Thank you so much. Incredibly helpful with your clear explanation. I chaptered your guide with timestamps: 0:49 Method 1 - Internal Library / Don't Copy Files 3:40 Method 2 - Internal Library / External Media Folder (most will want this) 5:49 Method 3 - External Library / External Media Folder 7:54 One more thing - How to clear out Music Library
Major thumbs-up! Have migrated to a new Mac laptop from an older (pre-Music) OS. The thought of losing access to thousands of Ripped CDs was disheartening! Your tutorial was very comprehensive and your examples and methodology were very easy to follow! Again, many thanks for helping to alleviate my anxiety!
After a update I found my music files are in a iTunes library transfer folder. My complaint is that my playlists are no longer available. Do you have a way to retrieve that? Thank you!
Great tutorial video - Maybe you can do a tutorial on how to keep your playlist and meta data when you move your iTunes/Apple music collection to an external harddrive. Thank you
Yes, I agree with this request. I have spent hours on the phone with apple and there are completely clueless how to move iTunes/Apple music to an external harddrive.
Good stuff, Gary. Method 1 works great for me. I have an external drive on my Mac mini and use an Apple TV in another room to play media. The problem I now have is that this doesn’t seem to work with movies and the TV app. The TV app creates another folder on ext drive called Home Movies but copies the original movie. So it duplicates the movie on the ext drive. What gives?
I'm still in Mojave; I assume Catalina works the same: I pretty much don't do anything inside of the iTunes program except a) play music, and b) construct playlists. Otherwise, I do everything else in finder. The libraries are FOLDERS - you can treat them as folders. I back up my libraries (I have numerous separate music libraries that total about 1.6T), by simply copying them to external disks. I open iTunes libraries by hitting the option key and then the dock icon. Another backup tip: iTunes tracks can be selected and then copied to external file folders, from which you can add those tracks to other libraries, either by opening iTunes and using File Add, or simply selecting them from the above-mentioned filed folders and dragging them into a newly-opened iTunes library. I've read and looked at a lot of instruction guides and I've never seen anybody discuss this approach. I really don't know why - I've been doing it this way for years and it's always been fast, easy, reliable. Why isn't this ever documented? iTunes libraries are FOLDERS. The contents are FILES.
Will this move the playlists that are made as well? I’m a playlist making person and I have playlists from 2009 and I want to keep them when I start to utilize my HD as my main iTunes hub
Thank you for this video. Further question, if the music is on an external hard drive only, do you lose the ability to sync playlists with your iPhone and iPad? Thanks
Thx for this video. I have a 4 TB external drive that I’ve been using with my Music library. It’s now full so I would like to transfer that library to a new 8TB drive. Which method should I be using in this scenario? This has been driving me crazy!😂
Gary, super helpful tutorial as I had to remove music to make space on my MacBook. The detailed step by step instructions are tremendously appreciated. You are my Apple Genius Bar!!
Thanks Gary, I'm still a little petrified to do this. I have an 8TB drive ready to set up as my external music library and to hold music that I have on the MBP and a number of external drives too. I would have preferred to find some application that could find and store all of my music for me as I know that finding all of them will be tough. Thanks, as always, for the clear methodology.
Thanks! I finally got my music library working from an external drive. Leave it to Apple to take a simple to use app like iTunes and make it way more complicated to set up.
so i've done this using method 2 and it's working great, i'm just a bit confused how/where to add any new music i acquire. I want to keep my music files on my external hard drive, so do i drag any new music into the music app, or do i add it to the music media folder i created on my hard drive? oh wait.. i think i figured it out... put the new music in the external drive, then go to the music app and 'import' it into the app? that seems a bit clunky
HUGE thank you!!! I spent hours on the phone yesterday with Apple and got nowhere. I moved my music to an external HD last year but now want to add NEW music. I have option #2. Thanks to your video, I figured out how to do that. Now I want this new music (all music that I own) on my phone. With Apple Music open pointing to my files on my HD, if I sync my phone, will the new sync to my phone?
You can use method 2 or 3 to place your music in an external media server and/or a NAS. However, the NAS must be on and running and it will mount the drive/folder and the run the music. I did this with iTunes a few years ago. It works well as long as the NAS is running.
Thank you for this. Unfortunately, my issue is that I already am using an external drive for my music and want to instead use my internal drive again. I have my music internally but I also have a duplicate external as a backup. The problem is that when my external drive is plugged in all my music’s location is automatically set to the external. When I unplugged the external then it automatically switches the song’s location to using my internal drive’s music… I can’t figure out how to stop it from referring to my external drive.
This was exactly the info I was looking for, thanks! One question I do have, you say iTunes purchases will go into the Media file, could you not copy the file to the external dirve and delete it from the Media folder?
What a classy explanation, can u plz help, to copy the Playlist as it is, in the same order, along with music library, sourced in external drive, so I plug my external drive to any blank mac or iPad and play my music….thanks in advance
That will be difficult to pull off. You can store the entire Media folder and the Music Library file and then on that other Mac you can choose that Media folder in the Music app. Experiment with that. Though it is hard to know what would work for you as the "any blank Mac" idea needs some explaining. This won't work for iPad either.
I always have a hard time with iTunes organizing my Music folder. Now being I just. bought my first Mac. Using the Mac Mini. M1...I need to learn how to navigate all these options and organize. my folders. So thank you for. the help....As. I knew. this was going to be headache. When it come time to setup iTunes and Movies..
