iTunes and an external HD

[magicalunicorn]

ok, so first off, sorry for the potential repost. I couldn't find the answer on the forum so I am starting a new thread.


Let's say I have a 50gb music library. I want to put all 50gb on the external, and keep about 30gb on my iBook.
That part was easy enough, however I am running into problems keeping everything in my library located.
Everytime I disconnect and then reconnect the external, anything that's not on my iBook can't be located.

I want to make it so that when the external is not connected, my entire library (EXT and INT) is shown[obviously, I won't be able to play anything that resides on the EXT], and when I connect the EXT, I want it to locate the files that are external only.
Is this possible?

Thanks!
Matt

p.s.
I also want iTunes to keep my folders organized, there, that's the kicker.

 

[Galley]

You'll have to create two separate libraries.

 

[miles01110]

You'll have to create two separate libraries.

Search results.

 

[magicalunicorn]

thanks for the responses, I think I found a solution I would like to share.

for starters, it's tedious, you lose playcounts and have some problems with playlists but if you can deal with that, this works well.

1. copy all music to external HD
2. delete files you don't want on your computer from ~/user/itunes library
3. go through looking for (!), delete and replace them with copies from the external HD (it helps having itunes and the two finder windows on top to reference what's where)

like I said, it's tedious but it has resulted in a nice spring cleaning.

open for comments and corrections!

 

[Consultant]

thanks for the responses, I think I found a solution I would like to share.

for starters, it's tedious, you lose playcounts and have some problems with playlists but if you can deal with that, this works well.

1. copy all music to external HD
2. delete files you don't want on your computer from ~/user/itunes library
3. go through looking for (!), delete and replace them with copies from the external HD (it helps having itunes and the two finder windows on top to reference what's where)

like I said, it's tedious but it has resulted in a nice spring cleaning.

open for comments and corrections!

Nope. Huge waste of time to do it that way. Look at the search results.

It takes 20 seconds to do with my method, exclusive of file copying time. (may or may not be in the search results).

 

[magicalunicorn]

Nope. Huge waste of time to do it that way. Look at the search results.

It takes 20 seconds to do with my method, exclusive of file copying time. (may or may not be in the search results).

Thanks, but the search results link was for creating 2 libraries, which is not relevant to what I was doing. If you would like to share "your" method, I would love to hear it.

 

[miles01110]

Everytime I disconnect and then reconnect the external, anything that's not on my iBook can't be located.

Right, because it's looking for the files on your external which, as far as iTunes is concerned, does not exist.

I want to make it so that when the external is not connected, my entire library (EXT and INT) is shown[obviously, I won't be able to play anything that resides on the EXT], and when I connect the EXT, I want it to locate the files that are external only.

You can do this, but you'll have to create 2 libraries- one containing both internal and external, the other containing only external. You're going to have to deal with the little exclamation marks that come up in the combined library though.

 

[magicalunicorn]

I figured my problem with the external files not being found was that my itunes folder was still set to the internal itunes music folder. I fixed that and things seem to be working fine.
It was a total pain in the ass, but I got everything set up the way I want it.
One iTunes library.

When my external is connected, all my music is shown and can be played.
When my external is not connected, all music on external has an exclamation point, and i can only play music from my laptop. (points go away after itunes relaunch with external connected)

I was hoping to find a way to do it all automatically, but human decisions, like what is going to stay on the laptop and what was going to only be on the external, needed to be made. If there is a way to do this in automator or with apple script, please tell me.
Thanks!