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1. Paul said,

   August 17, 2005 @ 12:14 pm

   I just drag and drop the entire Music folder from one Mac to the other. Just confirm the replacement and everything is retained. I’ve done it a dozen times. You’ll have to confirm registration on iTunes purchase selections before listening, but other than that it couldn’t be simpler.

2. DougAdams said,

   August 17, 2005 @ 1:30 pm

   Moving your iTunes Music folder

3. kadavy said,

   August 17, 2005 @ 2:30 pm

   Thanks guys. Looks like you could have saved me some trouble.

4. Magnus said,

   October 1, 2005 @ 5:16 am

   This is perfect for moving the ratings between a Mac and PC. I don’t think there’s any other way to do it because you have to change the directory for each file in the library or the library wont be able to find the files. The link above to Apple shows how to transfer between Mac and Mac. Between PC and PC should be just as simple too.

   Thanks for helping me out!

5. Clarence said,

   March 19, 2006 @ 8:31 pm

   Thanks for your guidance on this under-publicized process we must all go through at some point. I did as stated here but something bizarre has happened. On import, only 1/6th of my iTunes Library was imported. An error message sayid that some songs could not be found. Of those that were imported, when I click on them, some of them say songs are invalid format, no codec to read this type of format. And when I play the other tracks using another media player, I find that when I click on a a song to listen to it, it plays a different track from in my library (as if the song is named incorrectly, which is not possible). So it seems that somehow the library file no longer maps properly to the tunes. Has anyone experienced this?

6. Paula Newlands said,

   April 17, 2006 @ 9:46 am

   How do I get all my itunes library songs from a work computer and a lost ipod onto a differant computer and new ipod?

7. Chris said,

   April 19, 2006 @ 7:19 pm

   I just want to let you know.. I found a program that will display your multiple songs (and files), so that you can delete your duplicate songs. It’s called “Directory Report” (the freeware is only a demo but works well). http://www.file-utilities.com/

8. kadavy said,

   April 22, 2006 @ 9:30 pm

   Paula, you would first have to transfer those songs to the new computer. One way to do this would be to temporarily turn that work computer into a FireWire hard drive. Then, when you buy a new iPod, it should be just as it was when you first got your lost one.

9. Shad said,

   June 1, 2006 @ 10:31 am

   I tried doing your steps above. When importing my music, the xml file is overwriting/removing the ratings. In addition, in step 4 above, when importing on my windows box with iTunes, I do the import one of two ways:

   1. drag and drop my music library into iTunes.

   or

   2. File – Add Folder to Library

   If I do File – Import, I’d have to add each folder one at a time and I have several hundred folders. The music is organized by Artist – Album – song.

   I don’t know at what point I’m doing this incorrectly.

   My steps were.

   1. Copy all my music from my mac to pc.
   2. export library.xml file from mac.
   3. copy library.xml file to pc.
   4. modify paths in library.xml to the location of the music on my xp box.
   5. import the music to iTunes.
   6. rename/backup the original (and now new) iTunes Music Library.xml on my windows box.
   7. Use the modified xml file and rename it to ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’. (this is the one with the ratings)
   8. Start iTunes.

   No ratings shown in iTunes. When examining the xml file a second time, all of the ratings are gone.

   Please help.

10. Lander said,

    June 12, 2006 @ 11:39 am

    iTunesImporter (free) is small little program that will import your ratings and play counts from WMP into iTunes. You can download it from http://wmp2itunes.blogspot.com/

11. Ilya N. said,

    July 6, 2006 @ 9:30 am

    You don’t necessarily need to export an .xml file. There’s an xml file in the iTunes music folder. If you just consolidate your library first and then copy the iTunes music folder it shouldn’t be a problem.

12. kadavy said,

    July 6, 2006 @ 3:19 pm

    Ilya, the XML file is what holds all of the song ratings. How does what you’ve described handle the song ratings?

13. Oden said,

    July 6, 2006 @ 6:06 pm

    iTunes does not transfer your “My Rating” field to a new computer. Yes it is in the XML, and you could probably edit this file, but The following is a non-technical process for transferring your music, playlists, and “My Rating” to a new computer that anyone can do in a few minutes. (this is windows, mac may be different).

    On the old computer:
    1. Create 5 Smart Playlists for one for each of your star ratings (1-5 stars)
    2. Create 5 (regular) Playlists for one for each of your star ratings (1-5 stars)
    3. Go to each of the Smart Playlists and “Select All” (Ctrl+A)
    4. Drag all songs from each of the Smart Playlists to their corresponding (regular) Playlist
    5. Choose “Export Playlist” from the File menu. This will generate an XML file of all Playlists.

    On the new computer:
    1. Move/load your music on the new computer
    2. Import the XML file by selecting “Import” from the File menu
    3. Select “Preferences” from the “Edit” menu
    4. On the “Advanced” tab “Change” the “iTunes Music folder location” to the folder that contains the newly moved music files.
    5. Make sure “Keep iTunes Music folder organized” is checked and select “OK”
    6. From the Advanced menu select “Consolidate Library” and click “OK” to the dialog window.
    7. You should now have your music without “My Rating”
    8. Now go to each of the 5 (regular) Playlists and “Select All” (Ctrl+A)
    9. Right mouse click, Select “My Rating” and choose the appropriate rating for the playlist
    10. Once complete for each of your ratings you can delete the 5 (ratings) Playlists

14. charlie said,

    July 20, 2006 @ 12:51 am

    OR how bout this:

    make 5 playlists, one for each numer of “stars”

    export those 5 playlists

    import them in the new computer

    give all the songs in each of those playlists the corrensponding number of stars using select all + command i

15. Paul said,

    August 6, 2006 @ 3:13 pm

    I recently purchased a new computer (PC) and transferred all of my iTunes music over to it from my old computer, no problem there. However, I was not successful at transferring any of my numerous playlists, it will take me hours to recreate my playlists. Is there a way to import the playlsits and where on the computer are they stored? I have done searches by playlist names and came up blank. Thanks.