Great video. I have a question. I would like to transfer all the music, movies and TV series in an external harddrive. How do I go about it? Thank you for your help
Thank you again! Man I was making this harder than it really is. Thanks again it worked perfect on a Music backup drive on my Netgear Ready Share backup.
Super video❗️this is one of my major projects and I am going to have to watch this several time and decide which way I need to go. I have 54GB of music loaded on iTunes on my old dying Dell laptop. I just purchased a new external 500GB SSD that I hope put the music on but I don’t know what I am doing. I am hopping to copy the music on the SSD so that I can use it on my new iPad Pro and I do not intend on punching a new laptop or desktop computer❗️👍✅🤔
I have an existing Music Library (Catalina - Internal Drive): iTunes | Music | [All the albums are stored here in folders - and the Library links to these files]. Can I copy the entire iTunes Folder to the External Drive - AND 'point' the Internal Library to the iTunes Folder -- and the library will have the links to the external files? Or - do I need to use Method 2 and drag/drop to a Music from the external drive?
After doing the first step exactly as you showed. Here's my question. No matter which step I do, why does some of my music keep disappearing? Only thing saving my music is burning that music into cd's (which it's defeating the purpose) any ideas or suggestions?!!! Thanks 👍
Great presentation, thanks. I did step 2 and it worked! Saved a lot of space on my Macbook Pro HD. But ....... what about Podcasts? I have quite a large Podcast library that I move to my iphones and an old ipod. I don't understand how you manage those with Apple Music. Do I need something else on the Macbook Pro? Or do you treat the podcasts as "music" and put them in your Music folder.
Oh this too funny! I just searched for Beatles music & got blocked by that annoying Apple Music popup. This video was sooo helpful! I just purchased the songs I wanted on my macbook air & shared them with my iphone too. Thanks so much for the Itunes store browsing/purchasing tips. Your tutorial made this easy!!☺️
Awesome stuff from this channel. I was using method #2 on Mojave with iTunes and I was curious to see how it changed in the new "Music" app. My 2015 macbook pro is pretty much just a media player so I don't see myself upgrading from Mojave in the short term.
Just go through your list of songs and look for identical ones. If you have a lot, do it for 5-15 minutes, then come back and do more later. Repeat until done.
Thank you! I am finally able to access all of my personally created music, and purchased music with none of it being on the internal hard drive. Would this work the same way for Photos?
I am still sitting on the fence moving my iTunes folder to an ext HD. Altho, I'm leaning toward the Option to move the Itunes folder to the Ext HD. would like to ask you if it is necesesary to Consolidate the Itunes Media folder before moving iTunes to an ext HD? There a several discussions online and they all pointed to Consolidate before moving the iTunes folder. I'd rather not. Please tell me your comments. thanks
I just got a new 14” MacBook Pro. My god, it is so difficult to back up my large library on an external hard drive. Even Apple support said they make it hard so you have to pay for the iCloud storage. I don’t want to pay $10 a month for my large 160 gig music library!
thanks so much for yet another brilliant and useful video. Question though for you Gary, how do these methods work when you have an Apple Music subscription and have an old library (ripped CD's, iTunes purchases etc) now mixed in with the Apple Music downloads? Seeing as the AM songs are only yours for as long as you're paying the subscription. Many thanks in advance for yours or anyones help.
It gets complicated. You would mostly then choose your Library location, setting that to internal or external. But since Apple Music includes iCloud Music Library the problem of how to store a large Music library is solved without needing that. See support.apple.com/en-us/HT204926 (Also technically none of the songs are "yours" ever. You only license songs whether you buy them on CD, iTunes or stream them via Apple Music.)
Also, it is asking me if I want to move and rename the files to your new media folder to match the keep media folder organized preferences? No idea if that’s a yes or no answer.? Thank you, newbie to all your videos, grateful, and greatly appreciated that you did them
I actually use always method 1. But man, with every update, i always need to recreate all the maps that i've build within the Music app. I know you could save it and export it. But when going from iTunes to the Music app (when Apple changed everything), it didn't really accept that file anymore and so i needed to restart all over again. I personally like to have it all organized. But i don't know if there is a better, more simply way to do it? Anyway, i love your tutorials, they are always explained so well!
Thanks for the info! 🥳🤙 It took awhile as it seemed harder on Ventura. I didn’t have to make an extra folder, I just grabbed the folders of the Musician’s and dropped them into the space you had shown. Had to authorize my new computer, before they would play on my Apple TV. Too bad Apple can’t fix the artwork problem, too many albums, with no artwork?
that is all well and good, but how do you bypass apple music subscript fees to listen to your owned music from a cloud source? Impossible, unless you use a home based cloud storage server. Works the same as Icloud but one time purchase. It would seem that your concept for external storage of my music would than allow me to access it anywhere for playing, typically on my iphone.
If yo are creating a new library then you'll start without your playlists. If you move your entire library then they should still be there, but it is easy to test and go back if not.
Thank you so much! I'm a DJ and have over 200 gigs of music. I was trying to figure out a way to export all of the music to one external harddrive. Know the next thing is to make sure that when I plug it to my computer, the Serato App recognize the music through iTunes. Any pointers?
thanks for the video's. im trying to figure out if you can use these methods and apply these to drives on a cloud? I have tried for example just selecting my collections and dragging them to ituens and it works. I also use it as playlists for my rekordbox. However, am i asking to much of the system? does it matter?
Can we get a logic pro x file storage video please! Not how to move the apple loops library to external hard drive, I mean like a best practices and tips for backing up projects and recording to external drives and archiving and all the tips u normally give!
