Add Music To Itunes Library From External Drive Mac
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By Malcolm Owen
Monday, March 05, 2018, 10:51 am PT (01:51 pm ET)
Aug 29, 2019 iTunes and external hard drives- both these storage media are regarded as high-tech options to manage data these days. You may have several reasons to transfer your mobile data from one device to the other or to transfer music from external hard drive to iTunes.You can use an external hard drive to manage your songs with full control over the storage medium. Nov 10, 2019 How to Connect the External Hard Drive on iTunes. Hold down Option or Shift when you launch iTunes. Select the iTunes library on the external drive. Next, go to File Library Organize Library. In the window that pops up, make sure the box next to Consolidate files is clicked. Go ahead and quit iTunes at this point and connect your external hard drive. Now navigate to the iTunes Music folder on your computer. For Mac users, open Finder and click on Music in the left-hand list of shortcuts. In Windows, go to the location listed in the Advanced tab, which should be C:UsersUserNameMusic. To locate the Music folder on your Mac, locate the Home option in the Finder menu, then double-click the Music folder. Within the Music folder, you'll find the iTunes folder, which you'll want to. Step 11: Connect an external drive to your Mac and wait until it pops up on the desktop. Step 12: Drag the iTunes folder from your Mac and drop it on the external drive on the desktop. Now’s the right time to fix yourself a cup of coffee because copying a multi-gigabyte iTunes library is going to take a while.
Well, having different iTunes Libraries can also cause you a lot of headaches. Let’s take a look at some of those.If you’re using iTunes on your Mac, and have more than one iTunes library, you will just be directed to the last used library if you do not keep pressing the Option button on your computer.All your iTunes libraries are by default signed into the iTunes account that was last used. So, in order to be sure that every person is using his/her own iTunes account when using their library, you should always remember that you have to sign out after using iTunes.Even though you will have multiple iTunes libraries by following these steps, the parental control settings are the same for all your libraries on your computer, and you’re not allowed to have different settings for different libraries. Create new itunes library mac. Best iTunes Library Cleanup Tool - iMusicIf you have multiple libraries, or even a single library, you will most likely face the problem of having a cluttered library, which might contain duplicate songs, absence of covers, and wrong and missing tags. So why do more people not know of this option?
Mar 18, 2020 Step 3: Select your external hard drive Choose the music or music folder Click on Open. Note: If you cannot find Add to Library option, you can go to Preferences Advanced Select Keep iTunes Media Folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.
A user's music and video collection can be one of the largest consumers of hard drive space on a Mac, and is typically overlooked in favor of other items when it comes time to free up drive space. This guide explains how to shift where iTunes stores all of the content to an external drive.Users looking for ways to reduce the amount of things they store on their Mac usually steer clear of doing anything to iTunes and their precious music collection. Even at a time when there are many popular streaming services available to use, deleting these files is not viewed as an option, making iTunes itself an obstacle for salvaging a Mac's drive.
Moving iTunes to an external drive is one compromise, one which still keeps the music available, but off the primary storage drive completely. Though daunting to users, possibly due to the sentimentality associated with music collection, moving an iTunes Library is a relatively simple procedure that is also quite safe to perform.
Before the move
Transferring gigabytes of files between drives can take a considerable amount of time, with that length depending on a number of different variables.
First, make sure to select an external drive with a fast transfer speed, typically one that connects over USB 3.0, USB-C, or Thunderbolt. Using an older technology, such as USB 2.0, can severely prolong the amount of time it takes, purely from its slower transfer rates.
Once you have your selected drive installed, make sure it has enough storage capacity to hold your library, and for future expansion. Right click the desktop icon for the external drive and select Get Info, and make sure the Available listing has enough to cover the library's size.
The size of the iTunes library also dictates the length of the transfer, so it may be worth doing a little pruning beforehand. For example, check your podcasts to see if there are old and listened-to episodes that can be safely deleted.
If you are running iTunes 12.7 or later, there may be an archive of apps that are no longer usable within iTunes, that you may wish to remove. If you do, this AppleInsider guide will tell you how.
While it may be tempting to reuse an external drive already used for Time Machine backups, it is recommended to use a different drive completely. Backups are meant to be separately stored from the data it is duplicating, and keeping some of that data on the same drive as a backup effectively defeats the object of the exercise.
Now would also be a good time to make an up-to-date backup of your Mac before transferring any files.
Moving the library
We first need to collect together all of the content iTunes manages into one folder before making the move. Open iTunes, click File in the Menu Bar, then Library, then Organize Library.
Make sure the Consolidate Files checkbox is ticked, then select OK. Wait for iTunes to complete its consolidation before continuing.
Check the path for the folder within iTunes by going to Preferences within the iTunes Menu bar and selecting Advanced in the new window. The iTunes Media folder location section at the top details where the file collection is located.
Close iTunes, then bring up a Finder window and navigate to the iTunes folder.
If the external drive you wish to move it to is already empty, click and drag the iTunes folder from the Finder window directly onto the icon for the external drive. Alternatively, copy the iTunes folder, navigate to the place in the external drive you want to use to store iTunes in a separate Finder window, then paste.
At this point, the iTunes folder will be copied over to the external storage.
Depending on the bandwidth of the connection, the size of the iTunes folder, and if the Mac or the drive are being accessed by other tasks, this could take a long time to complete. For extremely large collections, or if the Mac needs to be used during the day, it is recommended to wait for a period of time when the Mac is left alone, as it can take multiple hours to move to its new home.
Once the transfer has completed, iTunes needs to be told where to find the files.
Hold the Option key and open iTunes. This will bring up a Choose iTunes Library window with three options. Select Choose Library on the far right.
In the next window, navigate to the external drive and enter the iTunes folder. Find and select the iTunes Library file, and click Open.
At this point, iTunes will open up from the new location, and will be accessing files from the external storage instead of the Mac's storage. If you are unsure, you can check the path again by going to Preferences in the iTunes Menu Bar, selecting Advanced, and reading the iTunes Media folder location.
If you wish, you can close iTunes and disconnect the external drive. To reuse that iTunes library, you will need to reconnect the drive to the Mac before opening iTunes again, else it will offer a 'Library cannot be found' error.
Saving space
Once the iTunes library is confirmed to be working on the external drive, and possibly backed up too, you now have the option of deleting the initial iTunes library from the Mac to save space. Navigate to the original iTunes folder, and either drag it to the Trash or right-click
Add Music To Itunes Library From External Drive Mac Free
the folder and select Move to Trash.To fully reclaim the storage after this, either enter the Trash and select