16. Gina said,

    August 21, 2006 @ 9:52 am

    Well it appears that there are several methods that can accomplish this process. I know that every time that I have had to change from one PC to another I have use StompSoft’s Easy PC Transfer to move all of my files, including my iTunes libraries and play lists. I have done this several times now with no problems at all.

17. Paddy Dignam said,

    September 3, 2006 @ 4:48 am

    A slightly more generalized recipe:
    01. Ensure iTunes is closed on target computer
    02. Delete Library.itl and Library.xml files in target computer
    These are usually found in:
    Documents and Settings\\My Documents\My Music\iTunes
    03. Open iTunes on source computer
    04. File->Export Library
    05. If your MP3 files are located in the exact same drive/folder, go to step 08.
    06. Open the .xml file created in step 4. with an xml editor like Xpontus
    http://xpontus.sourceforge.net/download.html#download
    07. Use the Edit->Search or Replace function in Xpontus to match target to source directories.
    Example: If your source MP3 files are in
    C:\MP3 and target are in D:\MP3
    Find What: C:/MP3 Replace With: D:/MP3
    NOTE – Backslashes become forward slashes in XML file!
    08. Open iTunes on target computer
    09. Use the File->Import command to import your exported (& maybe edited) library.xml
    10. Done – All ratings should transfer after the import.

18. David said,

    September 7, 2006 @ 1:05 pm

    Turns out that creating 5 playlists, exporting them as *.txt files and importing them in the other computer and reassigning ratings was the best solution for me since I didn’t have all my files in the same folder in the new computer.

    Neither I wanted to arrange the files in the same order as the original computer nor finding/replacing paths in the *.xml file.

    It is a very clever and simple way to solve a complicated problem.

    Thanks for the idea.

19. steve said,

    September 11, 2006 @ 3:53 pm

    Using iTunes has caused my PC to crash several times and has resulted in the following error message: “Windows was temporarily unable to read your hard disk drive. This problem is general in nature and unfortunately we are unable to determine the specific cause of the read error from the error report. In most cases this problem is temporary and can be ignored; however, if the problem is occurring repeatedly we recommend you follow the additional troubleshooting steps in this article.”
    As a result of this i have decided to instead use Windows Media Player 10. My new problem is that i am having problems exporting my iTunes library into Windows Media Player 10. I tried to do it as an .xml file but the “add to library by searching computer” dialogue box that pops up states that the search and status are “completed”, percent complete is 100, but that 0 files have been added. Any solutions/ suggestions?

20. emmarie said,

    October 25, 2006 @ 12:15 pm

    Okay, I think I messed up. All of my music was saved to a external drive that died. I had a back up of most of the music on another drive, but it was all over the place – more than likely this drive is the original copy of all of the music and when I first set up iTunes it’s where I copied everything from. I thought I could just consolidate it all by copying all the music to one folder on a new drive and then change the folder in iTunes and iTunes would recognize it. But all I have is a list of 4000 songs in iTunes with each one claiming that it can’t find the original song and would I like to find it. Before making any more mistakes with my impulsive blundering, if I import the music will I just have an iTunes with multiple entries for each song? One as a new entry and one the old that still can’t find the original?

    Anyone have any suggestions for my next move? Do I have any hope of retaining all my hard work and hours and hours of reorganizing poorly named and categorized music?

    Thanks for any help.

21. Collin said,

    November 10, 2006 @ 6:42 am

    To remove the duplicate songs (on a Mac anyway), select your library and goto View>Show Duplicates. It’s not perfect and only goes by title, but it makes removing them a bit easier. Also when you’re done you need to click “Show All” at the bottom, to see the rest of your files.

22. Sarah said,

    November 27, 2006 @ 11:33 am

    Thank you so much for posting this tip. I made a small donation to show my gratitude for this extremely helpful information.

23. Aaron said,

    November 28, 2006 @ 3:36 pm

    I had success following the instructions all of you provided. Thank you! Here’s one additional thing I did: I exported the entire iTunes library before the transfer. Then, to construct the new library, I imported all of the xml files corresponding to each playlist first, then I imported the Library.xml file, to fill in the gaps. If a song is already in the new library, it does not create a duplicate. In this way, I believe I managed to move every file. Doing it the other way around (importing the entire library, then the playlists) did not seem to work: if it was already in the library, it did not get added to the playlist.

24. thinker said,

    December 4, 2006 @ 10:56 am

    I had the same problem. First I exported the library on my windows pc(iTunes>File>Export…), then I copied the mp3 folder on the mac. On the mac I created a new iTunes library, then I set the path to my mp3 folder in the iTunes settings. I importet the pc-library in my mac itunes and it worked. I had my counters and my ratings. Sorry for my bad english.

25. Miguel D said,

    December 28, 2006 @ 1:22 am

    Hey just wanted to thank you for the info, you saved me quite some trouble. A note for Windows users, I used UltraEdit-32 which worked perfectly to replace the file paths. I tried Word 2007 but for some reason it couldn’t open the XML file. Might be helpful to those that don’t have TextWrangler. Thanks again!

