How to Relocate your iTunes Library

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lauracera

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Moving iTunes Library

I'm running out of space on my C drive and want to transfer all my pictures and music (software and files) to my D drive. Has anyone transferred their iTunes software and library using the process posted by azdude on 05-06-04 with the latest iTunes version?

Any tips, trouble, feedback, suggestions?

Thanks,

Laura
 

letsgoyanks51

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Here's a question sort of on the same topic. I am going to be getting a new hard drive soon to replace my C drive. When I reinstall Windows and iTunes, I still want to keep my music library on my C drive. I have an enclosure from which I can access my old hard drive once I install the new one. If I want to keep everything as is, can I install iTunes and then take the iTunes folder from my old hard drive and just overwrite the new iTunes folder?
 

bhoward43

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i posted this same question as a new thread, but got no response, so i'll post here as its a related topic.

i did the relocation of my itunes library, but midway though my computer decided to restart itself. it transferred about a good 20gigs i'd say, maybe 18 or 19. problem is, i cant start the transfer over again, as the drive i was moving to no longer has enough room! i dont know what has transferred and what has not. it started at the beginning, but i'll go through and check the location of songs and it still says its at the old drive, when it was supposedly one of hte first to be copied!

any way to undo what ive done, or a way to pick up where i left off? PLEASE HELP as now i have 20gigs of multiple entries!
 

james_holland22

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I too have this problem, I've posted a topic on it in the general itunes board and hope someone *PLEASE* gets back to me.

I'm especially worried about the songs I've bought from itunes as they're the only copies I have - although it would be a pain in the backside the others *could* be reimported from CDs.
 

paleolith

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I finally succeeded in moving my iTunes database to an external drive. That was a lot of work. ;-) I moved my PhotoShop Album files first, and that was very easy -- mostly because PSA stores its information in a Jet database, which is identical to an MS Access database, so I just made the necessary changes with Access. Would that iTunes made it so easy. (Of course, the use of Jet may be why PSA is Windows-only.)

I have my own organization for my files and am not interested in storing them The iTunes Way.

If I'd known what I was about to go through, I'd have saved off all my music files, including the iTunes folder, somewhere and done some experiments with a small library. I'd recommend this approach to anyone who wants to improve on these ideas. Twenty or thirty non-iTunes tracks is plenty to play with.

Anyway, I thought I was home free when I read Schmolle's method (see links earlier in this thread). But I had the same problem as some other posters, that iTunes crashes before completing the import of the XML file. I never got around this, though there's a variant I didn't try:

1) Proposed method: rename the XML file and make the needed changes. Move the music files where you want them. Trash the .itl file. Launch iTunes, which will create a new database because it can't find any version (you renamed the .xml version and trashed the .itl version). Import the modified XML file. With any luck, this will retain all info. But as I said, I didn't think of this until I had succeeded with a more difficult method, so it might not work correctly, or iTunes might crash importing the XML file just as it does with Schmolle's method.

What I actually did first was this, and I think I'd choose this over my final method if I were doing it again and #1 didn't work (but #3 does have some advantages).

2a) If you're trying this, first make a record of any playlists you want to keep. Maybe iTunes will print them; I didn't try. I didn't do this and was sorry later -- see 2d).

2b) First I moved the music files. Then I made a copy of the XML file and made my modifications. I launched iTunes. At this point the entire library shows, but if you try to access any music file -- play it or Get Info -- iTunes says it can't find it (and I refuse to locate it, because I'm not going to do 1400 files this way). Then I imported the modified XML file -- iTunes did not crash when I imported it this way, as opposed to automatically at launch. This resulted in nearly twice as many entries -- iTunes was able to recognize and combine the entries which were in the iTunes folder, but all the rest are doubled. My first thought was, well, just sort on the status column, where there's that exclamation point for missing files. Click on the column header and nothing happens. That's the trouble with software where the designers say WE can't think of why anyone would do this so we won't let them.

2c) So then I found the critical trick. If you select multiple entries, do Get Info, modify one item (say Grouping, which is never used in my collection), and OK, then that item gets modified only for the files which iTunes can find. So I did Select All, Get Info, change Grouping to 9 (could have been anything), OK, View Options, turn on the Grouping column, sort by the Grouping. Ah-ha! Now the files iTunes can find are in the first part of the list and the ones it can't find are at the end. So now it's easy just to select the old entries and delete them, and the entire library is just fine.

