Have you ever come across this brilliant idea of converting your external hard disk into complete media library? I meant that, what if we install iTunes on external hard disk? Is it going to be useful?
Of course yes! If you have ever worked on computer with very less storage space, you would realize how incredible this idea of setting up iTunes on external hard disk is.
Now you need not delete your old movies and songs from your computer to make space for new ones. Because once you install iTunes on storage device, you can straight away plug in your computer or laptop, connect your music player and have everything on sync.
Honestly speaking, this was something I have always thought of but did not know how to do it. Here we are with the step by step guide to setup iTunes on external hard drive.
How To Install iTunes On External Hard Disk – Step By Step Guide
Copy Your iTunes Library
First thing that you need to do is copy iTunes library from your computer to your portable hard disk. You have to do it because when you connect your computer or laptop with your iPod, iPhone or iPad and external hard drive, you want to things in sync. Makes sense right?
Below is the location of the folder that you need to copy on your hard disk.
Finder > Music > iTunes for Mac
Start > Computer > Music > iTunes for Windows
Setting Up iTunes On External Hard Disk
By the title, it does not mean that we are actually going to install iTunes exe or dmg on portable hard drive. It is just that we would ask iTunes to refer hard drive for files rather than reaching out its local storage.
For Mac, launch iTunes and navigate as iTunes > Preferences and click on Advanced tab and then click on Change button. Here you need to change the iTunes path.
For Windows, launch iTunes and navigate as Edit > Preferences and click on Advanced tab and then click on Change button. Here you need to change the iTunes path.
If you are confused about the path that you need to set, then here is the answer. Set the path to the Media folder that you will find inside the iTunes folder that you have copied in the initial steps.
Before you click on OK button you can go with the options like Keep iTunes Media folder organized (recommended) and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.
Consolidate Files
This is an optional step as it is completely upto you if you want to consolidate files or not. If you wish to do it, then here are the steps.
For Mac : Navigate as File > Library > Organize Library…
For Windows : Navigate as File > Library Organize Library
Put a check across consolidate files option and click on OK button.
Populate iTunes
Although iTunes has now been configured the way you want but you will see that it wont list out any songs in it. To do that, click on File > Add File to Library on Windows and File > Add to Library on Mac and select the file named as iTunes Library.xml which can be found just inside the iTunes folder you have copied in the initial steps.
It will process this file, which will take time depending on the content and all the songs will now be showing up in iTunes.
In any case if you are not able to locate the xml file, you simply need to drag and drop the songs, movies from the iTunes folder you have copied on to iTunes. This will populate your iTunes.
This is the complete step by step procedure to setup iTunes on external hard disk. Try it out if you have a portable hard disk as it is a great way to manage your media files and iPod.