Here is the usual way to get iTunes to work from an external HD.
- Transferring Itunes Library From External Hard Drive To New Computer
- Move Itunes Library From External Hard Drive To New Computer
- Moving Itunes Library From External Hard Drive To New Computer
Jun 03, 2016 Another option if your iTunes library is too big is to copy everything to an external drive. To perform this, you'll first want to enable 'External disks' and 'Hard disks' in your Mac's. If the users have external hard drives which have enough storage space to copy the iTunes library, they can transfer iTunes library to new computer much easier. However, the iTunes library on the old computer cannot be accessed, and the users only have the contents in their iOS devices, they will need to use a piece of iPhone transfer software.
On your computer's iTunes, go to Preferences / Advanced / and for 'iTunes Media folder location' set it to Users/Home folder/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media. Check the boxes for Keep iTunes Media folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder. Back up your computer on Time Machine or in some other way. Quit iTunes
Now you can move the entire iTunes folder from your Home folder / Music to the external hard disk.
With the external HD connected, restart iTunes while holding down the Option key. You will get options to Create a library or Choose a library. Go for Choose a library and in Finder navigate to the iTunes folder on the external HD. Select that and iTunes should open with all your music there.
Aug 1, 2017 5:44 PM
Why Need to Move iTunes Library to External Hard Drive?
Your iTunes library, a database that's made up of all of the music and other media that you collect for years and add to iTunes. If something goes wrong with the library, all the information that you have saved in it may be destroyed instantaneously, lost forever. In order to avoid that kind of mishap, you should keep a backup copy of your iTunes library on any external hard drive.
Or you found that your Mac's hard drive is getting full, and iTunes library is taking up too much space, then you can move your iTunes library to an external hard drive to free up space. Here we introduce two methods to help you transfer your iTunes library to an external hard drive.
Method One: Regular Way to Back Up iTunes Library to External Hard Drive
Step 1: Launch iTunes, click the menu bar “File” at the top of your computer screen or at the top of the iTunes window, then hover your cursor over “Library” in the dropdown menu, and select “Organize Library” from the secondary menu.
Step 2: Tick the box for “Consolidate Files” in the window that appears and click “OK”.
Transferring Itunes Library From External Hard Drive To New Computer
Step 3: Quit iTunes and connect your external hard drive to your computer using a USB cable.
Step 4: Find your iTunes folder. By default, your iTunes Media folder is in your iTunes folder:
- Mac: Finder > username > Music
- Windows 7 or later: UsersusernameMusic
Step 5: Drag the iTunes folder from its location to an external drive. Your library and media files copy to the hard drive.
Method Two: Best Way to Save Your iTunes Library to External Hard Drive
Move Itunes Library From External Hard Drive To New Computer
To move iTunes Library to External Hard Drive without any data lost, NoteBurner iTunes Audio Converter is the best tool to complete this task. And it supports to record Apple Music files, iTunes M4P music and audiobooks, and convert them to MP3, WAV, FLAC, AIFF, and AAC format at 10X faster speed with all ID3 tags and metadata saved. Then you can easily move them to an external hard drive and stream on any devices as you want, such as Android tablets, portable MP3 player.
Moving Itunes Library From External Hard Drive To New Computer
The following part is a detailed tutorial about how to save iTunes Library to an external hard drive, please download and install NoteBurner iTunes Audio Converter on your Mac or Windows computer first before getting started.