Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Multimedia, How-tos, Tips and tricks, iTunes
How to move your iTunes library (more safely than I did)
I should say, even before I start this post, that I've moved my iTunes library from one installation of iTunes to another, and what I did was just copy everything in the /Music/iTunes folder from one Mac to the other. But that's the transfer equivalent of parallel parking a semi and stopping when it "feels right" -- it worked for me, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone else. I also have almost no iTunes purchased music in my library, and that's likely not the case for anyone else.Fortunately, for people who don't enjoy playing Russian Roulette with their iTunes library transfers (and don't want to buy the software for it), here's a quick and easy guide to how to transfer everything over properly, and make sure that all the little hooks and crannies line up correctly in the new installation -- specifically, iTunes keeps an XML file that tracks where everything is, and you've got to change paths (using a quick find and replace) on all the tracks in your library. iTunes will then use that XML file to backup its own records, and then you're hunky dory.
What I can't find, according to this guide, is what damage I may have caused to my system by just hauling everything in and starting up iTunes -- I checked the Location key on both my new Mac and the old one, and the Locations are completely different, without me ever changing them. Either way, even though I throw around my libraries with abandon (look Ma, no backup!), you'd probably much rather be safe than sorry.
Thanks, Robert!
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Chris Watson said 7:21PM on 8-06-2008
That seems like a lot of unnecessary work. I've moved numerous (upwards of 25) iTunes libraries from one machine to another, from a computer to an external drive, etc and I've done it in a quicker fashion.
1- Copy the whole iTunes folder (which contains the mentioned XML file as well as the actual music files) to the new destination.
2- Open iTunes while holding down the OPTION key (I think "alt" in Windows).
3- iTunes should prompt you to either create a library or choose a library. Select choose a library and browse through the following window to the iTunes folder that you just moved/created in the new location and choose OK.
I've used those 3 steps about once a week or so (at least!) for the past 6 months and haven't had a single issue. Older versions of iTunes were a little trickier but still not terribly involved.
Hope that helps!
Reply
Trent said 9:42PM on 8-06-2008
I did something similar to Chris' solution. I have my iTunes directory on an external 1TB Firewire drive. I had said drive hooked up to my MacPro, so none of my music actually resided on my computer. When I got a Mac Mini I hooked it up to the drive, and just chose that firewire drive as the directory for my iTunes library.
Chris Watson said 12:41AM on 8-07-2008
Thats actually very similar to our music library at our house. I moved my big library to our 500GB Time Capsule and then migrated our two other (laptop) libraries to it. Now all of the machines point to that one drive, actually works very well and was simple to do.
Kevin Ashworth said 8:22AM on 8-09-2008
Thanks, Chris. Simple, perfect solution in comment No. 1. Nice!
RD said 7:28PM on 8-06-2008
How about for Windows users?
Reply
John Coxon said 8:17PM on 8-06-2008
See comment #1, but I think you actually have to hold Shift, not Alt... I can't remember, it's been about eighteen months since I did it on my old Windows machine.
TEG said 7:33PM on 8-06-2008
I always copy stuff enmasse, mainly because the Hard Disks have the same name, as I'm usually just backing up on an external drive, then moving back once I've finished reinstalling, then I just open iTunes, and everything is there and works. Although iTunes does try to put every new item under iTunes Music, so I have pull it back to the top level Music folder and have it consolidate, but I've never had a problem in 7 years of transferring libraries, except for that time I zipped everything up to store on a PC, only to have Windows eat the Zip file.
Now if only photo libraries were as easy as iTunes makes music, I'd be all set. I lost a year's worth of digital pictures due to human error. Had it all been in one file with a handy XML to track it, I would have been fine.
TEG
Reply
Chris Watson said 7:59PM on 8-06-2008
Actually iPhoto is the same way. I help a lot of folks free up drive space on laptops by moving their iTunes & iPhoto libraries off the machine to an external drive. The steps for moving iPhoto are:
1- Copy the iPhoto Library folder (or package for iPhoto 08 and up) to the destination drive.
2- Open iPhoto while holding down the OPTION key and it will prompt you to choose or create a library, select "choose" and browse to the library on the new drive. Select it and click OK. From here on out it acts no different than it did when it was on the internal drive with the obvious exception of not being able to work if the external drive is disconnected.
TEG said 12:49AM on 8-07-2008
I don't use iPhoto. It isn't worth it to me.
TEG
tiroger said 7:38PM on 8-06-2008
I've actually done the same, i.e. just copy the entire iTunes folder from my old mac to the new one, restarted iTunes on the new mac... and voilà! Everything seems to be working fine so far.
Reply
Paulo said 8:22PM on 8-06-2008
This is what I do:
Open the iTunes preferences.
Click on Advanced.
Change the iTunes Music Folder Location to whichever directory you want to move your library to.
Close preferences.
Click on the Advanced menu in the menubar.
Click "Consolidate Libary"
Voila
Reply
CS Tuple said 10:58PM on 10-16-2008
There is no consolidate option in the "advanced" drop down menu. I'm running iTunes v8.01.
Any ideas?
Paulo said 1:45AM on 10-17-2008
@CS Tuple
They seemed to have moved it to File>Library.
G said 8:23PM on 8-06-2008
In a past life, I thought I'd realized that the XML file is just generated by iTunes on quitting, based on the actual data in the iTunes Library file. I deleted it and watched it get replaced a few times. Figured it must be for other apps to hook into. Maybe I was dreaming. (Or maybe it was deprecated behavior.)
Reply
paul beard said 8:30PM on 8-06-2008
Whee! Thanks for the traffic by linking to my guide . . .
As for why I didn't mention the tip about holding down the Option key, as noted above, I can only quote the great Dr Johnson, when asked how he could have defined the pastern as the knew of a horse: simple ignorance.
To the other comments, if all you are doing is moving a library from one machine to another without changing the location of the files, those steps are unnecessary. But if you are moving from one disk to another or to a different location on the same disk, you can either use the super-complicated "hold Option" method or my easy to follow guide ;-)
Reply
Darren said 8:47PM on 8-06-2008
To move your music to another location or drive on the same computer you simply change the music folder location in the iTunes prefs. At that point iTunes will go through your library and reconcile the new file paths. The nice thing about that is that it will still use the default iTunes location when possible, if a file exists there. I've done this a number of times.
When I migrated from Windows to OS X way back in '05, I copied everything over then manually edited the XML file to change the paths from F:/Music to /Volumes/LilGuy/Music and that worked fine, but I think it's unnecessary these days.
Reply
Basye said 9:25PM on 8-06-2008
Is there a way to only relocate the movies files while keeping the music files on the main drive? I've moved the entire library on a number of occasions (as others have done above), but not just the movie files.
Reply
Kellsworth said 10:04PM on 8-06-2008
Where was this guide 3 days ago? I just had so many problems with this. Mainly because my library is is 350 gb+, and most are movies and tv shows that i've taken the time to tag as tv shows, season and episode numbers, etc.
I could NOT get it to retain this information, it kept throwing everything back into the movies folder. I ended up with duplicate files, missing tracks... it was a mess.
There's a ton of guides out there, and they all say different things, like the consolidate library feature and the method above. I still don't even know which way is the best method - i finally got fed up and just re-tagged all my tv shows! Let that be a lesson to the rest of you - do it right the first time.
Reply
Brandon said 10:08PM on 8-06-2008
I really think Apple should make an application to help when moving to a new computer even if it's not a mac.
My website is; http://www.fuse-it.ca
Reply
Ryan said 10:37PM on 8-06-2008
What a timely thread - finally replacing my ancient G4 with an iMac!
Reply