Advice on moving itunes music and media folder

Palladio

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I've always been very happy with iTunes with over 270gb of music on C:\Users\Palladio\Music on my PC HDD and another 100gb of films stored on an external drive.
All the music is stored and managed manually and then I use 'add folder or file' to import it into iTunes. Exception being anything I buy on iTunes. The Films I rip and then use Handbrake. These are stored on the external HDD and I drag and drop them into iTunes. There are obviously quite a few Apps for the iPhone, iPad etc. as well. (Not sure where these are stored to be honest :confused:)

'Keep iTunes media folder organised' and 'copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library' in the advanced tab are both unchecked.

I will shortly be running out of room for my music folder on 'C' and want to move it to one of the external HDD.

I've done a bit of Googling for this and I'm starting to get a wee bit concerned it will not be as easy as I thought.

Can some of you bright soles out there give me some advice as to the best and easiest way of achieving this. It can't really be that difficult can it......

I do monthly Windows PC backups and also a bi-monthly backup of all the music onto another external HDD which I store elsewhere. I do get a bit paranoid about all the hard work I put into tagging and artwork etc on the music files over the years and don't want to lose any of it. Plus of course the syncing with the various iPods, iphone,iPad and ATV. :rolleyes:

(PC with Vista and various external HDD. iTunes 10, iPhone, Apple TV, iPad, iPod and two iPod touches.)
 
You'd be better asking this in a PC forum, but I recall there is article in Apple's knowledge base describing how to do this.

On the Mac (and iTunes is common to both) it is a very straightforward process, but you will have to consolidate your library for the move. Here's a few entries from Google
 
The very simple way is to copy the actual files from the C location to the location you want on your external HDD. Then go into iTunes, wipe the library out. Then just simply do the "add folder" and choose the location on your ext hdd as the folder to add. Everything you had in your library before will be readded. All you're doing is changing the file paths for each item in the library. If all the tags and folder structure are correct, as you say, then you shouldn't have a problem.

After that, in FILE > PREFERENCES, you can change the default iTunes media folder from the C location to the ext hdd location.
 
Thanks guys. Yes, it was a bit of a toss up between the Windows forum and this one but decided in the end there was more itunes experience here, but happy for the Mods to move it if they think it will help.

Matt_C, Excellent, that sounds like just the answer I'm looking for and is probably something I should have thought of myself :facepalm: but the Googling caused confusion and that solution never came up :confused: .

When you say 'wipe the library out' I assume you mean highlight all the tracks and delete from itunes and then on the second prompt delete form PC ?
 
The way I've done it recently...

1. Make sure iTunes is handling organisation as above, you've consolidated it etc so you know everything is in one place.
2. Copy folder to new location.
3. Rename old library directory so you still have it as a backup until you're happy.
4. Start iTunes while holding down the shift key. Then browse to your new library location and select the iTunes library file.
5. iTunes will then import the library and all files.
6. Re-check new path, consolidation options etc to make sure everything is where it should be for now and ongoing.

I've found this way to be more reliable than just copying the directory and then updating the path in iTunes which I used to find would sometimes lose some of the tagged information. Not sure why and maybe its been fixed in recent versions, but that's just my tuppence.

Main thing is don't get rid of the existing library directory until you're 100% happy everything has copied over.
 
Ascender, another good option and good to keep all one as backup till happy all is OK.
I've see the options for conslidate and upgrade to iTunes Media organisation in the Library option but can't really get me head round what they do. Both options unchecked at the moment and I'm quite happy with the way itunes is working. What effect will it have on checking these options and will I notice any difference in the use or operation of itunes ?
 
The upshot of enabling them is that all the content for iTunes will be under the one iTunes Media directory which I guess might make things easier when moving it, backing it up etc as you know where everything is stored. Its not a big thing, if you're happy with things just leave it, but I found once my library started to get big, it was very useful to know that everything was being kept in the one place.
 
After some more research it seems that consolidate will create a new itunes library folder with all the music in one folder in addition to all the original music in my Music folder. With 270 gigs worth of music this would be quite some overhead so I think I'll skip that.
 
Yes, just highlight all in iTunes, then hit delete. For the next prompt, asking to delete or keep files, I always press "keep". It doesn't really matter, but a) it's just being on the safe side, and 2) it should technically be quicker, as it's just wiping the library and not trying to locate and delete files...

As for losing any tag information - it shouldn't do. I've just done it with two libraries and didn't lose any tag info with either. Since iTunes takes care of the files once they are in the library, all the tag info and album art was present and correct when I reloaded them into iTunes after purging the library(s)

I would still keep "add files to my iTunes Music folder when adding to library" (or whatever the option is) unticked, so that when you add the new folder to populate the library, it isn't copying all that music back to your C: drive again
 
Thanks Matt, Certainly learnt a bit more about iTunes today, some really helpful information. Just need to tidy up my external drives first and then defrag them and then get on with moving the music folder over. :smashin:
 

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