

If you have any questions, feel free to comment.After a little research, I discovered a folder called “Automatically Add to iTunes”. If you do run into an issue where some files get copied to your local computer, just consolidate files like I mentioned above. When importing new media into my library, the files were copied to the external location and not to my local computer. Eventually, I had to change the settings so that my NAS was on all the time. The only issue I ran into was that I used a Synology NAS to store the iTunes library and if my NAS went to sleep, opening iTunes would fail. Overall, the process is pretty straight-forward and you shouldn’t run into any major problems. Connect the drive and then open iTunes and you should be good to go. If you open iTunes without reconnecting the external hard, you’ll get an error message stating the library could not be found.Ĭlick OK and then Quit. Now delete the entire iTunes folder stored on your computer. To do that, you should first close iTunes and then eject the external hard drive. At this point, we can remove the local copy of the iTunes library. If all went well, iTunes should load with your entire library enact! You should be able to see all your media files and play them. There you will find an l file, which you want to select and then click Open. Now navigate to the external hard drive and open the iTunes folder. When you do this, you’ll get a dialog before iTunes loads.įrom the two options, you want to click on Choose Library. On Windows, hold down the SHIFT key and then double-click to open iTunes. On a Mac, hold down the Option key and then click on iTunes from the dock. Once the copy has been completed, we need to open iTunes in a special way. At a later point, we will delete the local copy. Note that you should copy the library over, not move it. Go ahead and copy this folder to the root of your external hard drive by dragging and dropping it.ĭepending on how large your iTunes library is and your network connection speed, this process will probably take up the most time. Inside, you should see a folder called iTunes. In Windows, go to the location listed in the Advanced tab, which should be C:\Users\UserName\Music\.
FIND MUSIC FILES ON MAC TO ADD TO ITUNES FOR MAC
For Mac users, open Finder and click on Music in the left-hand list of shortcuts. Now navigate to the iTunes Music folder on your computer. Go ahead and quit iTunes at this point and connect your external hard drive. Now that we have completed these two tasks, we can move on to the actual process of moving the library. You should do this just to make sure everything is stored there before we make the move.Ĭheck the Consolidate files box and click OK. When you do this, it will bring up another dialog where you’ll see a checkbox for consolidating all your media files. In Windows, you have to press CTRL + B or press the ALT key to see the navigation menu appear first. Next, on a Mac, click on File from the navigation bar, then Library and choose Organize Library. If the location is different, make a note of it because that is where you will need to go when we have to move the data. Now click on the Advanced tab and check to make sure that the iTunes Media folder location is set to the default path, which should be Users/Username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media. Open iTunes and click on iTunes – Preferences in the navigation bar in OS X or on the small icon at the top left in Windows.

Before we do any moving of data, we first have to check to make sure everything is properly stored locally.
