Importing music from external HD to Mac/itunes

[xpipe]

I am making the transition from PC to Mac (maybe, or at least having the two coexist). Anyway, my next step in the process is moving all my music from the PC to the Mac (and also hooking the good speakers/subwoofer up to the Mac!).


I read this, and am still a little unclear on what to do. I couldn't really find my specific situation: http://guides.macrumors.com/Copying_Music_from_your_old_PC_to_new_Mac


All my PC music is in a folder on an external HD. I connected that HD to the Mac. I opened iTunes, thinking that maybe I could just import the whole music folder to iTunes and the Mac would just take care of everything for me.

However, it doesn't look like I can do that. It looks like I can navigate to a specific file (song) in that big music folder and import song by song, but not the whole group en masse.

I know I can just copy the folder to the Mac in one shot, and then as I play individual songs, iTunes folders will be created/songs will be added to the library, but I'd rather do the whole thing in one shot (imported, library created, ready to party).

So now, this is where I'm at: the PC's HD is connected to the Mac, and I have no idea what to do here...please help

 

[xpipe]

"Add to Library"?


Boy, I sure hope that was the right thing. Why didn't I see that a half hour ago



So what does import do?

 

[Dimwhit]

Were you using iTunes on the PC? If so, there's a more precise way to transfer the music without losing playlists, etc. Barring that, you are correct: the Add to Library command will copy all the music to the iTunes Music folder on the Mac (or wherever you specified in the preferences).

The Import command is used for ripping (i.e. importing) music from a CD.

 

[xpipe]

No, I've never used anything by Apple before...


I'm expecting the next crisis in a few weeks when I give the iMac its own external drive and move all the media files onto it

Thank for the info!

 

[muldul]

I had the same problem too when i lost all of my files on my PC (it was dell so i expected it) and i luckily found the import from folder. Enjoy your mac

 

[Stevee00]

Dimwhit, you said above that there is "a more precise way." What is that way?

I'm a switcher too, and have a huge music library. I got the songs to go into my Mac itunes, but the playlists are gone. I thought I had loaded in the .itl file too (I dragged the whole music folder onto the iTunes icon--just as the guy at the Apple Store told me to do).

What's the precise way to keep the playlists intact?

Steve

 

[Dimwhit]

Dimwhit, you said above that there is "a more precise way." What is that way?

I'm a switcher too, and have a huge music library. I got the songs to go into my Mac itunes, but the playlists are gone. I thought I had loaded in the .itl file too (I dragged the whole music folder onto the iTunes icon--just as the guy at the Apple Store told me to do).

What's the precise way to keep the playlists intact?

Steve

Here is the Apple doc for properly moving an iTunes library. From what I heard, it definitely works.:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449