Very helpful. I have music on internal and multiple external drives. I lost a load of tracks before when attempting to transfer files to the external drives. I'd love to bring everything together on one external drive if possible. Any advice?
man I followed this and all my playlists are gone now... plus it changed a lot of songs, I don't even know how this is possible...this will take me weeks to do it again
I hope you can help me, I am trying to work with this music app, and I hate it! I tried to get a song today, it took awhile, but once I got it, my iPod only is showing 3-4 playlists, the ones I never use,. I don’t know what to do? I use to be able to go into my 32 playlists and rearrange my songs now I can’t, I guess I have to start all over and add new playlists, but what is that going to do with my iPod, confuses it? I’m so upset about them changing my iTunes,..
Ny problem is when setting up my folder on the external drive my music (from my iPhone 5s will not copy to the new folder.) I am unable to find my error. Drag and drop does not work. And import allows a transfer of some but not all files. Most are mp3 files.
I have followed the instructions Gary, I have copied over all of my tracks over to the external drive, but despite dropping them into the folder I created, and merging they are still showing as separate folders. So I now have multiple folders on the external drive that I need to group in order that Apple Music sees them as a library. Do I create a new name for the library and all of these will be incorporated?
Thanks so much for this video! Will albums purchased through apple music also transfer to the external drive to save space on my internal hard drive? When wanting to sync songs on my phone, will my phone recognize the new location of the songs?
I found this so useful! I have all of my media (music and videos) on an external drive, and used Method #1 as you described. I have a question: I'm planning on getting a new iMac. Is there a shortcut to keeping all my media on my external hd, but cloning my Music (and Apple TV) media library organization? - I'm not sure if that makes any sense (i.e. my files stored on the external hard drive work great. But it took me days to load 1 TB of folder organization. Is there a simpler way than the drag and drop when setting up my new iMac?)
Thank you for this @macmostvideo! Question: if I have all my music & playlists on my hard drive now and I use option 2 will I have to rebuild my playlists, or will they carry over when I move all my music to the external HD?
At the end of the video you mention to make sure the new library is labeled 'music'. Can you name it something else without causing problems in the Mac?
@@macmost Just to follow up, I was able to change the name on the library without any issues. I wanted to be able to include the date i created the new library because I was combining media from several different sources.
I need some help. After watching this great video I have decided to move my music library to an external HD. However, I am not too crazy how iTunes organizes my music files. Either goes into Compilation, or uses the Promoter's company name, the artists, the album, the song. See what I mean. Do I change how the music folder has been organized by itunes? Or how do I go about to change the filing system. I would like to file by Genre, Album, Song, artists. Obviously, I need to make the change before moving the Music Library to an external HD, or do I do it afterwards?
About “My Music” folder. Yes, you explain it, but it would be better if it‘s visually illustrated if it is an external or internal drive drive, so we can see a notorious difference between the three drives. Also, these new organization of files does not use the word “iTunes” anymore, right? to name files for example. Before they called “iTunes Library.itl” or the folder of the Album Artwork; all has been simplified? Could you make a video talking about the changes? Do you have a video about “iTunes Match”?
Thanks again, Gary, for a great tutorial here. I moved it all to a flash drive and it seems to working fine. But .... I seem to have lost my playlists. Not a big deal, but could I recover them using the phone that I haven't sync with yet? Also, what did you do with your "MyMusic" folder on the External drive? When you drag the files into Music it creates a duplicate folder with the mp3 files. Did you just keep the duplicates in the MyMusic folder? I am wondering if there is any point of having the MyMusic folder.
Not sure what folder you mean, but if you copied all of your music to your external drive then you shouldn't need the same files still on your internal drive. If you are sure you did everything right, then you should be able to get rid of them. As for syncing, it depends on how you sync. Without Apple Music or iTunes Match, a "sync" TO your iPhone will just replace what is there.
@@macmost Thanks for the quick reply, Gary. Maybe I missed some details but I think what you are doing is first getting all your music on the EXTERNAL drive - in your "My Music" folder. Then you drag those files into the Music app. But then the Music app copies the MP3 files under it's "Media" folder (also on the external drive.) So does that not make duplicate files on your external drive? ...... or is your "My Music" folder on the computer? As far as the playlists goes, I may have to just rebuild them manually as it is only the phone that has them now. I am wondering if I removed the playlists when I created a new "library".
@@DaveRenfroe You've got a switch for that. The "Copy files to Music Media folder..." checkbox that I show. Yes, the playlists are an aspect of the library, so a new library wouldn't have them, but if you copied the library over it should have.
hey man, I've been storaging music since more than 15 years ago with Method 2 but now I became extremely annoying to do so because the Music App is soooooo slow. I have a 2018 Macbook Pro and it runs okay, pretty fast with all the other apps and software. do you have a solution for this? thank you.
Great video, I had doubts when i heard that i-tunes was discontinued after the first video about apple music I knew that it is practicly the same only it is split in 3 parts. The part of moving music libraries to an external drive was a real revelation, I was in real trouble about how to do it but after 10 minutes i realised is was very simple and I save about 800gb on a drive of 1tb so an imens gain.
There one scenario you missed which I have been trying to do with no luck, and that is moving your music files to an external, but keeping all your playlists and meta data.
@@liliadou2014 I have not. Was on the phone with apple senior advisor for 3 hours Saturday, could not get the playlists to sync. He suggested exporting the playlists (before moving the files over to the external) and re-importing them once you switch over, but you can only export one playlist one at a time. I have over 300 playlists. I just gave up.