26. Helen said,

    December 31, 2006 @ 3:36 am

    I found this tip a good idea if you want to export/import an entire collection with ratings. However, I have a scenario where I sometimes rate music at work (win 2000) and sometimes at home (xp or mac osx). I don’t have an ipod – all the data is on a gmini archos 20gb. If you don’t want to do the whole database import/export scenario – here’s a trick I came up with. Store the rating in a id3 field (I use comment) so for e.g. if rating is 5 star, the comment field should start with 5. You don’t even need to overwrite any existing comments – just insert the rating at the beginning of the field. Now the rating is effectively stored in the mp3 file itself. If you want you can sort the tunes by comment to reassign ratings in another database, although you can also just use the comment in setting up your smartlists etc. I have been using this for nearly a year now, and although it’s not the 1-click ideal I would have liked – other people might find it useful at a pinch

27. AL said,

    January 6, 2007 @ 12:16 am

    to transfer songs from 1 computer to another, just download a program called yam ipod. on your new computer, hopefully itunes has not been installed yet so that yam ipod can work properly. just upload all of the songs from your ipod onto your new pc with this program and it will al be put into 1 folder without the hassle of having scattered music and dud and duplicate songs.

28. Monica said,

    January 6, 2007 @ 3:50 am

    I’ve tried this, and it works, except that my songs are skipping on the new computer where they were not skipping on the old computer, has anyone encountered this?

29. Axel said,

    March 5, 2007 @ 1:24 am

    You can also use iRating for tranfering the iTunes ‘Library only’ items like ‘Rating’ or ‘Playcount’ to the music tracks. On the new computer iRating imports the items back to the library.

    http://cp194838-a.landg1.lb.home.nl/index.htm

    Axel

30. pbaron said,

    July 1, 2007 @ 10:27 pm

    I was looking into transfering my iTunes Music from my old PowerBook G4 to my new MacBook and found this page… Even though I couldn’t exactly find what I wanted here, I wanted to share my experience.
    Both computers were using version 7 of iTunes in osx 10.4.10 and I managed to successfully transfer my itunes music keeping all metadata such as play count, date added, last played etc as well as all the playlists. Both iTunes were set as managing the collections, they were both set to copy and store music in my User/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder.
    Here is what I did.
    This is dead easy!

    1. make sure both versions are set as described above.
    2. restart the old computer in Firewire mode. Copy the contents of the “iTunes Music” folder (all your music) to the corresponding folder in the new computer and also copy the “iTunes Library” file that sits in the “iTunes” folder, to the corresponding folder on the new computer.
    3. launch iTunes on the new computer, it will update its library automatically and all your music, metadata, playlists will show up.
    4. done.

    Couple notes:
    * I would “deauthorize” your old iTunes before transferring the music, especially if you have purchased music in the iTunes Store.
    * I would rename any album name that has a “.” in it to get rid of the dot, as iTunes replaces the . by a “_” in its folder structure and the new iTunes will think it has lost those songs that you will then have to manually go and reassign one by one.

31. Dr. Dizzy said,

    July 25, 2007 @ 6:19 am

    HOWTO: Move your iTunes music while preserving library data (when you don’t let iTunes manage your music library)

    THIS IS THE SOLUTION TO KEEP RATINGS AND PLAYCOUNTS IF YOU TRANSFER AN iTUNES LIBRARY

    Source:
    http://hifiblog.com/past/2006/05/11/howto-move-your-itunes-music-while-preserving-library-data-when-you-dont-let-itunes-manage-your-music-library/

    Copy of some of the text:
    … if the ITL file is corrupted or damaged, then iTunes will revert to the XML file in order to rebuild it (and consequently, your library data). So the plan is to edit the XML file to reflect the changes in our file paths, and somehow damage the ITL file in order to get iTunes to rebuild it from our revised XML file. If this sounded a bit complicated, worry not—we describe the actions needed step-by-step below:
    1. Quit iTunes.
    2. Backup your iTunes Music folder—this contains your library data. Now that it’s relieved from your podcasts and iTunes rips it’s considerably lighter too, so do an additional backup or two just to be on the safe side. Do this. Now
    3. Move your music files (those indexed by iTunes that are neither iTunes podcasts nor iTunes rips) from the old location (say, C:Documents and SettingsUsernameMy DocumentsMy MusicNon-iTunes) to the new location (say, D:MusicNon-iTunes).
    4. Open the “iTunes Library.itl” file. Select all text (Ctrl+A) and delete it. The file is now blank, with zero characters on it—save it. iTunes Library.itl’s filesize should now be 0 bytes. (This is important, as Schmolle notes, because some unicode aware editors—e.g. UltraEdit—may add invisible characters to the beginning of the file.)
    5. Open the “iTunes Music Library.xml” and do a global search and replace with your text editor of choice. A screenshot of how this is done in EditPad Lite, a freeware text editor that’s light and powerful follows after the end of this list.
    6. Save the XML file.
    7. Launch iTunes. A prompt with a progress bar will come up—iTunes is rebuilding your library. Depending on how powerful your computer is and the size of your music library, this may take a while. When this ends, iTunes will come up with a message saying that the library file was corrupted/damaged and it tried to rebuild things for you. Press “OK”, iTunes finally launches.
    8. Check to see if all your music and playlists are there, and if library data (play counts, etc.) has been preserved. (Hopefully everything’s fine.) You’ll also notice a couple of additional static playlists for your podcasts, videos, etc. UPDATE: Simon notes in the comments section:
    As a minor aside, this approach ‘loses’ the date and timestamp when the file was originally added. This instead becomes the date and time that the track was (re)added to the library during the rebuild. That said, while this slightly messes-up any ‘recently added’ playlists, it somehow maintains the correct sequence (i.e. the rebuild seems to occur in the same sequence in which the mp3s were originally added, so one can still sort the library/playlist by ‘date file added’ and see the newest ones at the bottom).
    9. You’re almost done.
    (EditPad Lite screenshot—click for larger size:)

