Split iTunes Library - Ideas

[davidjearly]

Hi,

Currently, I have all of my media in one iTunes library. This includes 40+ movies, 3000 songs, music videos and podcasts. I also have lots of apps for my iPhone.

I have an iPhone 3GS, iPod nano, and Apple TV connected to this library. The files and library are stored on an external hard drive as I don't have the space for this on my uMBP.

I would like to split the library (saving all my metadata and album art so that I don't need to redo this) into two. One library will remain on the external hard drive and contain all the movies, whilst the other will have all my music on it. The first library will be used to stream movies to my Apple TV, whilst the other (in the MBP HD) will be used to sync music/apps/photos to my iPhone/iPod nano.

However, at the moment I also have all of my music synced onto my Apple TV, and if I split the library with one containing just movies, all the music will be removed from the Apple TV and I won't be able to keep it up to date with any new albums I put into the iPhone/iPod library.

Does anyone have ideas what I can do? Basically I would like the convenience of having all my music (but not movies) on my MBP hard drive so that I can sync my iPhone without having to connect to the external drive. At the same time, I can't be bothered managing music on two libraries to keep my Apple TV library synchronised with my iPhone library.

Thanks!

 

[dXTC]

The same library can hold files in more than one location.

For example, let me explain my setup. I have about 7,000 songs on my iMac's HD. I have about 50-60 movies (HandBraked) on an external HD. Whenever I add music, I make sure in my Preferences that "Copy Files To iTunes Music Folder" is checked/enabled. However, when I add movies to the Library, I make sure the physical files are where I want them on the external, then uncheck/disable "Copy Files to..." and add the movie to the library.

My movies thus stay on the external drive, but the music stays on the internal.

Unfortunately, this probably won't help if you're buying movies from the iTunes store; my guess is that the iTunes Store movies get saved to the internal library location.