@@mountart2 Ugh! Omg. Three hours?! With a senior advisor? That tells me that no one at Apple really knows (or cares) about this. Do you know if there's an alternative for organizing a music library and playlists? I've been researching and see a few but I just don't know. It's so frustrating. I just lost part of one library by trying to follow the instructions (from another video - not this one). So I really don't know what to do.
@@liliadou2014 Yeah, I think Apple has given up on iTunes in favor of their Apple Music Streaming Service. And unfortunately, I too have searched for alternatives to iTunes with no luck, they are all worse. I know the pain, my transfer to an external drive also screwed up at some point and I had to do a re-install of my internal hard drive via Apple's Time Machine Back Up program. At least that put things back the way they were, albeit taking like 8 hours to do the whole re-install, which thankfully I ran over night while I was sleeping, but, yeah, what a nightmare!
Thank you for your expertise. it is very helpful. I have music folders from a PC that I dropped in my external music folder on my Mac but they are not showing up in my music app. What do I need to do to get them to show up? I see the files in the folder. New to Mac here, coming from a PC.
@@richardgarcia1293 Then I'm not sure what the issue could be. If you imported them into your Music library, then you should see them in your Music Library. Try again and make sure you are going to the right place.
Sorry, maybe I misunderstood. I drag and drop them into the music folder where all the files are of the ones I ripped from my cds. Should I drag and drop to the Library folder or music folder?@@macmost
@@richardgarcia1293 You need to IMPORT them into your Music app. You do that by dragging the files from the Finder into the Music app, into the Library in the left sidebar of the Music app.
You've heard of Murphy's Law, which always applies, and is known throughout the Courts of the World as the only law which has never been amended or repealed. It is a little known fact that Murphy has a sister, now known as "Karen," who has her own law, which she righteously enforces. Karen's Law states, "No good deed goes unpunished," which seems seems harmless enough, but only Karen gets to decide what is a punishable Good Deed and the appropriate punishment. There are thousands of YT Videos on point for this law. In the case of moving music files from Drive A to Drive B, for example, then deleting them from Drive A, after being fully satisfied you have done everything correctly to move those files to Drive B, Karen's Law would immediately apply, and you would find out that some irreplaceable file you thought you had moved safely to its new home on Drive B, was never actually moved, and when you deleted all of the music files from Drive A, you also irrevocably deleted the last existing copy of the most important musical work in your collection. You will also find that when you attempt to play that song using its former title, all you will hear is "Old MacDonald Has a Farm." Having learned of Karen's Law years ago, I tend to make second, complete copies of these files on Drive A to a physically separate, external hard drive, used only for back-up files, and verify the file count, file size and playability of each transferred file; I then like to wait at least a week before deleting anything irreplaceable from the source drive, Drive A in my example. Even that precaution doesn't always work.
Any chance of doing an update on this video as I go to Music and there is no preferences… all the updates seem to do is change what we see and how we can do things Thanks
Thank you so much. Incredibly helpful with your clear explanation.
I chaptered your guide with timestamps:
0:49 Method 1 - Internal Library / Don't Copy Files
3:40 Method 2 - Internal Library / External Media Folder (most will want this)
5:49 Method 3 - External Library / External Media Folder
7:54 One more thing - How to clear out Music Library
Does this accomodate for your pics and videos text and app data??
DUDE! You are a genius. THANK YOU!!!!! I have been trying to figure this out and just could not connect the dots. Much appreciation to you.
After hours spent on Apple support calls, this video was the one that helped me sort out my music library. Thank you so much!!!
Best/most thorough explanation on RUclips, thanks. Just subscribed..
Major thumbs-up! Have migrated to a new Mac laptop from an older (pre-Music) OS. The thought of losing access to thousands of Ripped CDs was disheartening! Your tutorial was very comprehensive and your examples and methodology were very easy to follow! Again, many thanks for helping to alleviate my anxiety!
How do you remove the DRM on the music?
Excellent video: content; voice speed; explanation; resolution; camera window on bottom right! Subscribed
After a update I found my music files are in a iTunes library transfer folder. My complaint is that my playlists are no longer available. Do you have a way to retrieve that? Thank you!
Great tutorial video - Maybe you can do a tutorial on how to keep your playlist and meta data when you move your iTunes/Apple music collection to an external harddrive. Thank you
Yes, I agree with this request. I have spent hours on the phone with apple and there are completely clueless how to move iTunes/Apple music to an external harddrive.
so you lose your metadata if you do this? ditto on the playlist idea. thanks for the tutorial!
I agree. I need info on playlists. I had my playlist and then it disappeared. How do I get it back. I don’t want to recreate it!!
Yes, playlist preservation tips, please!
We need a tutorial on putting our photos on an external hard drive. First try seems the hard drive isn’t big enough? TIA
I'm grateful for your clear instruction. I hope you're being compensated for this public service.
Awesome video...thank you for breaking it down! I’ve spent hours with Apple support with no resolution and your video is all I needed!!
Good stuff, Gary. Method 1 works great for me. I have an external drive on my Mac mini and use an Apple TV in another room to play media. The problem I now have is that this doesn’t seem to work with movies and the TV app. The TV app creates another folder on ext drive called Home Movies but copies the original movie. So it duplicates the movie on the ext drive. What gives?
