I'm pasting in instructions for moving your iTunes Media folder; as I recall, I got them from iLounge or Apple; I know that when I wanted to change from iTunes Music to iTunes Media a long time ago there was a detailed iLounge article that I read. . These instructions don't talk about moving the library files themselves; in fact, the library data files are left in their original place. But I used these instructions just a few months ago with somebody and they worked fine so maybe you will find them helpful. Just remember that if you have terabytes of media files, it could take iTunes a while to load and you could get some of those wonderful "busy" signals. This was written with itunes 9 mostly in mind but I helped somebody use them with iTunes; haven't check to make sure instructions are still the same for iTunes 11.
Open iTunes. >From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences. Click the Advanced button in the Preferences window. Click the Change button in the iTunes Media folder location pane. In the Change Media Folder Location window that appears, navigate to the location where you would like your new iTunes Media folder to be created. Note: By default, your iTunes Media folder is a folder named "iTunes Media" in ~/Music/iTunes/ where the tilde "~" represents your home directory. Click the New Folder button in the Change Media Folder Location window. In the New Folder window that appears, enter the name of the new iTunes Media folder. Click Create. Click Open in the Change Media Folder Location window. Click OK in the Advanced window. >From the File menu, choose Library and then Organize Library if using iTunes >9. If you're using iTunes 7 or iTunes 8 for Mac, choose File > Library and >then Consolidate Library. In the Organize Library (or Consolidate Library) window, select Consolidate files. Click OK. A message appears that says: "Consolidating your library will copy all of your music into the iTunes Media folder. This cannot be undone." Click Consolidate. Important: This action copies all of your music and media files to the new location. There must be enough hard disk space available to copy all of your music and media files. After the folder has been copied, locate your original iTunes Media folder, and drag it to the Trash or Recycle Bin. Note: Don't remove the iTunes library files that may be in the same location as the iTunes Media folder. -- Cheryl May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm 19:14 HCSB) On Dec 8, 2012, at 8:27 PM, Kliphton <kliph...@gmail.com> wrote: > Wow, 10TB? How many drives was that? I want to go about this the second > way, I just want to make sure I put the media there properly. So do I move > the library and then drop the media in there? Or do I just delete the > directory, redirect the source, and let iTunes do the rest? Thanks for your > informative answer. My main point for doing this is so my iTunes library is > ready when my apple TV arrives. This is the only device missing from my > Apple collection. > > From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com > [mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] On Behalf OfTim Kilburn > Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2012 7:40 PM > To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com > Subject: Re: iTunes Library location? > > 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 > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email tomacvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email > tomacvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email tomacvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email > tomacvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email > tomacvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group > athttp://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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