Thank you, this helped loads, I do have 2 questions though 1. Once I have moved my library to my external HD, am I then able to remove the iTunes library from the Pc's internal HD 2. Would any future purchases and downloads I make on iTunes be downloaded directly to the HD? Again thanks
This was 10000000000x better than the instructions Apple gives on their website. I followed the apple instructions first and essentially lost everything on iTunes. However, I made a back up beforehand, then went and used this method and it restored everything perfectly. The only thing was I believe on PC you now use "shift" while opening itunes, not "control" to get to the "choose library" part. Thanks so much for this video!
Not enough words to thank you! I was trying to transfer over 8,000 songs from old iPod touch to new Mac book Pro and naively thought it would transfer from iPod to laptop if I hit “sync”. Instead it wiped my iPod touch clean, no music. I physically started screaming. Then realized I had an old Windows 7 computer that still had most of the songs on iTunes there. Used your video to recover my music and all is well now. Just need to figure out how to get them BACK on iPod …….. will look for your video on how to do that. Many many thanks again for saving me 100’s of hours of re loading!!!!
I did the same thing except I didn't back up my phone because I thought it was backed up with icloud and boy was I wrong and I messed around and connected my iphone to the computer with the usb cable and hit Sync! All my music was gone in an instant! Like you, I had an old back up on my external drive that I was able to get some of my music back but what a pain in the neck.
Thanks for this! Took me a while to find the right file to “connect” to iTunes, but I got it. I just freed up 11 GB on my computer. Yes, I listen to a LOT of music, haha.
How do u get that message to pop up at 3:33? I have moved mine over to the HD but when I hold ctrl it does not show that message popping up on Windows. Please help!
@@DustyPorter Thanks for this. My question is: how do you move the itunes library that is on an exteral hard drive to another one to start fresh? My old iTunes hard drive is too old and presents issues. I wish to start afresh. Is there a way to do that? Or do I just drag and copy everything?
Thanks for this. My question is: how do you move the itunes library that is on an exteral hard drive to another one to start fresh? My old iTunes hard drive is too old and presents issues. I wish to start afresh. Is there a way to do that? Or do I just drag and copy everything?
Maybe you already answered this question but I want to make sure before I do something that makes things worse. My phone storage is too large for my computer so I can't back it up on the computer. Is there a way I can have iTunes on an external drive plugged into my computer then plug in my phone and have it back up to my external? Thanks
Dear Dusty,hi this is Declan have had an Apple iPod classic 160gb which I have and am using usb 3 to import CDs on to my Lenovo 512gb SSD labtop but 2 things it is not helping the c drive is choking with all the CDs going in and the labtop is running out of space and thus slightly lagging what are best options to choose like changing location is it to empty c drive and would 1tb or 2tb SSD hard drive external be the answer and my last question is if the iPod classic is filled up to much would it slow it down and possibly corrupt the unit even though it is in perfect condition cheers Declan 👍 best wishes from Ireland 👍👍🙏🙏
Great video! Do you have a video where you can move/copy actual programs ( Adobe Suite, Microsoft Word, AutoCAD, etc, etc.) to an external HD to resinstall later after a OS upgrade? Thanks!
=Like For People To See= I figured it out for Windows, its the "Shift" key. (Also you must click the shortcut first then, immediately after clicking, press and hold Shift.)
Hello and thank you for this very informative video. ONE question. My I tunes library is 250 gigs!!! ONCE transferred can it be deleted on my I MAC? Thank you G
Thank you, this video was one of the easiest to follow I have found. I do have a quick question for you. I want to backup/move all my ITunes from my old desk top (old and I never use it anymore) and then transfer them to my Mac Laptop. Would I be able to do this? I just don't want to lose YEARS worth of music...haha
hi Chap - great video Once i have done this - how do i then delete all the previous itunes library etc from my internal mac harddrive Please guide - thanks
Technologyguru77 So essentially i can delete all references to files/folders and library on the internal HD - as i can boot from the External one - correct?