I'm still in Mojave; I assume Catalina works the same: I pretty much don't do anything inside of the iTunes program except a) play music, and b) construct playlists. Otherwise, I do everything else in finder. The libraries are FOLDERS - you can treat them as folders. I back up my libraries (I have numerous separate music libraries that total about 1.6T), by simply copying them to external disks. I open iTunes libraries by hitting the option key and then the dock icon. Another backup tip: iTunes tracks can be selected and then copied to external file folders, from which you can add those tracks to other libraries, either by opening iTunes and using File Add, or simply selecting them from the above-mentioned filed folders and dragging them into a newly-opened iTunes library. I've read and looked at a lot of instruction guides and I've never seen anybody discuss this approach. I really don't know why - I've been doing it this way for years and it's always been fast, easy, reliable. Why isn't this ever documented? iTunes libraries are FOLDERS. The contents are FILES.
Thank you! Sick music taste too, based on the albums you transferred. And don't get me started on the UAC shirt...
I have been looking for the way to do this for soooo long. This is the by far the best description of how it is done. Thank you!
Will this move the playlists that are made as well? I’m a playlist making person and I have playlists from 2009 and I want to keep them when I start to utilize my HD as my main iTunes hub
Excellent tutorial. Very clear and concise
You've been a tremendous help with this video! Thats what I was after for few weeks with a big question mark hovering above my head. Thank you
Thank you for this video. Further question, if the music is on an external hard drive only, do you lose the ability to sync playlists with your iPhone and iPad? Thanks
No you don't. Been running my iTunes library on separate drives for almost a decade just remember to boot the ED before you start iTunes.
Wow!!! The best video out there about this subject. You should make official videos for Apple.
Thx for this video. I have a 4 TB external drive that I’ve been using with my Music library. It’s now full so I would like to transfer that library to a new 8TB drive. Which method should I be using in this scenario? This has been driving me crazy!😂
Gary, super helpful tutorial as I had to remove music to make space on my MacBook. The detailed step by step instructions are tremendously appreciated. You are my Apple Genius Bar!!
Thanks Gary, I'm still a little petrified to do this. I have an 8TB drive ready to set up as my external music library and to hold music that I have on the MBP and a number of external drives too. I would have preferred to find some application that could find and store all of my music for me as I know that finding all of them will be tough. Thanks, as always, for the clear methodology.
Thanks! I finally got my music library working from an external drive. Leave it to Apple to take a simple to use app like iTunes and make it way more complicated to set up.
The way you set up Music to use a library on an external drive is exactly the same as how you would have done it years ago in iTunes.
Absolutely great! Thank so much for this clear & very helpful video!
thanks for the last tip especially, holding down alt to open and start again. cheers
so helpful, better than Apple support
so i've done this using method 2 and it's working great, i'm just a bit confused how/where to add any new music i acquire. I want to keep my music files on my external hard drive, so do i drag any new music into the music app, or do i add it to the music media folder i created on my hard drive? oh wait.. i think i figured it out... put the new music in the external drive, then go to the music app and 'import' it into the app? that seems a bit clunky
HUGE thank you!!! I spent hours on the phone yesterday with Apple and got nowhere. I moved my music to an external HD last year but now want to add NEW music. I have option #2. Thanks to your video, I figured out how to do that. Now I want this new music (all music that I own) on my phone. With Apple Music open pointing to my files on my HD, if I sync my phone, will the new sync to my phone?
You can use method 2 or 3 to place your music in an external media server and/or a NAS. However, the NAS must be on and running and it will mount the drive/folder and the run the music. I did this with iTunes a few years ago. It works well as long as the NAS is running.
Thank you for this. Unfortunately, my issue is that I already am using an external drive for my music and want to instead use my internal drive again. I have my music internally but I also have a duplicate external as a backup. The problem is that when my external drive is plugged in all my music’s location is automatically set to the external. When I unplugged the external then it automatically switches the song’s location to using my internal drive’s music… I can’t figure out how to stop it from referring to my external drive.
This was exactly the info I was looking for, thanks! One question I do have, you say iTunes purchases will go into the Media file, could you not copy the file to the external dirve and delete it from the Media folder?
You could. But then Music wouldn't have it anymore. So why would you want to do that?
What a classy explanation, can u plz help, to copy the Playlist as it is, in the same order, along with music library, sourced in external drive, so I plug my external drive to any blank mac or iPad and play my music….thanks in advance
That will be difficult to pull off. You can store the entire Media folder and the Music Library file and then on that other Mac you can choose that Media folder in the Music app. Experiment with that. Though it is hard to know what would work for you as the "any blank Mac" idea needs some explaining. This won't work for iPad either.
I always have a hard time with iTunes organizing my Music folder. Now being I just. bought my first Mac. Using the Mac Mini. M1...I need to learn how to navigate all these options and organize. my folders.
So thank you for. the help....As. I knew. this was going to be headache. When it come time to setup iTunes and Movies..
I notice this is three years old. Would it still be the same process as of 4-5-23? Because I'd like to do it. Thanks
Great video , thank you 🙏, it’s gonna take me a while , I need to move an 90Gb iTunes library 🤦🏻♂️
Have you made a video on how to synchronise the music library across different devices? There is no automatic synchronisation, e.g. with the iPhone?
There are two methods: Apple Music (which also includes the whole Apple Music streaming service) and iTunes Match (just cloud syncing).
Great video. I have a question. I would like to transfer all the music, movies and TV series in an external harddrive. How do I go about it? Thank you for your help
Thank you again! Man I was making this harder than it really is. Thanks again it worked perfect on a Music backup drive on my Netgear Ready Share backup.