2d) But the playlists are not fine. They are all duplicated, and the manual ones are empty. The automatic ones are OK, just delete the "wrong" one (the "right" one has columns for play count etc). For the manual ones, delete one of the duplicates and rebuild your playlist. Depending on the nature of your playlists, this may be easy or hard.

2e) For cleanliness, Select All in the library and clear the Grouping field, then View Options and disable Grouping.

But I decided -- for better or worse, probably for worse -- to try to retrieve them. Now as I write this, I'm thinking that maybe I could have made an XML file to import which would define them correctly. (They are defined in the XML file, but for some reason don't import correctly using the procedure in #2.) So I put everything back like it was and started over.

3a) Use the Grouping field to flag playlists. The obvious thought is just to assign a number to each playlist, but that doesn't work for overlapping playlists. I had few enough that I just ignored the overlaps and fixed them up manually at the end. Other possibilities would be to make a Venn diagram of all your playlists and assign a different number to each region -- might be worthwhile for some situations. Another would be to put a keyword in the Comments for each playlist. You'd have to be careful not to overlay one with another when changing multiple files at the same time. Perhaps put a standard comment on all files to start with (mine mostly have the same boilerplate comment added by EAC, which I used to rip my CDs). The the appearance of the Get Info dialog would clue you into whether you have a conflict. You'd need to use Smart Selectors at a later stage to separate them out. I haven't tried this. (It might be that I don't have all the answers. ;-)

3b) Same as 2b).

3c) um ... sure, I should have written this down when I was doing it at 3:00 in the morning. Better yet, I should have slept first ... OK, I'm a bit fuzzy on what I did. I think that I selected all the tracks which are NOT in any playlist (by sorting on the Grouping column and selecting the latter part of the list), and then proceeding as in 2c). I couldn't do this with the tracks I'd marked in 3a, because I needed to preserve the Grouping on the new files, so I deleted those old files manually. I only had about 75 tracks in playlists, so it wasn't bad. For many people, this step would be the killer for this method.

3d) Delete the excess playlists as in 2d). Now, with the library sorted by Grouping, rebuild the playlists.

3e) Same as 2e).

OK, start shooting. Remember, I agree that Schmolle's method is clearly the best when iTunes successfully imports the XML file at launch. All these shenanigans are just for getting around that crash.

Edward
 

young132

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I am a new IPOD user, and tried for the first time to down load a track from ITunes. However, an error message along the lines of "Unknown Error -50 Please try again later". I then went into the advanced options on ITunes to check for purcahsed music, but it still keeps on coming up with the same error.

Any help?!
 

paleolith

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Sarah,

You posted to the end of a thread about relocating your library. You'll likely get a much better response if you start a new thread, or look for a thread that's already discussing purchasing music with iTunes.

Edward
 

samsdeal

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I have:
*An iTunes library on my PC at work
*A differnt iTunes library on my PC at home
*A new iPod

What's my next move?
 

chillywilly

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Sam..

The best option would be to take all of the MP3s on one machine, move them to the other and then build the iTunes library off just one machine.

Then once you get the songs onto your iPod, use that iPod to connect to iTunes from other computers to play the songs from it.

Use a program like EphPod to copy the songs you want locally to the secondary (non-main iTunes) computer.
 

sazer01

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Still having trouble copying to external drive

I have followed the directions on this post to copy files from my Dell Desktop to my external hard drive. I've checked the appropriate boxes, Consolidated my library, watched everything copy over to the external drive.

Now, when I try to access the external drive using my laptop (different computer), I can see all the music there but none of my preferences, check marks, playlists, etc.

I think the post above addresses what happens when you want to copy your files to an external drive but still view them on the SAME computer. What about if you want to copy files to an external drive then view them on a DIFFERENT computer? The reason being, I want to be able to sort, listen to and update songs at work, where I have more time to listen to music.

Once I have the files copied from my desktop onto the external drive, how specifically do I import them into the laptop now and keep my settings? Thanks a million!
 

tinarock

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Now that I've ripped my almost 4000+ songs onto my computer I've now discovered that I need a bigger hard drive. I've read all the info I can about transferring everything over to the new hard drive but I am a newbie in many ways. I have a computer tech that helps me (so I don't royally mess things up), what should I get him to read before going through the process. I don't want loose the MANY MANY MANY hours of organizing in my iTunes (e.g. ratings ect.)
 

Yas_Chan

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a bit shocked

I was wondering the same matter as I was using my little beauty iBook last spring and now as I'm using iPod with my XP. I always thought there must be a proper workaroud for this (something similar to exporting your mails from Outlook Express or, say Mail).

