Recognise Music Files Copied In to ITunes Folder

[scalo]

I have my ITunes installed on my laptop (Windows 2000) where I have been copying my music on to for the last month. I now have 6.5GB of music there and am quickly running out of space on the laptop. I now want to move all of those files on to my desktop (Windows XP). I have managed to copy the files from my IPOD on to my desktop. But when I move the files into the ITunes music folder the ITunes software does not see them. How do I get Itunes on my desktop to see and recognise these files such that I can then switch my IPOD to do all my synching and music loading from my desktop and thus allow me to free up much needed space on my laptop.

[Shadow]

You can't just move the files to the iTunes folder. You have to import the songs from within iTunes. Put your music files from your iPod in some other folder on your desktop. Then, launch iTunes and select File -> Add Folder to Library. Select the folder where you placed all your music files. It will then import them all into iTunes.

[scalo]

Shadow, Thanks will try that tonight when i get back. Can you confirm though when I do a sync with the IPOD on the desktop that it will recognise it as having the same song list or will it retag everything and force a full refresh

[Shadow]

Since that will be the first time you sync with that computer, it will force a refresh. It will wipe out all the songs on the iPod and put all the songs on the desktop onto your iPod. There may be a way to copy the iTunes database files over from your laptop to make it think it has already synced, but I wouldn't recommend trying that. You could end up really screwing up your iTunes database.

[scalo]

Thanks again for the help