# External Hard Drive & iTunes



## fatkidsonmopeds (Jan 12, 2006)

Since I almost filled up all the space on my computer's hard drive, I bought an external one. The music on my computer takes up most of the space, so I was wondering is there any way I can put it on my external hard drive and run it that way to iTunes? I tried it before, I copied all of my songs and videos and etc. to the external hard drive, deleted it from my computer's hard drive, and then tried it in iTunes... unfortunatly it didn't work. Please if anyone can help me out it would be greatly appreciated.


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## tapjpa (Jan 12, 2006)

It works you just have to import all your songs back into iTunes. This will also break any playlists you might have setup.


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## fatkidsonmopeds (Jan 12, 2006)

How would I do that?


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## jbarley (Jan 12, 2006)

fatkidsonmopeds said:
			
		

> How would I do that?



Try iTunes "Help"
search for "Music Folder location"

"Import" is found in the iTunes menu under "File"

Make sure you set your Music Folder location before you start the "Import" function.


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## ra3ndy (Jan 12, 2006)

You can also take your iTunes library to the external hard drive and tell iTunes to look there for it:

Under the iTunes menu, open Preferences.
Click on the "Advanced" button
The first option should be "iTunes music folder location"
Click "Change" and then direct it to your music folder on the external hard drive.  
You'll have to rebuild your library again.  Make sure that you redirect the iTunes music folder location before you add your music back to iTunes.


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## ecirtap (Jan 14, 2006)

>It works you just have to import all your songs back into iTunes. This will 
>also break any playlists you might have setup.

If you want to save your playlists, you can first export them from iTunes (click the playlist you want to export, then go to --> File Export Song List, and choose where you want to save it to). 

The exported songlist-file will be a .txt file, you'd have to open it and do a search & replace (in text edit, e.g.) to change the location of the songs - which would be something like 

search for 

"HarddiskName:Users:yourname:Music:iTunes:iTunes Music"

and replace it with 

"ExternalHarddiskName:FolderNameOfWhereYourMusicIsLocated" - 

then save the file and once you have put all the songs into the new location, you should theoretically be able to go to --> File Import and import the manually changed playlist...

This should work theoretically - but I do not have the time to try it out.

If you do: please let us know the results!

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/


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## redwood72 (Sep 24, 2006)

I have a powerbook with 60gb and an external hard drive with 250gb
and want to play music from my external hard drive without adding
the songs to my powerbook.

Everytime i click on a song from my external hard disk it
copies it to itunes.

Now, i have changed the location of my itunes library to
my external hard drive, but i would like this to happen:

play songs occasionally from my ext. hard drive and have
them not added to  my powerbook... AND have some songs
on my powerbook to listen to...

Is this impossible?  It seems frustrating to see songs on
my playlist on my powerbook when they are located somewhere
else... i get confused as to what i can play or what i can't
play when my external hard drive is not connected...

please  help!!

thank you!


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## tapjpa (Sep 24, 2006)

You can not have songs on multiple harddrives. You need to chose one location and make that the storge spot.


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## redwood72 (Sep 24, 2006)

thank you. (bummer).


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