Excellent explanation, thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Do these same tips work on the TV App? The reason is I have almost 6. GB of TV Shows.
Excellent tutorial .. Thanks Gary!
Just a big thank you for this. It will help me out getting that set up on my new MacBook Pro
Awesome video! Just what I needed to learn!!
Super video❗️this is one of my major projects and I am going to have to watch this several time and decide which way I need to go. I have 54GB of music loaded on iTunes on my old dying Dell laptop. I just purchased a new external 500GB SSD that I hope put the music on but I don’t know what I am doing. I am hopping to copy the music on the SSD so that I can use it on my new iPad Pro and I do not intend on punching a new laptop or desktop computer❗️👍✅🤔
I have an existing Music Library (Catalina - Internal Drive): iTunes | Music | [All the albums are stored here in folders - and the Library links to these files]. Can I copy the entire iTunes Folder to the External Drive - AND 'point' the Internal Library to the iTunes Folder -- and the library will have the links to the external files? Or - do I need to use Method 2 and drag/drop to a Music from the external drive?
Moving it should work. But just try it and see. Easy enough to copy it and try it.
After doing the first step exactly as you showed. Here's my question. No matter which step I do, why does some of my music keep disappearing? Only thing saving my music is burning that music into cd's (which it's defeating the purpose) any ideas or suggestions?!!! Thanks 👍
Great presentation, thanks. I did step 2 and it worked! Saved a lot of space on my Macbook Pro HD. But ....... what about Podcasts? I have quite a large Podcast library that I move to my iphones and an old ipod. I don't understand how you manage those with Apple Music. Do I need something else on the Macbook Pro? Or do you treat the podcasts as "music" and put them in your Music folder.
You don't manager Podcasts in Music, you manage them in the Podcasts app.
incredibly helpful video, thanks so much!!
You Rock Gary! This was an excellent, oops, “Another” Excellent tutorial. I appreciate your works.
Oh this too funny! I just searched for Beatles music & got blocked by that annoying Apple Music popup. This video was sooo helpful! I just purchased the songs I wanted on my macbook air & shared them with my iphone too. Thanks so much for the Itunes store browsing/purchasing tips. Your tutorial made this easy!!☺️
Awesome stuff from this channel. I was using method #2 on Mojave with iTunes and I was curious to see how it changed in the new "Music" app. My 2015 macbook pro is pretty much just a media player so I don't see myself upgrading from Mojave in the short term.
Thank you for your great videos - wondering if you would do one on cleaning up a music library - getting rid of duplicates, etc.?
Just go through your list of songs and look for identical ones. If you have a lot, do it for 5-15 minutes, then come back and do more later. Repeat until done.
Thank you! I am finally able to access all of my personally created music, and purchased music with none of it being on the internal hard drive. Would this work the same way for Photos?
I am still sitting on the fence moving my iTunes folder to an ext HD. Altho, I'm leaning toward the Option to move the Itunes folder to the Ext HD. would like to ask you if it is necesesary to Consolidate the Itunes Media folder before moving iTunes to an ext HD? There a several discussions online and they all pointed to Consolidate before moving the iTunes folder. I'd rather not. Please tell me your comments. thanks
Thank you 🙏
I just got a new 14” MacBook Pro. My god, it is so difficult to back up my large library on an external hard drive. Even Apple support said they make it hard so you have to pay for the iCloud storage. I don’t want to pay $10 a month for my large 160 gig music library!
thanks so much for yet another brilliant and useful video. Question though for you Gary, how do these methods work when you have an Apple Music subscription and have an old library (ripped CD's, iTunes purchases etc) now mixed in with the Apple Music downloads? Seeing as the AM songs are only yours for as long as you're paying the subscription. Many thanks in advance for yours or anyones help.
It gets complicated. You would mostly then choose your Library location, setting that to internal or external. But since Apple Music includes iCloud Music Library the problem of how to store a large Music library is solved without needing that. See support.apple.com/en-us/HT204926
(Also technically none of the songs are "yours" ever. You only license songs whether you buy them on CD, iTunes or stream them via Apple Music.)
Wonderful
You are great as usual
How can I do IPAD and Iphone backup files on external drive to save my internal drive space ?
Also, it is asking me if I want to move and rename the files to your new media folder to match the keep media folder organized preferences? No idea if that’s a yes or no answer.? Thank you, newbie to all your videos, grateful, and greatly appreciated that you did them
You have to decide. Probably yes, but read the instructions carefully and understand them to decide.
I actually use always method 1. But man, with every update, i always need to recreate all the maps that i've build within the Music app. I know you could save it and export it. But when going from iTunes to the Music app (when Apple changed everything), it didn't really accept that file anymore and so i needed to restart all over again. I personally like to have it all organized. But i don't know if there is a better, more simply way to do it? Anyway, i love your tutorials, they are always explained so well!
Nice music taste, Gary 👍
I wish you had done separate videos for the different methods.
Thanks for the info! 🥳🤙
It took awhile as it seemed harder on Ventura. I didn’t have to make an extra folder, I just grabbed the folders of the Musician’s and dropped them into the space you had shown.
Had to authorize my new computer, before they would play on my Apple TV. Too bad Apple can’t fix the artwork problem, too many albums, with no artwork?
