How To Move My Itunes Library From Windows To Mac

May 07, 2019  Take a look to learn about the best ways to transfer your iTunes library and what you need. Make sure you choose the option that says From a Windows PC. Step 3: Migrate on your old Mac. There are a few ways to transfer your iTunes library from one computer to another: When you get a new Mac, use Setup Assistant (or Migration Assistant, if you’re switching from Windows) to move files—including your iTunes files—from your old computer to the new one. See the Apple Support article Back up and restore your iTunes Library. Sep 24, 2019  If you're moving your library to an external drive, make sure it's plugged into your Mac and turned on. Return to the Advanced preferences in iTunes and click the Change button next to iTunes Media folder location. Nov 27, 2013  - Do not copy the library to your desktop (within the mac) - Rather pull the iTunes folder from the External Drive Directly onto the Music folder on your Mac - Choose 'Replace' button for all files when it is ready to copy. This worked for me to migrate all playlists, ratings, tracks, and the rest of the library.

FonePaw - Solution - Transfer - Move iTunes Library to External Hard Drive

Updated on Thursday, June 27, 2019.

If you have hundreds upon hundreds of songs in your iTunes library, plus videos, podcasts, movies, and TV shows you've downloaded to iTunes, you can run out of the storage space on your computer. To regain some room to breath, you may decide to move (or just back up) iTunes library to an external hard drive. But how can you do that?

There are two different intentions for people who ask to move iTunes Library to external drive. Some of them want to move the intact iTunes Library to external drive in order to free up space on computer or make a backup, while others just want to move some iTunes media files (music and movies for example) to an external hard drive so that they can connect the drive to another computer to enjoy the songs or movies.

Whatever your intention is, you can find the suitable way on this article.



Don't Miss:How to Transfer iTunes Library to New Computer

How to Move/Backup whole iTunes Library to External Drive

Step 1. Connect the external storage device to your PC or Mac.

Connect the external drive to your PC and give it time to load up before it shows up on your computer.


Step 2. Find iTunes Library Folder

To locate the iTunes folder on your Mac, choose Go > Home > Music > iTunes in the Finder menu.

To locate the iTunes folder on Windows, go here:

• Windows XP: Documents and SettingsusernameMy DocumentsMy Music

• Windows Vista: UsersusernameMy Music

• Windows 10/8/7: UsersusernameMusic


Step 3. Go to iTunes Advanced Settings

When you next open Photos, you should be able to use your Photos library as it was when last backed up. .If the Photos app on your Mac is open, choose Photos Quit Photos.Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and choose Enter Time Machine, or choose the Apple menu System Preferences, then click Time Machine.Time Machine opens and shows your available backups.Click the date of your last backup, navigate to the backup of your photo library, then click to select it.Click Restore.Depending on the size of your library, it may take some time for your library to be restored. Restore library mac

Open iTunes > Preferences (Mac) or Edit > Preferences (Windows). Then, select the 'Advanced' tab in the iTunes Preferences window. Next, check the 'Keep iTunes Media folder organized' and 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library' boxes. Then, click 'OK' and close the Preferences window.


Step 4. Consolidate your iTunes Library

You're recommended to consolidate your library before moving the iTunes folder to external storage because consolidation ensures everything in your library is stored in one place.

To consolidate your media:

1.Open iTunes and choose File > Library > Organize Library in the menus

2.Select 'Consolidate files.'


Step 5. Move/Backup iTunes Library to External Hard Drive

1.Quit iTunes and open the iTunes Folder on your computer.

2.Drag the iTunes folder from your computer (Mac or Windows) and drop it on the external drive. All files in iTunes Folder will be copied to the external drive. The process could take a while depending on how large your collection is.

3.Now that your collection is safely stored in the external hard drive (or another location that you chose), you can delete (some of) the files at the old location to free up some space in your hard drive.


Note:

An important thing to note here is that you’ll need to connect the external media every time you open iTunes for if not, the media files aren't going to show up. If you open iTunes without your external hard drive connected, iTunes will give you an error message saying the 'Library cannot be found.' Quit iTunes, connect the external hard drive and reopen iTunes to fix.

Tips: How to Move iTunes Music/Movies to External Hard Drive for Playback

To selectively move music, playlists, movies, ringtones, and more from the iTunes Library to an external hard drive, we need the tool called FonePaw iOS Transfer. As an iOS file manager, this tool can easily export all media files, including songs, movies, TV shows, ringtones, podcasts, etc. from the iTunes Library on PC and Mac to an external hard drive. Conversely, it can restore iTunes library by transferring music, movies, playlists and more from iPhone to iTunes.

Let's see how to move the media files from iTunes library to external drive. Please download the program on your computer first.

DownloadDownload

Step 1. Connect your iOS Device and External Hard Drive to PC

After running the program on your computer, connect your iPhone/iPad/iPod and the external drive to the computer.


Step 2. Transfer iTunes Library to External Drive

If you have a Windows machine to hand, you can use the same trick as above to get the images and videos downloaded. Then, instead of running the Photos app on macOS, use iTunes and your iDevice, or just iCloud on the web, to get everything up to the iCloud Photo Library. If you are a Mac or iOS user, all your photos are stored in an iPhoto Library. If you want to move or migrate iPhoto Library to Google Photos, then first download and install 'Google Photos Backup' desktop application on your Mac. Once you have installed 'Google Photos Backup', it will check the iPhoto Library option by default. Now click 'Start backup' button to migrate iPhoto Library to Google Photos. Upload macbook photos to google photos. And you should be aware that the upload to Google Photos is not synced, but a one time happening. And you only will get a 150 GB timeline which is hard to cope with. But if you had any organisation in folders, they can be found in the computersection of Google Drive: there is the real synced backup. Mar 05, 2019  If you have multiple Photos libraries on your Mac, first make sure that you designate a System Photo Library. You can only upload items from your System Photo Library. Then follow these steps: Click the website's upload button. It might say something like Upload, Add, Select, Browse, or Share. A Finder dialog appears.

Mac

When your device is detected, you have two steps to copy iTunes music to the external HD.

Step 1: Click 'iTunes Library' in the bottom of the program. The program will load Music, Movies, Music Videos, Ringtones, Voice Memos, etc. on your device. Sync all these files to your device. When it finished, you can move the items from device to PC.

Move


How To Move Itunes Library

Step 2: If you want to move specific music or movie to external drive, you can click certain category, like 'Music' or 'Videos' in left panel. Here, you can see Music, Movie, Ringtones, TV Shows, Podcast and more. No matter which item you want to move to the flash drive and play it on any computer, just choose the item and click 'Export to PC' and select the external HD as the destination folder.


Move Itunes Library Windows 10

Have this article helped you transfer iTunes library files to external hard drive? If you have any problem, just leave your comments below.

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Move Itunes Library To External Drive

iOS Transfer is customized to transfer data among your iPhone/iPad/iPod, computer and iTunes in a simple but effective way.

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