    By almost we mean:
    all the columns in iTunes have been resetted. You’ll have to re-select those columns that you want to be viewable for each playlist, and resize them if necessary.
    your podcast subscriptions have been lost. Do the following:
    1.
    Go to Edit → Preferences → General and see that “Show Genre when browsing” is checked √). Press the “OK” button.
    2. Choose Edit → Show Browser.
    3. Go to your Library. From the first column of the browser (the Genre one), choose “Podcast”. In the third column of the browser (Album) those albums you see are the podcasts you were subscribed to do. Click on each “album” (podcast), choose all of its “songs” (the podcast’s shows), and drag them to Podcasts in the Source column—see screenshot after the end of this list.
    4. Go to Podcasts, you’ll now see a collapsed entry for the podcast you just dragged and next to it a “Subscribe” button—click on it to re-subscribe to this podcast. (If you click the arrow to expand the entry you’ll see that all of the podcast’s shows that you dragged from the Library are there.)
    5. Repeat process for each podcast you want to re-subscribe to.
    (Screenshot that shows how to move podcasts from the Library view to Podcasts—click for larger size:)

    You’re done, that’s pretty much it.
    Thanks to Schmolle—without his findings I’d have probably never figured that out. I just brought his guide a bit up-to-date, and added Part 1 and the podcasts section.
    If you’re on a Mac, the process should be similar except your “iTunes Library.itl” file is simply “iTunes Library” (without an extension). (UPDATE: Rich confirms that it works.)
    For those switching to Mac and wanting to carry their music and library data over, I’d like to know if the following works (i.e. AFAIK nobody’s tested this):
    1. blanking your “iTunes Library” file (on the Mac)
    2. bringing over your “iTunes Music Library.xml” (from the PC) revised with the updated filepaths (for the Mac)
    Finally, if you want to move your music from a “traditional” hard drive to a NAS (network attached storage) device, you may also want to read Simon’s comment.
    If you try it, let me know how it went. Furthermore, if you’ve got anything to add, or feel like sharing a relevant tip or two, leave a comment.

32. cynthia said,

    August 11, 2007 @ 9:56 pm

    hey that was some great information!!! (^_^)

33. teal said,

    August 16, 2007 @ 7:16 pm

    about step 5, delete redundant files…

    on a mac you can go to the ‘View’ menu and select ‘Show Duplicates’.

    this makes the process infinitely easier. It shows any tracks with the same title. It’s awesome.

34. Joe said,

    August 27, 2007 @ 5:56 am

    I just went from PC to PC. My entire library came over and I was able to import to get my smart playlists over. All of my tags came over EXCEPT for my ratings. It’s too late to go back and use the suggestion to create a smart playlist for each rating. Am I screwed? My ratings are the key to my smart playlists. Windows Media Player sees all of my ratings, ironically. My iPod is close to dying, so if I can’t get this working I think I’ll get a Zune instead.

35. Matt said,

    September 24, 2007 @ 9:46 pm

    I took your instructions here and automated them. I created a free utility called iTunes Library Mover. Thanks for the great instructions!

    If you (or any readers) want to use my utility just head over to http://www.get411.com and download it for free.

36. Matt said,

    September 24, 2007 @ 9:46 pm

    I took your instructions here and automated them. I created a free software utility called iTunes Library Mover. Thanks for the great instructions!

    If you (or any readers) want to download and use my utility just head over to http://www.get411.com and download it for free.

37. Amy said,

    November 9, 2007 @ 9:52 am

    Hey, fellas. I’ve jacked up my iTunes and I’m hoping you have the heart to help a random poor soul who just happened upon your page.

    A friend sent me an external hard drive with a ton of music on it-more than my iMac can handle w/o getting really really bogged down. I’ve been wanting to clear off some space on the ol’ iMac anyway, as I have so many photos iphoto freezes my computer sometimes when I open it. My goal is to move my photos and music to the external drive and clear them off the mac’s hard drive. I would like iTunes & iPhoto to access my music and pics from the external drive.

    Here’s how I botched it:
    Rather than use the “consolidate library” function, which I didn’t know existed, I copied the contents of my iTunes music folder over onto the external drive and then imported them into iTunes. I then changed iTunes path so it would grab music out of the external drive. I was nervous about doing it wrong and losing my old music, so the original music folder is currently residing in my unemptied trash.

    B/c of my foolish actions, I now have double (and sometimes even triple) copies of my original music b/c itunes is pulling it from both the external drive and the trash. I’ve experimented with deleting a couple of songs from the trash and I get that can’t-find-it-exclamation point.

    Like the other people facing the transfer problem, I’ll lose my playlists when I finally throw away the original folder and go with just the external drive. The ratings didn’t transfer, either.

    I tried to undo the import so I could go with the consolidate option, but I can’t undo it. Would it even help with anything if I could do it?

    Opinions, please.

38. elisa said,

    November 17, 2007 @ 5:00 pm

    is there a different way to transfer audio books because this didn’t work for me

39. elisa said,

    November 17, 2007 @ 5:00 pm

    is there a different way to transfer audio books because this didn’t work for me

40. Fletch said,

    November 19, 2007 @ 2:11 am

    I’ve been trying to transfer an iTunes library from one iBook G4 to another. I did it as an e-mail attachment ‘cos I didn’t know any good way to do it and I had the luxury of leaving it sitting for hours. What I have now is a file that says data, rather than mp3. I’ve tried importing that into iTunes but without success. Any ideas? Nobody get too technical ‘cos I’m thick.