Thanks Gary, this is really clear and what I needed.
that is all well and good, but how do you bypass apple music subscript fees to listen to your owned music from a cloud source? Impossible, unless you use a home based cloud storage server. Works the same as Icloud but one time purchase. It would seem that your concept for external storage of my music would than allow me to access it anywhere for playing, typically on my iphone.
One addition to my first question, What about playlists? Will they be destroyed when you do steps 1 and 2?
If yo are creating a new library then you'll start without your playlists. If you move your entire library then they should still be there, but it is easy to test and go back if not.
Thank you so much! I'm a DJ and have over 200 gigs of music. I was trying to figure out a way to export all of the music to one external harddrive. Know the next thing is to make sure that when I plug it to my computer, the Serato App recognize the music through iTunes. Any pointers?
I'm on the same boat right now, did you find any solutions?
@@aced9239 Yes, he has a tutorial on it. I'll look for it and send it to you on this post.
@@JCWalkerakaDjJoeCooley any chance you can share the link to this solution? I am in a similar situation. Thanks!
thanks for the video's. im trying to figure out if you can use these methods and apply these to drives on a cloud? I have tried for example just selecting my collections and dragging them to ituens and it works. I also use it as playlists for my rekordbox. However, am i asking to much of the system? does it matter?
Can we get a logic pro x file storage video please! Not how to move the apple loops library to external hard drive, I mean like a best practices and tips for backing up projects and recording to external drives and archiving and all the tips u normally give!
Unfortunately, I don't use Logic Pro.
Very helpful. I have music on internal and multiple external drives. I lost a load of tracks before when attempting to transfer files to the external drives. I'd love to bring everything together on one external drive if possible. Any advice?
man I followed this and all my playlists are gone now... plus it changed a lot of songs, I don't even know how this is possible...this will take me weeks to do it again
I hope you can help me, I am trying to work with this music app, and I hate it! I tried to get a song today, it took awhile, but once I got it, my iPod only is showing 3-4 playlists, the ones I never use,. I don’t know what to do? I use to be able to go into my 32 playlists and rearrange my songs now I can’t, I guess I have to start all over and add new playlists, but what is that going to do with my iPod, confuses it? I’m so upset about them changing my iTunes,..
Ny problem is when setting up my folder on the external drive my music (from my iPhone 5s will not copy to the new folder.) I am unable to find my error. Drag and drop does not work. And import allows a transfer of some but not all files. Most are mp3 files.
1000 like for you!. Thank you so much.
Glad I found your tutorial. This was very helpful.
What a great explanation. Thanks
I have followed the instructions Gary, I have copied over all of my tracks over to the external drive, but despite dropping them into the folder I created, and merging they are still showing as separate folders. So I now have multiple folders on the external drive that I need to group in order that Apple Music sees them as a library. Do I create a new name for the library and all of these will be incorporated?
Not sure what steps you took, but you usually drag and drop into the Music app to add to your library.
Do you provide services to fix music and photo Libraries that are spread around a Mac and external drive?
you`re a star ! thank you. 👍
Thanks so much for this video! Will albums purchased through apple music also transfer to the external drive to save space on my internal hard drive? When wanting to sync songs on my phone, will my phone recognize the new location of the songs?
I have a old Mac book I’m trying to put my music on a thumb drive because I can’t use the computer no more it’s out dated & can be updated
Thank you. That worked.
I found this so useful! I have all of my media (music and videos) on an external drive, and used Method #1 as you described. I have a question: I'm planning on getting a new iMac. Is there a shortcut to keeping all my media on my external hd, but cloning my Music (and Apple TV) media library organization? - I'm not sure if that makes any sense (i.e. my files stored on the external hard drive work great. But it took me days to load 1 TB of folder organization. Is there a simpler way than the drag and drop when setting up my new iMac?)
Thank you for this @macmostvideo! Question: if I have all my music & playlists on my hard drive now and I use option 2 will I have to rebuild my playlists, or will they carry over when I move all my music to the external HD?
Not completely sure, sorry. Been a long time.
At the end of the video you mention to make sure the new library is labeled 'music'. Can you name it something else without causing problems in the Mac?
It has been 4 years. You can try to name it something else and see if you like. Not sure why you would want to though.
@@macmost Just to follow up, I was able to change the name on the library without any issues. I wanted to be able to include the date i created the new library because I was combining media from several different sources.
I need some help. After watching this great video I have decided to move my music library to an external HD. However, I am not too crazy how iTunes organizes my music files. Either goes into Compilation, or uses the Promoter's company name, the artists, the album, the song. See what I mean.
Do I change how the music folder has been organized by itunes? Or how do I go about to change the filing system. I would like to file by Genre, Album, Song, artists. Obviously, I need to make the change before moving the Music Library to an external HD, or do I do it afterwards?
It sounds like what you want to do is to change properties of the songs. See ruclips.net/video/TQLOlq-eAAE/видео.html
About “My Music” folder. Yes, you explain it, but it would be better if it‘s visually illustrated if it is an external or internal drive drive, so we can see a notorious difference between the three drives. Also, these new organization of files does not use the word “iTunes” anymore, right? to name files for example. Before they called “iTunes Library.itl” or the folder of the Album Artwork; all has been simplified? Could you make a video talking about the changes? Do you have a video about “iTunes Match”?
excellent - thank you
Thanks again, Gary, for a great tutorial here. I moved it all to a flash drive and it seems to working fine. But .... I seem to have lost my playlists. Not a big deal, but could I recover them using the phone that I haven't sync with yet? Also, what did you do with your "MyMusic" folder on the External drive? When you drag the files into Music it creates a duplicate folder with the mp3 files. Did you just keep the duplicates in the MyMusic folder? I am wondering if there is any point of having the MyMusic folder.
