Importing from external hard drive?

[Diogones]

I have all my music saved in my iTunes library, which in turn is saved on my external hard drive. I have a new computer and a new iPod now, and I wish to put all my music onto the iPod from the external drive. Would I have to import everything back into the iTunes library first, or could I put it directly onto the device and skip that step?

 

[JediMeister]

If your iTunes library (album artwork + playlists + audio/video content with the proper path structure) is already stored on an external hard drive, launching iTunes with option (on a Mac) or Shift (I think this is right, on a PC) will allow you to point it at your external drive. iTunes may need to upgrade the library for use on the new computer, and you probably need to authorize the computer before syncing, but that should allow you to sync your music to the iPod without needing to rebuild/reimport the library.

 

[Poncho]

If you do have to import everything back into iTunes remember that you can go to iTunes Preferences/Advanced and unclick the box that says 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library'.

Then you select all your music files on the external drive and import them into your fresh new iTunes library on your computer. This way iTunes wont drag all the music onto the Mac but only the names of the tracks (and their path). Far far quicker.

Just remember to go back and click the box back on so that future imports into iTunes will take the file itself and not just the name.

 

[Diogones]

Thank you both for your prompt and helpful replies!

But Jedimeister, I have a question. What do you mean, "point it at your external hard drive?" I start iTunes, and the only option I have is to import the folders into the library, and not directly to the device. I'm going to try to copy directly from the hard drive to the iPod, and see if that works.

 

[JediMeister]

You must start iTunes with either of those keys (Shift or option depending on OS) to be prompted to choose an iTunes library. If you select the iTunes folder you have presumably copied to your external drive, which should contain an Album Artwork folder, an iTunes Music folder, assorted iTunes Library files, iTunes should load the playlists, and media associated with that iTunes library.

 

[Diogones]

Thank you for that update jedi, but how do you start iTunes with shift? You hold the key down and click the iTunes icon, or something else?