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Moving iTunes library?

B

blackfx35

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
97
0
I just purchased an external HD, and attempted to move my iTunes library to it. I obviously did something wrong, but cant figure out how to fix it. All of my music shows the original file can not be found, and gives me an opportunity to manually navigate to it (to find it). While this works, I would lose my mind if I had to do this manual navigation to find each of the 3000 songs that I have. How can I do this automatically? Also, probably related too, but all of my album art is now gone! How can I get that back??? Thanks.
 
Maybe you can drag the files back to their original location, verify that everything works, and then use iTunes > Preferences > Advanced > iTunes Music Folder Location option to change where you want it to go?
 
I set my library up as a new library when I moved it. Close iTunes then click the iTunes logo while holding down alt. Keep holding it until a box pops up asking if you want to choose a library or create a new library. Create a new one and drag all your files into it (I can't remember if you even have to do that or if you can just choose the existing folder).

From then on when you click iTunes it'll open the "new" library on your external HD.
 
There's a way of doing this where you basically rebuild the library file. You edit it manually to find & replace all entries of the old location with the new location, e.g. replace C:\music\ with G:\music or even an IP address on your network like \\111.111.1.11\music and so on. It involves deleting (or renaming) your old library and editing the backup file.

I'll see if I can find the info and post a link to it..... it has worked well for me a couple of times.

S
 
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