<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/iti.jpg" align="left" style="padding-left: 0pt; padding-top: 1pt; padding-bottom: 1pt; padding-right: 10pt"/> <img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/ai.jpg" align="left" style="padding-left: 0pt; padding-top: 1pt; padding-bottom: 1pt; padding-right: 10pt"/> Now that all of us have our music collections on guaranteed-to-fail hard drives, we need to bite the bullet and back them up. Using Mac OS X Automator you can run a backup of everything or certain playlists or whatever you want, all at the click of the mouse. Spending five minutes to set this up will save you hours of time in the long run. This also makes backing up so easy you will run it often and reduce the risk of re-ripping your whole library. Here is my step-by-step, with pictures, instructions to setup Automator to backup you music.<!--more-->
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK].01. Create an iTunes playlist that contains all the items you want to back up. I called mine Backup.
1. Open Mac OS X Automator located in the Applications folder.
2. Select Custom.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb01.jpg">
<!--pagebreak-->
3. Click on Music in the far left panel.
4. Click on Get Specified iTunes Items in the second column.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb02.jpg">
<!--pagebreak-->
5. Drag Get Specified iTunes Items over to the right side.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb03.jpg">
<!--pagebreak-->
6. Click Add
7. Select the iTunes playlist you want to backup. In this case it is called Backup.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb04.jpg">
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb05.jpg">
<!--pagebreak-->
8. Click Files & Folders in the far left column
9 Click Copy Finder Items in the second column
10. Drag Copy Finder Items to the right side.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb06.jpg">
<!--pagebreak-->
11. Click the arrows in the "Copy Finder Items" box and select the folder you want to place the backup copy your music in. My folder is called Backup.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb07.jpg">
<!--pagebreak-->
12. Select File>Save As name this whatever you want. Select Applications, then select Application as the file format.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb08.jpg">
13. Your iTunes backup is now in your applications folder.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb09.jpg">
<!--pagebreak-->
14. Double click the iTunes Backup application. You should see the status of the backup in the upper right of your screen.
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb10.jpg">
<img src="http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/itb11.jpg">
15. That is it. If you didn't select anything else during the configuration your backup will only copy new items. If you want you can chose to overwrite the files each time, but I won't be using that option. Let me know if this doesn't work for you or you have any questions or suggestions to make this better.
- Chris
Computer Audiophile | Turn Down The Silence
Recommended Comments
There are no comments to display.