41. Bruce said,

    November 28, 2007 @ 7:03 pm

    Fletch: There are a bunch of ways, but the way I would do it is. Shut down the Mac with the music you want on it. Connect a Firewire cable between the 2 Macs. Startup the shutdown Mac while holding down the “T” key. This will make that Mac appear as a simple, connected Hard Disk, and is called Firewire “Target Disk Mode”. Impressive name, no?

    Start up iTunes. Chose “Add to Library…”, under the “File” menu. Navigate using your way on the other hard disk (the Disk Mode computer’s) to the location of the music. Most likely it is:
    /Users/bhoglund/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music

    Select the music you want to import (Select all my Command-A, or click the top most file, scroll down & while holding the shift key, click the bottom file). Then click the “Open” button.

    It should not take long, as Firewire is very fast. The biggest wait will be for your importing computer to sort & organize all the imported songs.

    Good Luck, and I hope this helps you.

42. Nelson said,

    December 3, 2007 @ 6:38 pm

    Can anyone tell me why Apple has not “fixed” iTunes to make it possible to move the ratings with the library?

43. karen said,

    January 2, 2008 @ 1:38 pm

    PLEASE help. Wanting to “copy” my itunes music from my old gatewayPC with 1 internal and 1 external HD to my new Imac. I have an external HD using usb. I want to have the music on BOTH computers. I am totally baffled!! I don’t care about playlists or ratings etc. just the music would be fine!

44. Ben said,

    January 11, 2008 @ 4:05 am

    Hi Guys, thanks for the tips. I have just been trying to tranfer playlists from an old PC to a new one. The problem was that I only had the hard drive from the old one, so could not export the playlists. After a bit of fiddle I have found a solution to this. If you want to do the same follow these steps:
    1. Copy all your music files into the Music folder on your new machine.
    2. Copy the iTunes Music Library.xml to the iTunes folder on your new computer (replace the existing one if it is already there).
    4. Delete the iTunes Library from the new machine if there is one.
    3. Open the .XML file in word or similar.
    4. Go to properties (PC) and note the location, or Get Infor (Mac) and note the location next to ‘Where’, for any of the folders of music on your new machine.
    5. Do a find and replace in Word to replace the links to each folder (replace all). If your music was stored in several locations (i.e. in Music and in iTunes Music) on you old computer, you will have to do a find and replace twice for both of these folders.
    6. Once all the links look correct, save the file.
    7. Start iTunes and wait for it to reload all your music.

    Hope this works, it’s a bit hard to explain but does work! Hope it helps someone…

45. Sam said,

    January 16, 2008 @ 10:04 am

    Hi guys,
    I use itunes on my work and home laptops and currently move music between the two using an external harddrive to try + keep the same music on both. I’ve realised this doesnt carry across ratings + playcount, playlists etc.

    Work laptop has iTunes Music Folder on its local c:\ harddrive.
    Home laptop has iTunes Music Folder on the external harddrive.
    I move music between the 2 computers using a different folder within the external harddrive.

    Is it possible to set both itunes to use the same external harddrive as the “iTunes Music Folder”? Does this also mean ratings + playcounts etc all count between both?
    I only sync my ipod with my home laptop so thats not a problem as i mainly listen to music through the laptops anyway, but really want the playlists, ratings + playcoutn etc to be sync’d between the 2.

    Hope someone can help me please…. thanks in advance

46. Barry said,

    January 21, 2008 @ 10:49 am

    What about data disc? Copy itunes on to disc then load into PC ?? does it work? . People at the Applestore seem to think so

47. karen said,

    January 30, 2008 @ 9:20 am

    HELP! I changed computers and everything transfered as planned but now 3/4 of my playlist has an exclamation point to the left of it when I try and move it to a new playlist.An error message pops up saying that the file can not be found- would I like to locate it and of course, I can not locate it. Support won’t help me because of course my warranty expired. Can someone help? I have actually paid for all of these songs from iTunes and they may as well have not even existed now.

48. steve said,

    February 4, 2008 @ 8:12 pm

    I have a lap top pc that contains my itunes library and works with my ipod. This library is backed up to a plug in ‘my book’ drive. I want to transfer my library from either the back up drive or the lap top to a new pc onto which I have just downloaded itunes. I don’t bother with playlists or ratings. How do I go about this?
    Steve

49. rik said,

    February 8, 2008 @ 1:29 pm

    What I’m wondering is it possible to transfer songs over-the-air; that is, over a network? I have two computers using the same iTunes account, and I hate having to use a flash drive to transfer files. Is there a way to transfer thru the Shared Library?

50. Cyberin said,

    February 20, 2008 @ 3:59 pm

    For how to migrate everything of an iTunes library including cover art, play counts, ratings etc in 9 simple steps see a guide in

    http://tekfreak.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-move-your-itunes-library-from-pc.html

51. john said,

    February 23, 2008 @ 12:16 pm

    I’ve got a problem. I don’t have any music in my actual iTunes library but everything is on my iPod itself. Is there any better way to back up all my music besides burning them all onto blank CDs? I’ve got 15 GBs of songs and this would take way too many CDs. Please help, thanks

52. Grace said,

    February 27, 2008 @ 6:36 pm

    I am getting a new lap top soon and I have over 1000 songs on my itunes library, I need to know a way how to transfer my itunes from one lap top to the other. Please help me or else I will loose over 1000 dollars. PLEASE HELP!!!

53. Angela said,

    June 7, 2008 @ 5:37 pm

    Just got my first Mac. The PC is dead so I only had the hard drive and thought I was done in. But Ben’s answer totally worked!! I spent half the day looking for a solution on the internet and was about to give up. If you only have the hard drive just copy the .xml library to an external drive and find/replace the path, then use iTunes on the new machine to import the edited .xml file. Playlists, playcount, last played — all of it came of over and the shiny new MBP is now rocking out. Thanks, Ben! I am not a techie but your instructions were clear and easy to follow. Happy dayz…

    No if someone tell me why the mac keeps loosing its wireless connection and requiring the password to be re-entered I will be high stepping.

