iTunes library

synecdoche · 01-06-2006, 12:00 PM

Currently, I have my iTunes library stored on hard drive A. I have a duplicate of the library on hard drive B. I want to tell iTunes to start looking for all the music on B instead of A. Is there an easy way to do this, while maintaining all the metadata on each song (play counts, ratings, etc)?

I thought consolidating the library would do it, but apparently that only copies the files over without which is not what I want to do, as they are already moved.

hayne · 01-06-2006, 03:22 PM

Look on the main macosxhints site - I think there have been several articles there about moving your iTunes library to a different drive.

styrafome · 01-06-2006, 04:04 PM

The play counts, ratings etc. are stored in the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files inside your iTunes Music folder. If your B really is a duplicate of A, meaning it is a duplicate of the entire folder including up-to-date copies of the Library files, you can just point iTunes at it, using iTunes Music Folder Location in your iTunes Prefs (Advanced), and it should appear just as it did before.

synecdoche · 01-06-2006, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by styrafome


	The play counts, ratings etc. are stored in the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files inside your iTunes Music folder. If your B really is a duplicate of A, meaning it is a duplicate of the entire folder including up-to-date copies of the Library files, you can just point iTunes at it, using iTunes Music Folder Location in your iTunes Prefs (Advanced), and it should appear just as it did before.

I have pointed the iTunes Folder Location to the new folder in the preferences, but iTunes is still looking for the individual song files on the old drive. Note that I do not let iTunes organize my music files, if that makes a difference.

Basically the way it is now is all of my music is in both locations. In the preferences, iTunes knows that I want to use drive B as my music folder. However, it also remembers that the MP3 files I use are stored on drive A, and so looks there. All I really want to do is tell iTunes to stop looking for any of those files in the folder /MP3/ on the one drive, and instead grab them from folder /Music/ on the new one.

Right now, if I add new music, it goes to the right place, but if I want to play any of the older stuff, it looks in the old drive. Furthermore, there is no xml file that I can see in the original folder. Or did you mean that it should be in the /user/Documents/Music/iTunes folder? Could I simply do a find/replace of this file, finding all references to the previous drive and replacing them with the new one?

styrafome · 01-06-2006, 09:10 PM

I might have given incomplete advice. I realize now that I have only used this advice to successfully move the entire library to a different computer and have iTunes on that computer see everything the way it was on the original computer. I have not done what you are trying to do, which is to have the same computer see the library on a different drive. Maybe there's a gotcha there that I have never run into.

01-06-2006, 12:00 PM	#1
synecdoche Prospect Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 41	iTunes library Currently, I have my iTunes library stored on hard drive A. I have a duplicate of the library on hard drive B. I want to tell iTunes to start looking for all the music on B instead of A. Is there an easy way to do this, while maintaining all the metadata on each song (play counts, ratings, etc)? I thought consolidating the library would do it, but apparently that only copies the files over without which is not what I want to do, as they are already moved.

01-06-2006, 03:22 PM	#2
hayne Site Admin Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Montreal Posts: 31,941	Look on the main macosxhints site - I think there have been several articles there about moving your iTunes library to a different drive. __________________ hayne.net/macosx.html

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01-06-2006, 04:04 PM	#3
styrafome Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 3,818	The play counts, ratings etc. are stored in the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files inside your iTunes Music folder. If your B really is a duplicate of A, meaning it is a duplicate of the entire folder including up-to-date copies of the Library files, you can just point iTunes at it, using iTunes Music Folder Location in your iTunes Prefs (Advanced), and it should appear just as it did before.

01-06-2006, 09:10 PM	#5
styrafome Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 3,818	I might have given incomplete advice. I realize now that I have only used this advice to successfully move the entire library to a different computer and have iTunes on that computer see everything the way it was on the original computer. I have not done what you are trying to do, which is to have the same computer see the library on a different drive. Maybe there's a gotcha there that I have never run into.