Hi,

There's two ways of approaching this.

First is to leave the media where it is and let iTunes simply mark where 
everything is in its Library Database file.  In theory, this could be 
accomplished by first going to iTunes Prefs in the Advanced pane and unchecking 
the box that tells iTunes to Copy items to the iTunes Media folder.  Next, you 
would go under the File menu and choose "Add to Library" (cmd-o), navigate to 
the external HD where all your media is, then pressing the Open button on the 
parent directory of all the media on that drive.  The only issue with this 
method is that I seem to recall that iTunes does not always pay attention to 
that preference when your importing from external HDs.  If it works as this 
plan suggests though, you'd have everything accessible to iTunes and all your 
devices with only the Database file residing on the Mac's internal HD.

In the second option, you'll need to create either a new iTunes Library on that 
external HD or move your existing iTunes folder over to that external HD.  In 
this case, when you add the media to iTunes, it will copy everything into the 
iTunes folder and place them all into the proper locations that iTunes needs in 
order to work properly and properly share with the Apple TV and other iDevices. 
 This is the method that I use myself.  The only problem could be that iTunes 
will try to copy all your media into the new iTunes media location.  If you 
have enough space on your external HD to handle multiple copies of the media 
during this Library creation process, then you'll be OK.  If you do not, you 
will need to be creative with where you put media prior to this process so that 
only one copy of the files are on your external HD.  I did this myself by 
making sure that the drive was first empty then created an iTunes Library 
folder onto it. I then spent time placing portions of my media on other drives, 
essentially dividing it up prior to iTunes building the Library.  Then when I 
added the media to iTunes, it copied items to the new iTunes Library location 
and placed everything where iTunes needed it to be.  I did have the advantage 
of having 10 TB of HD space to play with so moving things around was possible.

Hope that this sort of makes sense, it does to me but I'm the writer so that's 
expected.  Good luck.

Later...

Tim Kilburn
Fort McMurray, AB Canada

On 2012-12-08, at 3:37 PM, Kliphton <kliph...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Okay.  I have over 3TB of media.  Of course I don’t have that much space on 
> my mac.  But how do I tell iTunes to point to this location so it will play 
> this media from my apple TV and when I want to add stuff to my iPhone, iPad, 
> or iPod?  I looked at the iTunes folder, and I see that it has a media 
> folder.  Do I move this folder to the drive destination, and then put the 
> media in here separated by music and videos?  Thanks in advance!
>  
> Kliphton Senior
> (Email&iMessage) kliph...@gmail.com
> (Twitter&Skype) kliphton72
> (Personal blog-read at your own risk!) http://kliphskorner.wordpress.com
> (Life Journal) kliphton.wordpress.com
> (face book) http://facebook.com/kliphandsharrie
>  
>  
> 
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