Splitting an iTunes Library

[George OReilly]

Kirk,

 

I'm new to the board and need some advice regarding splitting my iTunes library

 

I currently have my iTunes music folder (2.8TB) (all files) on an external 3.0TB hard drive. Since the drive is full, I need to split my iTunes music into two folders, with 50% remaining on the HD where it is now and 50% on a new external HD.

 

I have a 2012 iMac running OS 10.9.5 and iTunes 12.2 (I upgraded before I saw your article). All of my music is my own, I don't download music from the Store, don't use Apple match, nor do I plan to use Apple Music.

 

I have a couple of questions.

 

In your article, "How to Move Your iTunes Library to an External Hard Drive", you state the iTunes folder should be in my Home folder with just the music on the external HD. When I got the iMac I moved my iTunes music to an external HD. Didn't realize I was supposed to only move the music.

 

(1) Do I need to move my iTunes folder from the external HD to my iMac HD? If so, what's the best way to do that? Have I created any problems for myself?

 

I just want to divide my music into two folders, each on a separate hard drive with backup. I understand I need to copy 50% of my files from my current HD to the new HD. The current music folder is labeled iTunes music, I'm planning renaming it to iTunes #1 with the copied folders on the new HD in a folder labeled iTunes #2,

 

My concern is the next step where I select all of the newly copied folders and then drag and drop them into my iTunes folder (after first unchecking "copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library")

 

I envision 50% of my music in iTunes music #1 inside my iTunes folder and 50% in iTunes music #2 folder on the second external HD as a top level folder.

 

(2) Will this approach work? I'm concerned with messing up my iTunes music.

 

All advice is appreciated regarding my approach or a better way to achieve the same result.

 

Thanks

 

George

[kirkmc]

If you want to actually split the library, this should work.

 

First, make sure everything other than the iTunes Media folder is on your Mac, in your user's Music/iTunes folder. Now, back everything up.

 

Quit iTunes.

 

Duplicate your library; select it in the Finder and press Command-D. This makes a new library. Change the name to whatever you want. This new library contains information about all of your files, their metadata, play counts, and all your playlists.

 

Copy all the music files from the external drive to the second drive you want to use. You'll cull them later.

 

Launch iTunes. You'll be seeing your original library. Delete anything you don't want in this library. (You did back everything up, right? Just in case...)

 

When you've culled the first library, quit iTunes. Launch iTunes and immediately press the Option key. Select the second library. When you've opened this, choose iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, and now select the location for the second files on the second external drive. After you select the location for the second library, iTunes should read all the files in that new location and find that there's nothing to copy from the original location. This should work correctly, but there's a chance that it might not. So make sure you have a backup. :-)

 

If all has worked as it should, cull, from the second library, the files you kept in the first one.

 

---

 

Here's another method, which is what I did. I didn't care about play counts and playlists. So I make a big playlist of everything that I didn't want to keep in my first library. I created a new second library, and selected its iTunes Media folder location in a different folder from my main library. My main library is at /Music/iTunes Media, and the second library is at /Music/Other Music.

 

Drag all the tracks from the playlist you made just above into a folder in the Finder. Delete all those tracks from the first library.

 

Open the second library (launch iTunes, hold down Option), and drag all those tracks from the Finder to the new library.

 

As time goes by, when I want to move other tracks, I drag them from iTunes (when the first library is open) to the second library's Automatically Add to iTunes folder, so when I launch the second library, they get added without my needing to do anything.

 

Let me know if there's anything above that's not clear. It's a tricky process at first, and can be time-consuming, but once you've split the libraries, it's easy to manage.

[George OReilly]

Kirk

Thanks for the advice and direction

Question

on moving my iTunes folder from my external HD

 

To move my iTunes folder back to my iMac HD, I'll copy the folder (minus the music) from my external HD to the internal HD. I'm sure I have to do something else though in order to get back to my music. Is it as simple as copying the folder over and then deleting that folder from my external HD leaving just the music? Will i have to tell iTunes where the music is or will copying over the folder take care of it all.

 

You say above to duplicate my current library. I wasn't planning on doing that, I don't have HD space to copy 2.8 TB onto. Was planning on just copying 50% of my music to the new external. I am very concerned over making a mistake and messing up my music and all my work to date.

