What ’s the good way to move my iTunes library to another location ? It ’s get too big and my MacBook is running out of storage space .
Your iTunes library is very important , housing medicine , TV show and more . However , with all this important media to await after it can puff up to Brobdingnagian proportions . There may come a clock time when your iTunes library outgrow your Mac and there ’s no space leave – particularly if you recently channelize from a desktop with a huge difficult driving force to aMacBook Air , say , with a comparatively tinySSD .
Should this happen , you ’ve got three options : madly prune your media ingathering ; move the iTunes subroutine library to a different Mac with more disk space ; or copy the iTunes library to an external drive . We figure you’re able to take care of the first option yourself , so we ’ll centre on the other two .
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How to move your iTunes Library to another location: Transfer your iTunes library to another Mac
When migrating to a make - new Mac with a similar amount of depot blank space to the old one , OS X ’s Migration Assistant is your salutary bet , automatically transferring content for you . However , it ’s also potential to manually reassign your library to another machine , eventually pull up stakes the one you imitate it from with pot of destitute drive space .
On the Mac you desire to copy from ( the source Mac ) , go to System Preferences and open communion . In the overhaul listing , turn on File Sharing . On the Mac you ’re copying to ( the finish Mac ) , your generator Mac should look in the Shared section of theFindersidebar . pick out it and click Connect As . ( If it does n’t seem , use Go > link to Server from the Finder menu , and character in the server savoir-faire that ’s shew in the aforementioned Sharing pane . ) In the sign - in dialog , select Registered User and type the name and password for the source Mac .
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voyage to ~/Music on the dialog showing the source Mac ’s file system and sweep the entire iTunes folder to the equivalent location on the goal Mac . depend on the size of the depository library , the transference could take a long time .
( Note that if you ’ve arrive a back - up clone of the source Mac , connecting that to the destination Mac and re-create from it instead might be quicker . Also , be aware that this kind of copy is destructive , and it will overwrite all iTunes content on the destination Mac . If there ’s already unique subject matter in iTunes on that Mac , imitate it elsewhere , if necessary . )
Once the copy is complete , authorise the destination Macto play content buy from the iTunes Store that has digital right management . try a number of media files to retard that the transcript worked fine . ( For extra safety , it ’s a honorable idea to make a temporary second transcript of it to a separate drive , just in pillow slip , though . ) If you ’re happy , you could now cancel the iTunes library from the reference Mac . Remember to deauthorise any old Macs you ’re plan to no longer use .
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How to move your iTunes Library to another location: Transfer your iTunes library to an external drive
Another choice if your iTunes library is too big is to copy everything to an external drive . To perform this , you ’ll first need to enable ‘ outside disk ’ and ‘ arduous disks ’ in your Mac ’s predilection , found under the Finder menu .
Once you ’ve turn on the option , you may tangle the iTunes backup from your old computer to your external tough drive . To settle the Music pamphlet on your Mac , locate the Home option in the Finder menu , then twice - snap the Music folder .
Within the Music folder , you ’ll find the iTunes folder , which you ’ll want to drag and drop into your Hard Drive . This will now move your iTunes data file to your external hard driveway . depend on the sizing of your music collection , it might take longer .
After you ’ve finish up , you ’ll want to relaunch iTunes , by deem down theOption(Alt ) key and clicking on the iTunes software . This will then prompt you to choose a fresh library .
In the Choose iTunes Library dialog , click Choose Library and take the iTunes pamphlet on your international private road . This can be enough for iTunes to properly link itself with the copied program library , but it ’s also worth going into the Advanced preference and hold back that the iTunes Media folder location is correct . If not , tick modification and reconfirm .
When using external drives , some things are worth bear in mind . First , unless the drive is mounted , you wo n’t have admittance to your iTunes filing cabinet . On that basis , a midget USB Flash private road is a in effect bet ( if you may get one that ’s big enough ) rather than a large external hard driving force . Also , while you’re able to apply a networked drive ’s iTunes library , do so with caution , and do n’t seek to connect multiple iteration of iTunes to it .
Finally , if your media content is important to you , ensure you have multiple copy of it . This means that if you’rebacking up your Macyou should also be backing up the outside cause with your iTunes library stored on it . If you do n’t , there may come a day when you want to play your favourite songs and all you find is silence from a numb driveway .
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