happens... and option did the trick. I'm glad I could make some people's life a little bit easier even if it is written in the documentation. Who goes and reads the manual anyway?
 
Its quite a well known 'trick' :D

Its a bit like holding down command when moving a file onto another drive. It will 'move' it instead of copying it. But you knew that one right? :p
 
MacboobsPro said:
Its quite a well known 'trick' :D

Its a bit like holding down command when moving a file onto another drive. It will 'move' it instead of copying it. But you knew that one right? :p
Click to expand...

Yes, I did know that one and I use that trick a lot in fact because I hate having to copy the file then go and delete it from the server. I just never thought of trying it with iTunes... I wonder why they chose option though... don't you think cmd would be more consistent with the Finder? Option usually copies files. Hah. Anyways... I didn't know it was a well known trick and I've never heard of it and I even searched MacOSXHints.com to see if it was there. I never tried the help section in iTunes.
 
TheSpaz said:
I wonder why they chose option though... don't you think cmd would be more consistent with the Finder?
Click to expand...

I did think that and thought it was strange but maybe it conflicts with another command. Im not at home so cant experiment. :)
 
MacboobsPro said:
Its a bit like holding down command when moving a file onto another drive. It will 'move' it instead of copying it. But you knew that one right? :p
Click to expand...
Yup. I definitely knew that one. :) *hangs head in shame* Wow. Too much to learn.
 
So, does it reconnect the media automatically if you disconnect the drive? I can't store my videos on my laptop (40GB) so I keep them on my firewire drive, but everytime I want to watch one or whatever I have to copy it over, so this trick is nice! But, I don't always have that drive connected....
 
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