[George OReilly]

Also

The iTunes Media folder is on my internal HD, but all other iTunes files are on my external HD. There is no media folder on my external iTunes folder that contains my music. In my external iTunes folder, it has Album artwork folder, iTunes Library file, iTunes Library Extras.itdb file, iTunes Library Genius.itdb file, iTunes Library xml file, iTunes Music folder, Mobile Applications folder, and Previous iTunes Libraries folder. I assume all of this but the music needs to go back on my internal HD?

[kirkmc]

All the files, other than the iTunes Media folder, should be on the startup volume.

 

As for duplicating, if that's not an option, then use the other technique, creating a new library and moving files to it.

[George OReilly]

Got it, thanks

 

where should the iTunes media folder be? on the External HD with the music?

 

After I move all the files to the startup volume, do I need to do anything else to be able to use my iTunes music? i.e.; Will i have to tell iTunes where the music is or will copying over the folder take care of it all.

Sorry to be a pain, but I want to do this correctly once

thanks again

George

[kirkmc]

You need to tell iTunes, in the Advanced preferences, we are the media folder is located.

[George OReilly]

Thank you

My new HD arrived today, I will use this information this weekend

Thanks

[George OReilly]

Kirk

Guess I need a little more help

I copied my iTunes folder to my startup volume. But when I restarted iTunes, it used the Library file on the external HD not the startup volume. What do I need to do to have iTunes start from my startup folder and not the external folder?

[kirkmc]

As soon as you launch iTunes, press the Option key and select the library folder.

[George OReilly]

Thanks

I clicked on the iTunes app in the applications folder and then clicked on "Choose a Libray"

 

the library file is "grayed out" and won't let me select it

 

The same is true for the library file on the external HD

 

If I open iTunes from the Dock, iTunes opens using the external HD Library file

 

What am I doing wrong?

[kirkmc]

You have to select the folder that contains the library file. Sorry, I was mistaken in my reply above

[George OReilly]

Thank you

That worked

Wanted to get the library back on the startup volume before splitting music

Have copied music to be transferred, backing up those files now, should be able to complete the splitting task after the backup is complete

[George OReilly]

Kirk

one more question

I'm ready to throw away the duplicated music files from my original external HD.

Do I throw away the music files from the HD or do I open up iTunes and throw away the files from Itunes?

Thanks

George

[kirkmc]

Delete them from iTunes; you have to remove them from the library, otherwise they'll remain there with ! after their names because iTunes can't find them.

[George OReilly]

Thanks

So, do I leave iTunes open when I drag and drop the duplicated files into the iTunes folder or do I close iTunes first?

[George OReilly]

I dragged and dropped all of my 2nd external HD music files onto the iTunes startup folder. I am supposed to see a popup showing how iTunes is processing the new files building links to the external drive location. instead, it tries to copy the music into the iTunes folder, of course, I get a "not enough space" message, and then I can cancel out.

What am I doing wrong?

How to I get iTunes to build the new links to the second HD?

[George OReilly]

Figured it out, actually have to drop the music files into the open iTunes program. It's working, will see what comes next

[George OReilly]

Well, I completed the splitting of the library into tow parts

But several albums only have one song in them? My Library was 2.8TB, now it's 2.6TB

 

What happened? What do I need to do to put everything back in place?

[George OReilly]

I've got an unknown artist, unknown Album folder with all my "missing" tracks

What do I do now? How to get them back to the albums they belong to?

[kirkmc]

Try adding that folder you mention to an empty playlist and see if everything adds correctly.

[George OReilly]

How do you mean?

Other than the track name, all information is gone from the Command I screen

When looking in the sorting tab, the track is associated with the correct folder it's contained in and the music is there, in the folder, but it did not get assigned to the correct album or playlist with brought into iTunes

[George OReilly]

I've got 16,000 tracks that has the track information in the file tab of the command-I screen

Is there a way to assign these with a software program? Manually will kill me

[George OReilly]

I added tghe 16K" tracks to an empty playlist, they moved but no additional information showed up

[George OReilly]

I've tried a couple of things.

First, all my music is on my HD's, where it should be, iTunes is not reading it or not correctly

 

I tried draging and dropping the files into iTunes again (after unchecking), no change

Next I tried the "Add to Library" from the pulldown menu, no change

 

??

 

It's interesting, that most, if not all of the music folders are in iTunes, most have only 1 song, an .mp3, with the rest of the music being .wav files (The mp3 file is so I can add album artwork to the folder even though 99/100's of the files are .wav

 

Most of the tracks I moved today are unassigned, they are in the library in the unknown album, unknown artist playlist. As I said above, the track data needed is in the File tab.