I moved my entire iTunes Library (including the iTunes library files) to an external drive and just use an alias to point iTunes to its new location.

You can also move your library to just about any network share that you have available. I did this years ago so that I would have my music available to me regardless of which computer I was using ( my PC or any Mac). Of course, you can only authorize up to 5 computers to play your protected music.
The only caveat to moving your music is that if the volume isn't available, it may revert to your ~/Music folder if you try to rip new music. (This used to be the case in iTunes 6.. haven't tested it in 7 yet.)

I've been doing this for some time, and one thing that you need to remember is this: if you launch iTunes without your external drive available, it will reset the default library back to the boot drive. Then whatever you rip will go to the boot drive instead of the external. You have to use the "consolidate library" function to reorganize things. This isn't always a bad thing, as you can rip CD's on the road and then move them to the main library in one operation - you just need to be aware of it and periodically check to see where iTunes thinks its library is.

I keep my iTunes library on a 320GB external drive which is almost full now! I have ripped all my CDs losslessly to Apple Lossless format (about 1/2 of .WAV files, about 5X 128K MP3 files). Before I went on vacation recently, I set up a new iTunes default library on my main drive, imported without copy the entire external library, selected all, and hit "Convert to MP3", 128K, vbr, medium quality. It took 6 days (!!!!) running in the background, but I ended up with a much smaller (and lower quality) version of my entire library (circa 50 GB) which fit on the internal drive. My vacation was musical, and when I got home I deleted it all and restored my system to normal. The same procedure would work well for a large (60GB) ipod.

Apple said that you couldn't move it. Just created an alias and all was great.

It is a life saver when the OS hammers, you don't loose all your tunes. AND if you put it on a separate partition and the OS hammers or you need to reinstall from scratch . . . now reconnect through iTunes, back then it was a new alias and NO headaches.

I put my iTunes library in the Shared user folder, then put aliases in each user's Music folder. That way if I'm working under my main user and make a change, it'll show up in all the other users (such as my "video projects" user). Changes there transfer back to my main user. The only catch is assigning permissions on the Shared iTunes folder. Otherwise, a perfect solution for one computer. For my powerbook I have aliases over to the iMac, so when the two are on the same network, the PB can rock out too.

Just a minor warning I'm not sure how many people will find relevant:

Make sure your external drive is formatted with an advanced file system like HFS+ or ext2/3, etc. Copying your iTunes library with long file names & other "advanced" functions to a Fat32 or NTFS system can cause problems. In my experience many of these problems don't surface until you try to copy the files back to your HFS+ drive and some of the files have been corrupted.

Lost at least 10% of my library this way. Took a bit of research to figure out what happened. Since then I've moved it a couple more times without incident.


- Jon

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Guest wrote:
I've been doing this for some time, and one thing that you need to remember is this: if you launch iTunes without your external drive available, it will reset the default library back to the boot drive.

This information was just what I needed. Followed the steps and all worked well except, after deleting the iTunes Music folder I seem to have lost all my playlists. I still have the original complete iTunes library folder on yet another harddrive (just playing it safe). Two questions: what did I do wrong to loose the playlists? And, what file has the playlist so I can try and restore them from my backup folder?

Thanks. Dave

I'm in a spot of bother.

I have my iTunes library on an external hardrive and, having cleaned up my internal hardrive using the program 'Onyx', the next time I opened iTunes I got the message "The alias iTunes could not be opened because the original item could not be found."

I know all my music is still on my external hardrive because the disk space used is still the same as before as but I can't get to it. I'd re-upload my library from my iPod as I do have 'iPod Viewer' but it doesn't have all of the music in my main library on it - Anyone have any idea how to re-alias or re-link so I can have access to my music?

I am trying to share my itunes library on my network. When I try to load the shared library the message cannot access lib -3259, mkae sure the port 3689 is open, if you have a firewall. I am not running windows firewall on any of the pc;s.. but i can see othe libraries on other computers and load them with no problem. on the pc that contains the library that wont load, i cant see any other shared libraries on the network. but other pc;s i can. all other oc's in the network get the same message when trying to load this library. the library is very big,.. i am running itunes 7 every where

In 7 I'm running into this same issue where the network share goes away for some unknown reason and then iTunes has magically reverted to its standard directory.

I'm now thinking about just aliasing it's default music directory to automatically point to the network share so it doesn't have to keep re-scanning the library all the time.