54. jgm said,

    July 4, 2008 @ 2:19 pm

    I downloaded my itune library from my desk top to a flash drive. I inserted the flash drive into my new laptop and imported the songs to itunes. It loaded fine but I have to keep the flash drive in the usb to listen to the songs. If i remove the flash drive and try to play a song, I get a message saying that the song cannot play because the original file could not be found. How can I play the library without having to keep the flash drive in the usb at all times?

55. SadieLady said,

    July 6, 2008 @ 7:10 am

    These posts have been really informative! As I try this out myself I want to make sure I don’t screw up my iTunes (again!). Any help is appreciated!! I have my iTunes installed on a Windows PC. Several months ago I tried to reset the source of my iTunes music to my external hard drive. I changed the source properly, but I lost all of my playlists, which I completely relied upon. Now the only place that has my playlists is my iPod (which I haven’t synched so it wouldn’t get over-written), and my external hard drive has all the music backed up on it. I now need to transfer my iTunes from my current Windows laptop to another Windows laptop (that doesn’t have iTunes installed yet). I want to transfer my iTunes properly, deauthorize the old one, use my external hard drive as the source for the music on the new laptop, and I want to know if I can use my iPod to reestablish my playlists in my iTunes on the new laptop. I imagine this would be a multi-step process but I’m not sure where to start. Any ideas? THANKS!!

56. Lincoln Williams said,

    July 12, 2008 @ 4:55 pm

    I have the same problem as jgm (July 4th)…..transfered all the songs to a thumb drive and transfered fine. Once thumb drive was removed it says can not be played because original file can not be found. How do i get the songs to play with out the drive in place?

    Thanks -LW-

57. LHK said,

    July 23, 2008 @ 8:14 am

    I have an old Nano and old software on my computer. I recently purchased a new nano and would like to copy my library to the new nano and still keep the songs on the old one as well. I am getting a prompt to download the new software, but when I download it I get a message saying that the software already exists and do I want to overwrite? If I do this will I lose my library? And can if I upgrade to the new software can I still add music to my old ipod?

58. nick said,

    July 25, 2008 @ 5:15 am

    hey, if you want to do what you are suggesting, i reccomend just going in and copying the

    :\ipod_control\music folder and then add that folder to itunes… prob is you may get duplicates with your songs…

    if anyone needs further help restoring an itunes library from your xml file only… i have a python script that may help… (python knowledge would help a lot, its rarther crude)

    email me if you want it… n_d_89@hotmail.com

59. Nojo said,

    July 25, 2008 @ 7:37 pm

    I’ve put together a quick-and-dirty app that transfers ratings and play count (either transfers the play count or adds it) from one library to another (that already contains the songs in the library). Linked in my name. If there’s interest, I can spend some time making it better.

60. Jay said,

    August 12, 2008 @ 12:54 pm

    I’ve been using a Windows PC for my whole life building up a huge iTunes library with tons of everything (videos, movies, thousands of songs, ect.) We just got a new PC that’s beastly except one problem, I have no clue how to copy my entire library! Yes, I’ve read long threads of people saying simply drag music files but I need a simple way to transfer everything including my purchases from the itunes store. If that’s too much to ask for, sorry for wasting your time. If you’re nice and care about me, send me an email: walmartman7@yahoo.com
    I have the 80G version of the iPod Classic (Video)…if that makes a difference in the outcome.
    THanks!

61. Chelsea said,

    August 13, 2008 @ 12:56 pm

    I have an issue with my ipod. I had about 800 songs on my itunes library and it was all going good from there, but a couple of days ago, my computer got restarted. I then tried connecting my ipod to add new songs, but a message popped up saying “Ipod is synced with one library and cannot be synced to 2 libraries at once. Erase and sync?” Now, I want thos ew songs on the ipod, but I do not want to delete the old ones. Is there anythin I can do to avoid erasing everything? I’d appreciate the help.

62. Albert said,

    September 3, 2008 @ 4:56 am

    Thanks for the tips folks !

    I just imported the xml file , exported from the old computer, and the audio files where there again.

    Thanks

63. Brilliant idea! « Squealing Rat said,

    September 13, 2008 @ 3:18 pm

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64. Spike lee said,

    September 27, 2008 @ 7:50 pm

    Is there any way to transfer just one song between computer without losing any previous data, such as playcounts, etc.?

65. Jenn said,

    October 2, 2008 @ 11:03 pm

    okay…so my old computer crashed…which had all of my itunes on it. Perhaps I am ITunes challanged but I thought that if you signed in with your user name and password that all of the songs that you purchased would appear on any computer. So now, I have a new computer and want to have all of the songs back that I purchased!!!! How do I do that?!?!?!?!
    I will absolutely appreciated any help!

66. Ryan said,

    October 9, 2008 @ 1:43 am

    Here is a slightly different problem I am experiencing with itunes and music file organization…

    I have over 40gigs of music saved on my External Hard drive.
    -This music folder is EXTREMELY organized by Artist(or Movie, if it’s a movie soundtrack)>Album>Song -with 0 duplicates. This was accomplished with many hours of mindless typing, deleting, and organizing as there were many albums with multiple artists and duplicates, etc.
    Most of this music was was accessed and played through on my Desktop Computer as I had the itunes music file source directed to my external. However every time I import music onto my desktop itunes via my external, the process is entirely slow and my computer crashes 90% of the time. Therefore, not all of my music is on my ipod/itunes because of this problem.