Not sure what folder you mean, but if you copied all of your music to your external drive then you shouldn't need the same files still on your internal drive. If you are sure you did everything right, then you should be able to get rid of them. As for syncing, it depends on how you sync. Without Apple Music or iTunes Match, a "sync" TO your iPhone will just replace what is there.
@@macmost Thanks for the quick reply, Gary. Maybe I missed some details but I think what you are doing is first getting all your music on the EXTERNAL drive - in your "My Music" folder. Then you drag those files into the Music app. But then the Music app copies the MP3 files under it's "Media" folder (also on the external drive.) So does that not make duplicate files on your external drive? ...... or is your "My Music" folder on the computer? As far as the playlists goes, I may have to just rebuild them manually as it is only the phone that has them now. I am wondering if I removed the playlists when I created a new "library".
@@DaveRenfroe You've got a switch for that. The "Copy files to Music Media folder..." checkbox that I show. Yes, the playlists are an aspect of the library, so a new library wouldn't have them, but if you copied the library over it should have.
THANK YOU SO MUCH
Excellent/// very well explained
What if you want to keep your playlists and track info?
hey man, I've been storaging music since more than 15 years ago with Method 2 but now I became extremely annoying to do so because the Music App is soooooo slow. I have a 2018 Macbook Pro and it runs okay, pretty fast with all the other apps and software. do you have a solution for this? thank you.
Does it work if I have Apple Music subscription, but also have part of my library as audio files? Or it works only without Apple Music?
Great video, I had doubts when i heard that i-tunes was discontinued after the first video about apple music I knew that it is practicly the same only it is split in 3 parts. The part of moving music libraries to an external drive was a real revelation, I was in real trouble about how to do it but after 10 minutes i realised is was very simple and I save about 800gb on a drive of 1tb so an imens gain.
There one scenario you missed which I have been trying to do with no luck, and that is moving your music files to an external, but keeping all your playlists and meta data.
I have the exact same issue.
Any luck?
@@liliadou2014 I have not. Was on the phone with apple senior advisor for 3 hours Saturday, could not get the playlists to sync. He suggested exporting the playlists (before moving the files over to the external) and re-importing them once you switch over, but you can only export one playlist one at a time. I have over 300 playlists. I just gave up.
@@mountart2 Ugh! Omg. Three hours?! With a senior advisor? That tells me that no one at Apple really knows (or cares) about this. Do you know if there's an alternative for organizing a music library and playlists? I've been researching and see a few but I just don't know. It's so frustrating. I just lost part of one library by trying to follow the instructions (from another video - not this one). So I really don't know what to do.
@@liliadou2014 Yeah, I think Apple has given up on iTunes in favor of their Apple Music Streaming Service. And unfortunately, I too have searched for alternatives to iTunes with no luck, they are all worse. I know the pain, my transfer to an external drive also screwed up at some point and I had to do a re-install of my internal hard drive via Apple's Time Machine Back Up program. At least that put things back the way they were, albeit taking like 8 hours to do the whole re-install, which thankfully I ran over night while I was sleeping, but, yeah, what a nightmare!
Thank you for your expertise. it is very helpful. I have music folders from a PC that I dropped in my external music folder on my Mac but they are not showing up in my music app. What do I need to do to get them to show up? I see the files in the folder. New to Mac here, coming from a PC.
Did you drag and drop them into your Library in the Music app?
Yes, I did.@@macmost
@@richardgarcia1293 Then I'm not sure what the issue could be. If you imported them into your Music library, then you should see them in your Music Library. Try again and make sure you are going to the right place.
Sorry, maybe I misunderstood. I drag and drop them into the music folder where all the files are of the ones I ripped from my cds. Should I drag and drop to the Library folder or music folder?@@macmost
@@richardgarcia1293 You need to IMPORT them into your Music app. You do that by dragging the files from the Finder into the Music app, into the Library in the left sidebar of the Music app.
You've heard of Murphy's Law, which always applies, and is known throughout the Courts of the World as the only law which has never been amended or repealed. It is a little known fact that Murphy has a sister, now known as "Karen," who has her own law, which she righteously enforces. Karen's Law states, "No good deed goes unpunished," which seems seems harmless enough, but only Karen gets to decide what is a punishable Good Deed and the appropriate punishment. There are thousands of YT Videos on point for this law. In the case of moving music files from Drive A to Drive B, for example, then deleting them from Drive A, after being fully satisfied you have done everything correctly to move those files to Drive B, Karen's Law would immediately apply, and you would find out that some irreplaceable file you thought you had moved safely to its new home on Drive B, was never actually moved, and when you deleted all of the music files from Drive A, you also irrevocably deleted the last existing copy of the most important musical work in your collection. You will also find that when you attempt to play that song using its former title, all you will hear is "Old MacDonald Has a Farm." Having learned of Karen's Law years ago, I tend to make second, complete copies of these files on Drive A to a physically separate, external hard drive, used only for back-up files, and verify the file count, file size and playability of each transferred file; I then like to wait at least a week before deleting anything irreplaceable from the source drive, Drive A in my example. Even that precaution doesn't always work.
That was SOOOOO long winded and had me lost half way through. However you brought me back in at the end. Well played sir.
Any chance of doing an update on this video as I go to Music and there is no preferences… all the updates seem to do is change what we see and how we can do things
Thanks
It is called "Settings" now.