# Moving my iTunes Library/Why is this so difficult?



## gatch (Jun 16, 2013)

Alright, I use to think I was a smart guy but I guess I just became old. Here's my set-up. I have my iTunes installed on my tower with all my preferences (I believe) installed on the computer but the library and all my media installed in an external hard drive. The tower is running Windows 7 or maybe earlier. 

I recently got a new laptop and want to transfer my itunes with preferences, playlists, song plays, etc. to my new laptop and keep using the external hard drive for storage. The new laptop runs Windows 8. I've tried installing iTunes on the laptop but it only will link to to the music folder in my profile and won't link to the external hard drive. I've tried copying over all of the files from the iTunes folder on the tower and pasting them into the laptop itunes folder overwriting anything that's the same but that just gives me errors when I try to start it up and still doesn't link to the hard drive. Why is this so effing difficult. I feel like a moron.

It doesn't help that I only have the weekends to work on this as I'm working out of town every week (hence the new laptop, the external hard drive, and the desire for mobile itunes).

EDIT: When I shift click to open iTunes and it allows me to pick a new library there is no library file in either the copied program files from the tower or in the media folder on the external hard drive.


----------



## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

Hi and Welcome to TSF!

See if this helps:

iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer


----------



## gatch (Jun 16, 2013)

Thanks but I've had trouble with this tutorial. 
I've tried this but I don't want to (and can't due to size) put all of the music files onto my laptop. I probably just need to copy the preferences and data files from the external hard drive on to the new computer and keep the majority of files (music, video, etc.) on the hard drive.

I don't know which files to copy. This tutorial only seems to work if you are copying all your music from the external hard drive on to the new computer and that's what I can't do.


----------



## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

Do you use iTunes because that is your source of music or is it because of an Apple product?

iTunes and transferring computers isn't very user friendly. From what I found you'll need to reset all of your preferences. Music should be easy just have iTunes look at the external hard drive and it should start grabbing the files.


----------



## gatch (Jun 16, 2013)

Ugg. I mostly use iTunes because I spent so much time setting it up in terms of subscribing to podcasts, play tracking, and the list of which out of all my music is synced (boxes checked). That and it syncs easily with the iphone. Going back through all of that is a huge pain when I know the information is there in the folder. Whether the new computer or copy of iTunes can read it is another matter I guess. It shouldn't be that hard.


----------



## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

Yeah this is basically all I found for any extra help:

Transfer iTunes Library from One Computer to Another - Transfer Music


----------