    This is not the predicament, however.
    My main goal is to have all of my music from my external hard drive transferred to my ipod with my music folder on my external unaffected by disorganization in any way.

    So what I did was I connected my external hard drive to my laptop and dragged and dropped the entire music folder to my itunes and allowed it to convert the necessary files and pretty much let it do its thing.

    To my dismay, I came back hours later to find duplicate songs on my itunes, as well as a complete scramble of organization as the ‘artist’ column was littered with various artists (on my external I had organized this various artist compilations into files of the movies title, video game title, or whatever the case was instead of leaving the many artists to have their own folder in my external hard drive’s music folder with only 1 song in it.)

    When I opened my music folder in my external hard drive I found that all the files itunes converted were then placed in new folders designated by the information that was given.
    So now all the compilation cds I had were duplicated and placed in sepeate folders according to the single song’ artist.
    -Basically all of the hard work I put into organizing and creating designated music folders for all of my music has gone to waste as I now have a big mess to clean up. Now I have to spend more hours on deleting duplicates (once again) as well as reorganizing my original music folder with all of my music on my external.
    Before I imported my music the related settings I had for my itunes on my laptop were:
    Keep itunes music folder Organized: OFF
    itunes music folder location: to my main Music folder on my external hard
    drive.
    Copy fles to itunes folder when adding to Library: OFF
    Automatically retrieve track names from Internet: ON
    Create file names with track number: ON (now is off. When testing this setting with a compilation cd that was organized on my external it went ahead and did the same thing: created new folders on my external and didnt stick with my organization from my external music folder to my itunes library.
    Now I know this post is long, however I now have to sit here and spend more hours of organizing all of these music files and I think I am about to pull my hair out!

    Someone please help me and explain what I can do in the future to avoid this hassle again!

    Thank you for your time!
    Ryan.

67. kadavy said,

    October 9, 2008 @ 10:26 am

    Why not just let iTunes organize your music, @Ryan?

68. Ryan said,

    October 11, 2008 @ 2:13 am

    For who it may concern:

    My Solution To My Above Problem:
    Turns out basically all of the files that needed to be converted already had mp3 duplicates that I could use instead of the higher quality files for itunes.
    So what I had to do was delete all of the files that were created from all of the conversions (went into my external hd and sorted by Date Created so it was easy) and then went through all of my existing files to delete any previous duplicates that were present.
    After this I then went through itunes and had to organize those few stubborn albums that I could not rename in my external HD)

    So basically to prevent this in the future all I need to do is click NO when it asks to convert some of my music files, and just suck it up and spend the couple of hours organizing my itunes the way I like.

    -And to answer your question kadavy, I choose not to let itunes organize my music folder because I dont like the way they do it. I have a lot of music that I organize in specific files and if itunes organized it for me it would be a big mess!

    Take care everyone.

69. CY said,

    November 17, 2008 @ 9:26 am

    comments from pbaron for transferring iTunes library in an old macbook to a new macbook is very useful. it works perfectly well. Thanks so much!

70. Michelle said,

    November 29, 2008 @ 11:31 pm

    When I followed the above instructions it didn’t work for me. But what DID WORK was doing this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451

    (Pasted in below in case link dies)

    1. Quit iTunes.
    2. Locate your iTunes folder.
    * For Mac OS X the iTunes folder is stored in one of the following locations:

    /Users/[your username]/Music

    * For Microsoft Windows XP and 2000 the iTunes folder is stored in:

    \Documents and Settings\[your username]\My Documents\My Music\

    * For Microsoft Windows Vista the iTunes folder is stored in:

    \Users\[your username]\Music\

    3. Open your iTunes folder.
    4. Drag the iTunes Music Library.xml to the Desktop
    5. Drag the following file from your iTunes folder to the Trash:
    *
    * Mac OS X: “iTunes Library” (in versions of iTunes prior to 4.9 this was called “iTunes 4 Music Library”)
    * Microsoft Windows: “iTunes Library.itl” (in versions of iTunes prior to 4.9 this was called “iTunes 4 Music Library.itl”)
    6. Open iTunes.
    7. From the File menu, choose Library > Import Playlist.

    Tip: Do not add any music into iTunes at this point.
    8. Navigate to the iTunes Music Library.xml file on the Desktop.
    9. Mac users: Click Choose.
    Windows users: Click Open.

71. james said,

    December 12, 2008 @ 4:05 am

    does the xml file also save the album covers? Cause I had to search and upload some of them of the INTERNET..

    thx in advance

72. kadavy said,

    December 12, 2008 @ 1:57 pm

    @james. To get all of the album artwork for your iTunes Library at once, go to Advanced > Get Album Artwork in your iTunes menu.

73. JOHN said,

    December 17, 2008 @ 2:30 am

    IAM HAVING THE SAME PROBLEMS AS THE REST, NEED TO COPY 10,000 SONGS ON ITUNES FROM ONE LAPTOP TO ANOTHER… WHICH IS THE BEST, 60 DVD’S OR EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE,WISH I COULD PAY SOMEONE A GOOD FEE TO DO THIS AS IT IS IMPORTANT…..

74. an said,

    December 17, 2008 @ 10:11 am

    Sadly none of these worked very well for me, Itunes couldn’t find about 1,500 of my 13,000 tracks when I imported the xml so I’m going to have to lose my ratings, I suppose.

75. john said,

    December 24, 2008 @ 4:19 pm

    how do i get my playlists to copy to my new laptop,the itunes copy is fine to laptop

76. -R- said,

    December 26, 2008 @ 2:51 pm

    QUESTION? can any of this be apllied to windows vista and the latest version of itunes? is the process still the same and do i have to uses an xml writer(wrangler) i’m not really a tech head but i understand the jist of post but i’d have to take this in babyy steps thank you.

