Transferring iTunes music from Windows to Mac

[Ajax19]

Yes sorry, yet another one of these threads.. But I really need the help. I've searched and read through dozens of previously made threads on this topic and I still can't seem to get this to work.

The main problem I'm having is keeping my Ratings and Play Count.

Setup:
Have iTunes 9 running Windows 7 on a desktop, trying to transfer to 10.6.2 Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro.

I've tried consolidating the library, then transferring my music files using an external HD. But still no luck with the ratings/playcount.

Is there a way to use my iPhone 3G to transfer the files?
In the end I do what my MacBook as my main computer, so I will want to be able to sync with my iPhone after all my files are transferred.

Any help is much appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[John Doe 57]

Have you seen this?-
http://www.tunequest.org/migrating-your-itunes-library-from-windows-to-mac/20061105/

 

[i.shaun]

I don't actually go through the "export" option in iTunes. You can try it, but not sure if it would properly work across operating systems.

What I do is still pretty simple in my mind, and worked perfectly whenever I tried it. I have iTunes set to manage my music on it's own, and copy everything to it's own library (I used to manually manage in windows, but this seems more efficient to me).



Anyway, in your music folder on Windows, there should be an "iTunes" folder. You pretty much copy that folder, and all it's contents, and place it in the mac's "Music" folder. Hold "option" on the mac as you click on iTunes, then select "Choose library" when the prompt comes up. Navigate to the "iTunes" folder you copied, and select the library file.


It can be done with DVDs, but is just a little more complicated. Since the "iTunes Music" folder contains all music, in "Artist/Album/01 - Song.mp3" format, you'd have to burn it in sections, preserving the file/folder structure.

What I do is create playlists, artists A-D or something, and see how many artists I can fit onto one DVD. It says on the bottom of the iTunes window how many songs are in the playlist, and the total size. I use 4.5 GB DVDs, so I stop at 3-4 GBs.

I select the folders in the "iTunes music" folder, A-D, skipping numbers since I didn't add them to the playlist. I do numbers last because iTunes puts them last when it sorts, making my final playlist something like T-#

Watch "P"s, and "M"s though. If you have podcasts or movies, they'll be hiding among the artist folders as "Podcasts" or "Movies", so exclude them, burn them separately.