Moving iTunes Music Files?

[Mac In School]

I used to have my music on a separate Windows machine. So in my iTunes Music Library.xml file, the paths look something like this:

file://localhost/Volumes/WORKGROUP%3BSILVER/MyMusic/Artist/Album/Song.mp3

That computer died. Now I want to store them on shared external hard drive that is connected to my Airport Extreme Base Station. Can I just open that .xml file and use a find/replace in BBedit to change the path?

If not, what should I do?

Thanks.

 

[Mac In School]

Okay, I figured it out. For anyone else that's interested...

1. Close iTunes.

2. Delete this file: User/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library

3. Move this file to your desktop: User/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml

4. Open the XML file in a text editor (NOT a word processor) like TextWrangler or BBEdit. Do a find/replace to correct the path to the songs in their new location. Save this file.

5. Open iTunes, and import the XML file from the File menu.

Done!

Downsides:

1. I lost play counts and play dates.

2. Smart playlists that were based on other smart playlists had to be rebuilt. (see attached screencap if you're not familiar with this kind of smart playlist).

3. I ended up with duplicate copies of all the iTunes default smart playlists (Recently Added, Recently Played, etc.). Deleting one of each seems to have worked just fine.