If I do this then download a new file folder with an album or a playlist onto my laptop then whilst connected to the HD I add the files to my iTunes (by dropping or by adding in the drop-down) will it then be put onto my HD.
Thanks for the instructions. Inquisitive minds might want to know if after this is done should we delete the iTunes library folder off the hard drive to free up space? This is after all the main driver for doing this since mac hard drives are pretty small.
Many Thanks for the easy to understand video...I have previously moved everything by ..copying or " send to "...then delete from original location....which took absolute days due to the fact my library is it TB's...not GB's...I have moved the Itunes media folder to the hard drive also..Can you tell me does the location have to be Itunes media file...or just to the hard drive...I got tired towards the end and just sent to hard drive and changed the path name to the hard drive also.." Rusty8TB "...the itunes media folder is on this hard drive but as I said I ended up just sending to the hard drive and not the media folder....do I now have to move everything to the media folder...now some files play and some don't...
When i move itunes folder to external hard drive can I then delete the itunes folder on my laptop? Or will this get rid of all iTunes? I just want to get rid of all the song media because it's using up all my memory on laptop?
I keep running into the problem is i see my library on the the hard drive it's set up correct but when I select it makes me not only select just music or album but al the other stuff. I only get one. its not one folder. I followed directions to back it up to a T
Thank you for posting this. So can I still use my iTunes normally as I used to when it was on my MAC? As in can I put music on, purchase media and play it on iTunes from the external hard drive? Thanks :)
I'm a beginner, I clicked on C:Users\My Name\My Music\itunes\itunes Media\Music(I opened Music, all of my music was in this folder. I would like to know which one of these do I drag onto my external hard drive. I don't want to drag the wrong folder onto my external drive. Thanks.
I have questions, my mac total HD is 121.12 GB. total used of app, document icloud, mail, music, podcast is arount 50 GB. but the left over available only 8 GB. there is the over 60 GB go? i try to move everything to external HD. but still not enough space.
The music I find in my folder is not the music that's in my itunes library. There's other songs in there that I don't want and it's almost impossible to seperate the ones I want. There is about 4500 songs there and my library has nowhere near that many. What should I do
Does this work on the latest version? 12.5...... I am doing the option and open Itunes and there is no prompt. I tried force closing as well. I followed the steps and my library is on my external hd. But when I go into the songs, the is an ! next to songs and it say it cannot locate the original file. I can play from the external HD but can load from it. I tried changing settings in advanced as well.
Can you open the New Itunes folder (External HD) and therefore open a single file to play a song with out Itunes software? Will it open with say Windows Media Player?
Hi I want to download music to my I tunes but I don't want to use the space on my computer how can I set up to do it automatically to my external drive
Hi, I have all of my music on an external hard drive (nothing is on my iTunes) I want to keep the music on the external HD, but be able to play it through iTunes when the HD is connected. I cannot figure out for the life of me, how to do this. Please help. Thanks. :)
Quik question I follow all the steps but I can't make it work when I push CTRL on Windows and i open itunes it just open like normal but without all my music now my iTunes file it's on my hard drive what can I do now
Hi , can you please help me as I don’t know how to edit or rename my iTunes media folder location. I am using Windows 10 and don’t know how I got the media folder location. My media location at present C:\Users\clive\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media……how do I change it to C:\Users\Clive\Music\iTunes 3\iTunes Media. I am a novice so please help me. Regards Clive.
Ok another one stuck here i did everything this video states and used the Shift key not control when opening up iTunes i tried to choose the itunes folder i copied over to the external hard drive and it keeps going into the itunes folder then into more folders ex itunes music etc etc. not sure what is going on here..
What I ended up doing was selecting the iTunes Library database file. After I did that it worked perfectly, I think for windows when you select open, it is literally just opening the folder that is currently selected in the screen.
It appears that I missing gigs of music! My iTunes is nearly 60G however when I click on the properties of my library on my PC it's telling me there is only 32Gig to copy why is this?
