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Question

How can I put all my ITunes into a

Sep 18, 2011 9:54AM PDT

portable hard drive/ is it possible and how? Thank you!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Possible, yes . . .
Sep 18, 2011 10:59AM PDT

Advisable, no. iTunes can get confused if the music is not where it was originally installed.

If you feel you must, then you need to completely uninstall iTunes. Then go to the My Documents folder and remove all your music. You MUST have a backup somewhere, NOT the iPhone. You can use the portable hard drive in a similar location. You then install iTunes again, this time pointing to the portable drive as the music location. You then hope the portable drive doesn't fail/break/become unreadable. And in the event you want to import more music, you MUST be able to point to the portable drive as to where to import the music. If you ever open iTunes and the portable drive is not connected, iTunes will fail and forget where the music is stored.

Really.

It can be a major PITA.

More information is at the iTunes site.

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Answer
Or you can do it the easy way by following
Sep 18, 2011 9:51PM PDT

this Apple article on this very subject.

It is really quite easy and not at all the PITA that others are telling you.

It is only difficult and fraught with problems when you try to wing it.

Follow the instructions and you will be on the way in no time.

Remember though that the external drive will have to be connected and running for your iTunes to run correctly


P

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(NT) Link?
Sep 19, 2011 12:38AM PDT
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Ooops, this is the link
Sep 19, 2011 5:21AM PDT
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Answer
That's a bad idea.
Sep 19, 2011 4:10AM PDT

In these forums folk have done this, then they post "how do I recover my files?"

They forget to make a backup copy. I can only guess they thought these things were "storage".
Bob

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I am a bit confused
Sep 19, 2011 1:17PM PDT

How do I back up my ITunes?

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Re: backup iTunes
Sep 19, 2011 4:54PM PDT

What exactly do you want to backup?
- the program?
- the library?
- the contents?

The contents are NOT in iTunes, just in a folder on the disk. So you can backup that like you backup any other folder, like the folder with your pictures.

Kees

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need more clarification
Sep 21, 2011 3:22PM PDT

I want to back up everything. where is the folder at?

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Re: backup
Sep 21, 2011 9:42PM PDT

Backup library: http://www.google.com/search?q=backup+itunes+library gives a lot of useful hits.

Backup music: Only you know where on your hard disk you put music files. Mine are in p:\music which I created and filled myself. Where's yours? If you don't know, use your file manager to search for .mp3 or .aac (or whatever filetypes it are) files.

Kees