Transfer iTunes Library from one Mac to Another

[JasonR]

What's the easiest way to transfer my entire iTunes library from one Mac to the other. I sync my iPhone and iPad to the library, and I don't want have to resync them all over again.

Thanks in advance...

 

[Roquefort]

Put both Macs on the same network. Turn on the iTunes "Home Sharing" feature, on both Macs. On the old Mac, set it to share your library. On the new Mac, you can then select the old Mac's tunes, which you'll see under Shared > Music, and click the Import button to copy them to your new Mac.

You can copy your iTunes library in other ways too. See this article in Apple's Knowledge Base.

 

[TheAppleSource]

Over your network definitely is one of the easiest and best options, but if you're library is large, it could well take a while (especially if it's over wireless). You can always transfer everything to an external hard drive and then just copy it into the same folder on the other PC. That should be one of the quickest ways to do, while still being quite simple.

 

[JasonR]

That method makes me resync all of my devices...

 

[TheAppleSource]

That method makes me resync all of my devices...

Plug both of your devices into the new machine and click on File when you have iTunes loaded. Then click Tansfer Purchased items from iPod (or whatever it exactly says). Also make sure you have authorised your iTunes account on the new machine.

 

[Mal]

That method makes me resync all of my devices...

To avoid this, copy the entire iTunes folder from your Music folder to the same location on the other Mac. Note that this will not give you any option to merge the libraries, although you can manually add any music you had on that other Mac, but that's the price to pay to get continuous syncing.

jW