Help, I change the hard drive from C Drive to D Drive Then I close iTunes and re-open and go back into the advanced settings and it’s back to the C Drive.
I moved iTunes library from my computer Windows 11 to external hard drive, exactly how you showed it. I see it on my external hard drive. But why is it still on my computer?
I tried this, but when I designate the external drive iTunes file it says "An iTunes library file could not be found in the folder “iTunes Media”. Please choose a different folder." Any ideas?
thanks helped alot! Update for windows preferences is in Edit tab took me awhile to find lol. also when you reboot your iTunes hold shift not Ctrl click iTunes to reload library! :P
I've done this and it still gives me a message saying "it can't locate the original file".. my media won't play unless i go thru all my files to find the song. It's really annoying
Wow. 9GB is child's play. I've got over 85GB of lossless music. I should REALLY stop procrastinating and just buy myself an external HD. Great video, man.
TheeMidnightMarauder Damn, all you guys are all talking big numbers when it comes to your music storage so I have to wonder how much of that was actually paid for - especially the guy talking about 4.6 TB of music!
Thank you, this helped loads, I do have 2 questions though
1. Once I have moved my library to my external HD, am I then able to remove the iTunes library from the Pc's internal HD
2. Would any future purchases and downloads I make on iTunes be downloaded directly to the HD?
Again thanks
Why can't all how to video's be this precise and clear? Great job!! Forget the haters man.
my left ear found this very helpful
😂🤣
This was 10000000000x better than the instructions Apple gives on their website. I followed the apple instructions first and essentially lost everything on iTunes. However, I made a back up beforehand, then went and used this method and it restored everything perfectly. The only thing was I believe on PC you now use "shift" while opening itunes, not "control" to get to the "choose library" part. Thanks so much for this video!
Not enough words to thank you! I was trying to transfer over 8,000 songs from old iPod touch to new Mac book Pro and naively thought it would transfer from iPod to laptop if I hit “sync”. Instead it wiped my iPod touch clean, no music. I physically started screaming. Then realized I had an old Windows 7 computer that still had most of the songs on iTunes there. Used your video to recover my music and all is well now. Just need to figure out how to get them BACK on iPod …….. will look for your video on how to do that. Many many thanks again for saving me 100’s of hours of re loading!!!!
I did the same thing except I didn't back up my phone because I thought it was backed up with icloud and boy was I wrong and I messed around and connected my iphone to the computer with the usb cable and hit Sync! All my music was gone in an instant! Like you, I had an old back up on my external drive that I was able to get some of my music back but what a pain in the neck.
Thanks for this! Took me a while to find the right file to “connect” to iTunes, but I got it. I just freed up 11 GB on my computer. Yes, I listen to a LOT of music, haha.
How do u get that message to pop up at 3:33? I have moved mine over to the HD but when I hold ctrl it does not show that message popping up on Windows. Please help!
So are you completely removing iTunes from your hard drive or just copying it? I would like to copy my iTunes to two external hard drives. Thanks
The files can be played back on any device or only on an apple device logged in to your account?
Very concise and thorough instruction for both Mac and PC. Thanks!
+Steve Clements Great!
@@DustyPorter Thanks for this.
My question is: how do you move the itunes library that is on an exteral hard drive to another one to start fresh? My old iTunes hard drive is too old and presents issues. I wish to start afresh. Is there a way to do that? Or do I just drag and copy everything?
Thanks for this.
My question is: how do you move the itunes library that is on an exteral hard drive to another one to start fresh? My old iTunes hard drive is too old and presents issues. I wish to start afresh. Is there a way to do that? Or do I just drag and copy everything?
Now that you have a duplicate library is it safe to say you can delete the original now that you have a copy?
Great video.
But can you please tell me how I can backup all my music files from my you tube music to a second storage device like a SSD drive??
It's the shift key on Windows.
