In this tutorial, we show you how to move your entire iTunes library to an external hard drive. This can be useful if your iTunes library is getting large and you don’t want it on your internal hard drive. Please note that for this to work, you need an external hard drive at least the size of you iTunes library. Also, before you begin transferring, I recommend doing some “clean-up” so you don’t transfer unneeded items.

Windows:

Step 1: Plug in the external hard drive and make sure it is recognized by your computer.

Step 2: Select “Edit” in the iTunes menu bar and then click on “Preferences”

Step 3: Click on the “Advanced” tab and select the “Change” button under the section that says “iTunes Music folder location”. Then, choose a new location under the external hard drive for the iTunes library that you are moving. Before clicking OK, make sure that the check box next to, “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” is CHECKED. This tells iTunes to copy all new content to the external location and not the internal location. Click “OK” once you do this.

Step 4: Once you finish with that, head over to the “File” menu and select “Library” and then “Consolidate Library…”. Once you see a progress bar inching slowly across the screen as your files copy over, you know you’re in business. This step could take awhile, so take a walk, read a book, or let iTunes work on the transfer over night (Depends on iTunes library size).

Step 5: At this point, your iTunes library has migrated to its new location on your external hard drive. To check if iTunes is working correctly and getting your media from the external location, open iTunes, select a song, and select Get Info from the File menu. A window will pop up describing all the attributes of your song file, including the location of the file. Make sure that your “Where:” shows the location of your external hard drive.

Remember, iTunes hasn’t deleted your old files, it just copied them to a new location. As long as your external hard drive is connected and powered on, iTunes will remember to grab your library from the new location. If your drive isn’t connected, iTunes will temporarily default to the original location until your drive is connected again.

Step 6 (Optional): To remove your original iTunes files, head over to this directory: C:Documents and Settings”USERNAME”My DocumentsMy MusiciTunesiTunes Music and delete all the contents of it.

Please keep in mind that you can still browse and shop the iTunes Store without your drive connected, but you will not be able to play any type of media until the external drive is reconnected.

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Mac OS X:

Step 1: Plug in the external hard drive and make sure it is recognized by your computer.

Step 2: Select “iTunes” in the iTunes menu bar and then click on “Preferences…”

Step 3: Click on the “Advanced” tab and select the “Change” button under the section that says “iTunes Music folder location”. Then, choose a new location under the external hard drive for the iTunes library that you are moving. Before clicking OK, make sure that the check box next to, “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” is CHECKED. This tells iTunes to copy all new content to the external location and not the internal location. Click “OK” once you do this.

Change Mac

Step 5: At this point, your iTunes library has migrated to its new location on your external hard drive. To check if iTunes is working correctly and getting your media from the external location, open iTunes, select a song, and select Get Info from the File menu. A window will pop up describing all the attributes of your song file, including the location of the file. Make sure that your “Where:” shows the location of your external hard drive.

Remember, iTunes hasn’t deleted your old files, it just copied them to a new location. As long as your external hard drive is connected and powered on, iTunes will remember to grab your library from the new location. If your drive isn’t connected, iTunes will temporarily default to the original location until your drive is connected again.

Step 6 (Optional): To remove your original iTunes files, head over to this directory: ~/Music/iTunes (Where “~” is user name) and delete all the contents of that folder.

Please keep in mind that you can still browse and shop the iTunes Store without your drive connected, but you will not be able to play any type of media until the external drive is reconnected.