Moving / Creating new iTunes Library question

[GIZBUG]

I have a folder on my Synology NAS called music/iTunes Media

All my artists/albums/music is in that directory. Something must have happened on my iMac, because when I open Music (iTunes) my music is listed but can't be found/played (!).

What I want to do is move this library to an external hard drive, and have Apple Music / iTunes point to the external HD for my iTunes library.
What is the easiest way to do this?

 

[Makosuke]

Bit late to reply, but if you haven't figured this out on your own yet, the folder that iTunes (or Music) points to is identified in Preferences -> Files. If the path got screwed up or something changed (for example, the share name), you can change it to point to the location of your folder here.

This also works when you move it--copy the folder to the new location, then just change the path to point to the new location, which it sounds like is what you want to do.

Note that you will generally want "Keep Music Media folder organized" and "Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library" checked. If you don't, then actual media files you import may end up stored somewhere else and just linked, so when you play a song it's still trying to play from the original location. Having these checked will make sure they end up in the Media folder where you want them.

If those are unchecked, that may be what's going on--if the music files are elsewhere and got moved (or deleted) iTunes/Music can't find them even though its library folder is intact, because the referenced locations aren't where it expects. Trying to play a broken link should offer to let you find the file, and once you've done so it will be copied or sorted correctly with those boxes checked.