Using "iTunes" Movie Directory with Mac OS Catalina

[Enigmafan420]

Hello everyone,

Searched for this a didn't find it. Apologizing in advance if this is duplicate.

I have a large number of ripped CDs in my "old" iTunes movie directory. Before Catalina, I simply shared my entire iTunes library and the movies would show up on my Apple TV. The system at the time didn't care where the shared directory was. My iTunes library directory is on a large and slow external HD and the movie directory exceeds 1 TB in size.

Now with Catalina, I cannot figure out how to share this movie directory. I have "drag and dropped" the movie files onto the Apple TV app on My Mac, but in typical Apple Fashion, Catalina is trying to copy all the movies from the directory to my internal HD, which obviously isn't large enough.

Anyone know how I can just point the Apple TV app to the movies directory and not copy them all to the boot drive?

Thank you!

 

[chabig]

The media folder location is set in the TV app preferences. Point that to your external movie directory, turn on Media Sharing in System Preferences > Sharing, and you're done.

 

[V.K.]

Go to TV app preference->files tab and uncheck the box "copy files to media folder when adding to library".

 

[Enigmafan420]

Thanks Both. This now working as it used to. Really appreciate it!

 

[priitv8]

Go to TV app preference->files tab and uncheck the box "copy files to media folder when adding to library".

I would still let the TV/Music app to organise the files in the media folder. This keeps them neatly organized.
It is important to understand, that library and media location are 2 separate settings, were for iTunes and still are for TV and Music apps.
Media location you give in app Preferences, library location by holding the Option/Alt key while launching the app.
To easily add media to the library, there havs always been a hot folder named "Automatically Add to iTunes" now there are similar folders for Music and TV in the same location - the Media folder.
The TV app will take it from there and file it nicely into media tree. Indeed, your files must contain proper metadata for it to succeed at that.
See my screenshot for illustration.