But there isn't.. I am shocked because I'm sure lots of people are in need for this function. Even although your iPod always stores the information of playcounts, ratings and last played songs - it wont do any good since it will be reseted after you relocate your library. I think its really silly. What harm it would be to resync such information back from iPod?

I think there should be a button "Relocate your library". But I continue to believe this will be in future updates of iTunes. (Greetings for Apple)
 

Yas_Chan

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Ultimate solution!!

Today I did a major discovery. I was backing up my things as I reinstalled my XP since my firewire card was fighting back (a lot!)

-> I backed up my entire "My Documents" folder. My iTunes music files are on separate partition (exactly same size than my iPod).

When I reinstalled my XP, and then moved "My Documents" folder back to where it was, and installed latest iTunes - miracle happened!

My playcounts - ratings - last played information was all there!

I suppose this is it :) Just back up your My Music folder since iTunes information is there. I'm not sure if someone already discovered this. I'm just so excited since I didnt lose my information.
 

badger98

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I tried Schmolle's method this morning, and it worked as advertised. After emptying the .itl file and starting up iTunes, it imported the altered .xml file, analyzed the volume for some (but not all songs), and that was it! Ratings, play count and last played info were all intact and "get info" showed the revised file locations.

One point to add is that when I connected my iPod, iTunes said that the iPod had been registered to a different iTunes library and asked me if I wanted to update all of songs on the iPod to reflect the new library (I'm paraphrasing, of course). I decided to hold off on this step until I have more time, but I think it will be ok to say yes to this option. It will probably take the time to overwrite every file on the iPod, but in the end it should look the same as it did before the library move.

Anyone have experience with this part?
 

Dragon27

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I had a bunch of trouble copying my music over to my external hard drive, and I wish I'd looked it up here now, as I've lost all my playcounts and ratings and whatnot. What I do want to do though, is make iTunes keep its folder on my external drive, as I have no use for a My Music folder in My documents (I'm very organised when it comes to My documents :p). Someone mentioned using TweakUI to force iTunes to puts its folder on the external drive, but could you please go into detail on how I go about doing that?
 

vickyp

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badger98 said:
I tried Schmolle's method this morning, and it worked as advertised.
Darn - I tried this method and iTunes just crashed out before I even got as far as it loading up. :( I really thought I'd solved it.

What version of iTunes are you running?

Cheers
Vicky
 

vickyp

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Schmolle said:
The way to do it without having iTunes mangle your folder structure is to empty the itl file, then modify the xml file as per the manual folder / drive changes. Upon startup, all will be corrected. (iTunes 4.6 / WinXP)

See http://www.xs4all.nl/~smulleke/2004/06/10/index.html#post200406101029 for details.
I tried this and iTunes just crashes on me before it even gets started. It really looked like it was going to be the silver bullet for me but it didn't work. :( I am running version 4.7.1 on Windows XP.

Any thoughts? This idea sounds like it should work.

Cheers
Vicky
 

badger98

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vickyp,

Did you make sure to leave the .itl and .xml files in their original locations on your original hard drive? You can move everything else, but those files need to stay where they were when you installed iTunes (for me it was in the My Music/iTunes folder).
 

Chubasco

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Schmolle said:
The way to do it without having iTunes mangle your folder structure is to empty the itl file, then modify the xml file as per the manual folder / drive changes. Upon startup, all will be corrected. (iTunes 4.6 / WinXP)

See http://www.xs4all.nl/~smulleke/2004/06/10/index.html#post200406101029 for details.
I've also been unsuccessful in moving my library to an external harddrive and am about to give up all hope. Unfortunately, the suggestion referenced above does not work for me. iTunes simply crashes upon launch. Sometimes it will rebuild the library if I make only slight (1 or 2) modifications to the XML file, but even then it completely disregards my changes and points to the files in my original location.

A bit more information about my problem:
1. Using an external USB 2.0 drive.
2. Using iTunes version 4.7.0.42
3. The only change I'm making to the XML file is an auto-replace of the "C":/<foldername>" drive reference to "E:/<foldername>" for the song records.
4. Editing the XML using textpad and / or notepad
5. Have the exact same files stored in the exact same structure on my external drive.
6. Windows XP Pro SP1
7. The only information I really care about is the "Disabled" key (unchecked songs that I don't want auto-synching with my iPod).

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
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