Dear tim,
This is exactly what I wanted to know when I - perhaps prematurely -
wondered how I could use an external drive to house my music library
should it become too large or dangerously voluminous. I presume by
"music folder" you mean music library? Sorry to be so dumb but I'm
just making sure I udnerstand your instructions precisely as you meant
them. Thanks for your post - most useful.
With best wishes, Simon
On 18 Sep 2008, at 13:58, Tim Kilburn wrote:
Hi Olivia,
You said: I spent a long time at my apple stores genius bar today
trying to figure out how to transfer my tv shows in my Itunes
library to an external hard drive (they explained that I could then
take them in and out of my ipod from the external drive) The
problem? None of us could figure out a way to do this using the
keyboard with out a mouse. Selecting and copying them didn't
work. They did a pretty extensive online search for a keyboard
shortcut which would let me do this, but to no avail.
Both they, and I, would love to know how this is done (if anyone
can give me info on this they said I need to make another
reservation and show them how it is done.) So, can anyone help me
out here?
The apple store people were great, but were as frustrated as I was
that nothing we tried worked!
Any help you can give would be wonderful, so that I can free up
some space on my internal drive!
TK: You are correct that it can't be done from within the iTunes
app. You need to copy the files from within the Finder. All the
itunes music, movies and other such media is stored in the Music
folder of your Home directory in a folder named iTunes. If all you
wish to do is free up space on the internal drive, I would do the
following:
• Go to your Desktop Vo-shift-d.
• Press cmd-shift-h to open your Home directory.
• Navigate to and then open the Music folder.
• Navigate to the iTunes folder and open it.
• Navigate to the iTunes Music folder, make sure it is selected then
use cmd-c to copy it.
• Open your external HD.
• Paste the iTunes folder to the location you wish it on the
external HD.
Depending on the size of your itunes library, the copying process
could take a while. Next, you'll want to choose the iTunes folder
from the external HD to be your music folder location.
• open iTunes.
• Press cmd-comma to bring up the Preferences dialog.
• Interact With the ToolBar.
• Press the Advanced button.
• Stop Interacting With the ToolBar.
• click on the Change button for the iTunes Music Folder location.
• In the dialog, locate your itunes Music folder on the external Hd
and select it.
• Click on the Open button.
• Click on the OK button to close the iTunes Preferences dialog.
Now, all the iTunes xml files and other library info is left in your
Home directory but the actual iTunes Music folder that uses up the
most HD space will reside elsewhere. Then, simply delete the iTunes
Music folder from your Home directory and empty your Trash to regain
that HD space you desire. Just make sure that you confirm that your
music library is all there by browsing through it while in iTunes.
Also, that iTunes Music folder has all the music organized by Artist
and Album so it's possible to locate specific songs if you wish to
copy them somewhere.
Hope this was what you were looking for.
Later...
Tim Kilburn
& Carter the Canine
Fort McMurray, AB Canada