How can I transfer the music/playlist files from an iPod Classic to an external hard drive on a Mac. Thanks
Maybe you already answered this question but I want to make sure before I do something that makes things worse. My phone storage is too large for my computer so I can't back it up on the computer. Is there a way I can have iTunes on an external drive plugged into my computer then plug in my phone and have it back up to my external? Thanks
thank you, I have a question. What if iTunes is under another user?
Dear Dusty,hi this is Declan have had an Apple iPod classic 160gb which I have and am using usb 3 to import CDs on to my Lenovo 512gb SSD labtop but 2 things it is not helping the c drive is choking with all the CDs going in and the labtop is running out of space and thus slightly lagging what are best options to choose like changing location is it to empty c drive and would 1tb or 2tb SSD hard drive external be the answer and my last question is if the iPod classic is filled up to much would it slow it down and possibly corrupt the unit even though it is in perfect condition cheers Declan 👍 best wishes from Ireland 👍👍🙏🙏
Great video! Do you have a video where you can move/copy actual programs ( Adobe Suite, Microsoft Word, AutoCAD, etc, etc.) to an external HD to resinstall later after a OS upgrade? Thanks!
You really helped me. I have a HUGE music library and did not have it on an external hard drive. Thanks so much.
When I put the Itunes Folder on to my External Drive can I then delete the things on my Mac
=Like For People To See=
I figured it out for Windows, its the "Shift" key.
(Also you must click the shortcut first then,
immediately after clicking, press and hold Shift.)
Thanks!
Thank you - I used this before to get my music on a hard drive. Now I need to back up that hard drive to another hard drive ... how do i do that?
This was very helpful and straight forward! Thank you!!
Hello and thank you for this very informative video. ONE question. My I tunes library is 250 gigs!!! ONCE transferred can it be deleted on my I MAC? Thank you G
Thank you, this video was one of the easiest to follow I have found. I do have a quick question for you. I want to backup/move all my ITunes from my old desk top (old and I never use it anymore) and then transfer them to my Mac Laptop. Would I be able to do this? I just don't want to lose YEARS worth of music...haha
hi Chap - great video
Once i have done this - how do i then delete all the previous itunes library etc from my internal mac harddrive
Please guide - thanks
Alpsok Hmmm. You would need to locate them on your Hard Drive and then you would need to just delete.
Technologyguru77 So essentially i can delete all references to files/folders and library on the internal HD - as i can boot from the External one - correct?
Can you do an updated video for Apple music? I updated to Big Sur but didn't have my external plugged in & now its a mess.
If I do this then download a new file folder with an album or a playlist onto my laptop then whilst connected to the HD I add the files to my iTunes (by dropping or by adding in the drop-down) will it then be put onto my HD.
Thanks for the instructions. Inquisitive minds might want to know if after this is done should we delete the iTunes library folder off the hard drive to free up space? This is after all the main driver for doing this since mac hard drives are pretty small.
Tim Trautmann No do not delete the iTunes folder.
+Thomas Bohrman Exactly - that's what I need to do - free up space on my computer.
Wish I had watched this video a long time ago! Helped a lot thanks so much!
Many Thanks for the easy to understand video...I have previously moved everything by ..copying or " send to "...then delete from original location....which took absolute days due to the fact my library is it TB's...not GB's...I have moved the Itunes media folder to the hard drive also..Can you tell me does the location have to be Itunes media file...or just to the hard drive...I got tired towards the end and just sent to hard drive and changed the path name to the hard drive also.." Rusty8TB "...the itunes media folder is on this hard drive but as I said I ended up just sending to the hard drive and not the media folder....do I now have to move everything to the media folder...now some files play and some don't...
How does it affect syncing your iPhone/iPad when plugging it into your computer? Will it just sync and keep backups on your external hd?
Movie purchased from iTunes can also be copied to flash drive?
Same procedure will work?
Please please reply
Nice, but I have iTunes on a PC and am not sure what the PC equivalent is to 'Finder'. Where on a PC do I enter the Users\etc info? Thanks.
Nick Santangelo IT would just be called your folder. Go to My Computer --- And break it down from there.
When i move itunes folder to external hard drive can I then delete the itunes folder on my laptop? Or will this get rid of all iTunes? I just want to get rid of all the song media because it's using up all my memory on laptop?
I keep running into the problem is i see my library on the the hard drive it's set up correct but when I select it makes me not only select just music or album but al the other stuff. I only get one. its not one folder. I followed directions to back it up to a T
Can you delete the songs in iTunes once you put them on your hard drive to free up space on your computer?
Can I then put this onto a new computer, and if so, how do I set up the itumes?? Or will it already be there?? I'm lost.
Thank you for posting this.
So can I still use my iTunes normally as I used to when it was on my MAC? As in can I put music on, purchase media and play it on iTunes from the external hard drive? Thanks :)
I use TunesGo to back up music and videos from iTunes to pc or devices easily. and also can back up file from device or pc to iTunes in stead.
I'm a beginner, I clicked on C:Users\My Name\My Music\itunes\itunes Media\Music(I opened Music, all of my music was in this folder. I would like to know which one of these do I drag onto my external hard drive. I don't want to drag the wrong folder onto my external drive. Thanks.
I have questions, my mac total HD is 121.12 GB. total used of app, document icloud, mail, music, podcast is arount 50 GB. but the left over available only 8 GB. there is the over 60 GB go? i try to move everything to external HD. but still not enough space.
The music I find in my folder is not the music that's in my itunes library. There's other songs in there that I don't want and it's almost impossible to seperate the ones I want. There is about 4500 songs there and my library has nowhere near that many. What should I do
Thank you for this video, others posted videos like this but they don't tell you to hold down the Ctrl when first opening itunes.....
Worked like a charm!!
Does this work on the latest version? 12.5...... I am doing the option and open Itunes and there is no prompt. I tried force closing as well. I followed the steps and my library is on my external hd. But when I go into the songs, the is an ! next to songs and it say it cannot locate the original file. I can play from the external HD but can load from it. I tried changing settings in advanced as well.
Can you open the New Itunes folder (External HD) and therefore open a single file to play a song with out Itunes software? Will it open with say Windows Media Player?
Does this actually remove the itunes library from the computer, or do we now have it on the computer and on the HD as well? Thanks!!
I got it on both :)
Thanks so much. Concise and easy to follow. Now I need to see how to direct it to the library in the external hard drive to begin with.
will this work the same moving it from c drive to d drive????????????????????????????????????????
Thanks for this great video! I have a new PC, so I'm moving my empty iTunes media folder to the external hard drive and THEN adding the movies after.
Where would I add the music too one the library has been moved to the external?
after moving iTunes Library to ext HD can i delete iTunes Library in mac then run iTunes from ext HD
Hi I want to download music to my I tunes but I don't want to use the space on my computer how can I set up to do it automatically to my external drive
Can I load music into one external hard drive and my movies into another hard drive?
Thanks
Very nice tutorial! Good voice narrations and sound! What kind of microphone are you using? Great information...thanks
Hi, I have all of my music on an external hard drive (nothing is on my iTunes) I want to keep the music on the external HD, but be able to play it through iTunes when the HD is connected. I cannot figure out for the life of me, how to do this. Please help.
Thanks. :)
Thank you. You explain it Very well.
so after doing this i can just delete all the music off my laptop and run it off the external yes?
For some reason I don't see it as files like on yours? Advice please?
brilliant! Thank you!! You da man!!
Quik question I follow all the steps but I can't make it work when I push CTRL on Windows and i open itunes it just open like normal but without all my music now my iTunes file it's on my hard drive what can I do now
Ivan Lopez use shift instead
Does this mean that whenever new content is added to the iTunes library, it will automatically go to my external hard drive?
Help! already tried clicking 'alt/option' then click itunes app, but still the window of choosing library didn't show up, how come?
Hi , can you please help me as I don’t know how to edit or rename my iTunes media folder location. I am using Windows 10 and don’t know how I got the media folder location. My media location at present C:\Users\clive\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media……how do I change it to C:\Users\Clive\Music\iTunes 3\iTunes Media. I am a novice so please help me. Regards Clive.
Ok another one stuck here i did everything this video states and used the Shift key not control when opening up iTunes i tried to choose the itunes folder i copied over to the external hard drive and it keeps going into the itunes folder then into more folders ex itunes music etc etc. not sure what is going on here..
What I ended up doing was selecting the iTunes Library database file. After I did that it worked perfectly, I think for windows when you select open, it is literally just opening the folder that is currently selected in the screen.
rynostewie it worked for me ! thank you !!
how do you undo this? casue I accentually did this and it f'd up my Hard drive music that was already saved in there??
This was very helpful. Thank you.
I wish I have seen this tutorial sometime ago!
It appears that I missing gigs of music! My iTunes is nearly 60G however when I click on the properties of my library on my PC it's telling me there is only 32Gig to copy why is this?
Well done. Clear. Thank you.
For anyone who is wondering, it's "shift" not "Ctrl" for PC
Thank You Very Much.... I was tring it all different ways cause this Snapper Head said it was control... I tried Shift and Bingo, again Thanks man!!
I followed your instructions but each time I open iTunes it goes back to the old location, what else can I try?
Omg thank you. you made this so easy.
Thanks a Lot, it worked. Ive freed up 104GB of space on a partitioned 300GB C:Drive. Next time I'll make the C drive larger.
Can we use usb to move itunes library.?
Thank you, worked perfectly
Help, I change the hard drive from C Drive to D Drive Then I close iTunes and re-open and go back into the advanced settings and it’s back to the C Drive.
once i drag the music theres a circle with a line across and its not letting me
Great work! Thank you!
That is exactly what I wanted to know, thank-you.
Great videos, thanks!
I’m unable to drag the iTunes folder into my external hard drive. For every attempt to drag it does not drop into the my external drive
I’m using a Mac and not window for this action
I moved iTunes library from my computer Windows 11 to external hard drive, exactly how you showed it. I see it on my external hard drive. But why is it still on my computer?
God BLESS you sir!! We were just having this same problem: 250GB hard drive with 16GB left 😱 we have a huge iTunes library
I tried this, but when I designate the external drive iTunes file it says "An iTunes library file could not be found in the folder “iTunes Media”. Please choose a different folder." Any ideas?
i really hope this works as i am out of memory on my laptop and my itunes library is over 125 gb... you will definetley get a thumbs up if it does
Nice. I'm guessing you have plenty of music in lossless format? 125GB is a lot.
nope just mp3
clear and concise.
There's no music in my ext. drive where I copied iTunes to. What did I do wrong?
thanks! very helpful :)
thanks helped alot! Update for windows preferences is in Edit tab took me awhile to find lol. also when you reboot your iTunes hold shift not Ctrl click iTunes to reload library! :P
THANK YOU!!! looked through the comments to find this.
I've done this and it still gives me a message saying "it can't locate the original file".. my media won't play unless i go thru all my files to find the song. It's really annoying
Learn how to move your iTunes Library to an External Hard Drive in this video!
Can you delete the songs in iTunes once you move them to the external hard drive to free up space on your computer?
thank you so much I'm going to test this and see if I follow you correctly. Having a moment.
CTRL and entering itunes doesn't work for me...
Thanks man !
Thanks bro :D!
Wow. 9GB is child's play. I've got over 85GB of lossless music. I should REALLY stop procrastinating and just buy myself an external HD. Great video, man.
lol i have over 300GB of music... but i already have an external HD. Seriously dude get one.
Breh I have 4.6 tb of songs
TheeMidnightMarauder Damn, all you guys are all talking big numbers when it comes to your music storage so I have to wonder how much of that was actually paid for - especially the guy talking about 4.6 TB of music!
i paid about $0.00 dollars but that doesnt change the amount of music he or i have :)
Haha! Got you!
I have 76,000 file in my intunes an all my files wasn’t transferred only 40,000 was transferred how’s that