77. Nichole said,

    January 2, 2009 @ 10:42 am

    okay so I am basically having the same problem as everybody else. my computer crashed and i had hundreds of songs on it, and now i have to trasnfer my itunes songs that i have purchased to a new lap top. but i heard form a friend that it costs $20 to transfer my songs. what i need help with is where do i find out how to transfer? and can i do this for free even if im not a techno know-it all? some help would be much appreciated. please eamil me if you have an answer.
    Thanks!
    -nichole
    nicholeexo3@aim.com

78. Mike said,

    January 11, 2009 @ 3:03 pm

    Hi. I have approx 22,000 songs on my computer, which was in the process of exploding. I transferred all the songs onto an external hard drive and opened up another itunes on my laptop. My main computer is now fixed but I have two sets of data which I HAVE TO make one. OCD comes into play at this point. How do I add all the play count, etc, from both sets of info to make one correct set of info. The apple shop man said it couldn’t be done but also said that he doesn’t use the play count details. Weirdo…

    All help very welcome.

    Best regards

    Mike Fisher

79. Anna said,

    January 11, 2009 @ 7:18 pm

    My dinosaur Gateway that housed my itunes is shot. The harddrive is intact; however, the screen is so dark it’s illegible. All of my music is on my ipod. Can I scrap the itunes instance on my old computer and just plug my ipod into my work computer + an external hard drive and re-home my music there? Or will I have to get an expert to salvage the hard drive then move the music?

80. pia said,

    January 25, 2009 @ 4:55 pm

    help! I have successfully transfered all the songs off my ipod to my new PC. However, all my playlists are gone. How do i get the playlists transferred too? thanks…

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82. Winchell said,

    February 14, 2009 @ 5:56 pm

    I just bought a laptop and now i want to put the songs itunes my pc on to my laptop, can anyone give me help on how to do it pleaseeeeeee :/

83. Franklin said,

    February 27, 2009 @ 6:36 am

    Can anyone help me? I’m basically technically computer illiterate. My problem — I downloaded iTunes here at work on my harddrive just before Christmas (for my son’s present) and have purchased about 125 songs since then for his iPod.

    My dilema: I’ve got a new job and will be leaving this office next week. Unfortunately, the reason I used the computer at work was the fact that we only have “dial up” internet at home and highspeed at work. Now that I am leaving, I hate to lose all of the songs I have downloaded. I tried downloading itunes at home the other night, so I could possibly download the songs at work to a flashdrive and take then home to restore. However, with dial-up, after several hours of trying to install iTunes, it kicked me out.

    Last night, I backed up the iTunesSetup.exe file from work onto the flash drive and went home and installed it on my computer (don’t know if that was done right???). The icons popped up okay and some of the songs also (I was able to download about 5 songs on the flashdrive before it became full. However, I could get no volume on the songs when trying to play them at home. From what I am reading on this website, people talking about “changing the path”, “searching file names”, “redirecting files”…..I guess basically I am completely computer ignorant. Is there an easy way out of my problem????

84. kadavy said,

    February 27, 2009 @ 12:16 pm

    Franklin. It’s too bad you only have dial-up, because you could just download iTunes onto your home computer, sign in to your iTunes account, and re-download all of the songs onto your hard drive (and then sync with your iPod – oh, and I’m assuming you bought all of the songs from the iTunes store). Maybe at your new work you can do this? If I were you, I would just get a decent internet connection!

    Your son’s iPod isn’t going to do much good without access to a computer with a modern internet connection. Sure, he’ll be able to play the songs that are on the iPod, but adding new ones from the iTunes store will be impossible.

    But, if you really want to transfer all of the songs in your iTunes library, you are going to need a flash drive that can hold all of the songs, so you can get them home.

85. bonzi said,

    February 28, 2009 @ 4:56 am

    Thanks to everybody for good (and not so good*) advice.

    One has to give Apple this: they are even better than Microsoft in marketing!

    It is unbelievable that version 8 of supposedly excellent media library software doesn’t simply and natively support such a essential operation as migration to a new computer. Or that #1 portable player doesn’t support adding the selection to the current running order, either after the current tune or at the end (no, on-the-go playlist is a *not* substitute for that functionality). Or that neither support hierarchical playlists. I wanted to go on with the rant endlessly, but what’s the use? After Apple’s slick marketing coupled with idiots in the press drove from the market products that were actually usable (like those from Rio), there is nothing left but this sorry excuse for the real thing.

    *) “Your son’s iPod isn’t going to do much good without access to a computer with a modern internet connection. Sure, he’ll be able to play the songs that are on the iPod, but adding new ones from the iTunes store will be impossible.”

    My 160GB iPod Classic is choke full, without a single tune from iTunes store, or a single .aac file. I have MP3s ripped from my 1000+ physical CDs, about 10GB of samplers I bought from mp3.com (while it was still worth the visit), 15GB of samples from South by South-West festivals, MP3s from other online stores…. The idea that iTunes store is the only source of portable music is one more result of brilliant Apple brainwashing.

86. retro said,

    February 28, 2009 @ 12:38 pm

    Oh come on ! You can not redownload songs from iTunes. Well not if you not prepared to pay for it again. My flat got burgled and iPod touch with about 1000 songs from iTune store was stolen. I was not given a chance to download them again.

87. kadavy said,

    February 28, 2009 @ 4:07 pm

    @bonzi, the “not doing much good” advice is simplified. The commenter is admittedly “not tech-savvy,” and appears to have purchased all of the music on the iPod from the iTunes store. The “brilliant Apple brainwashing” has simplified what was a relatively complex process so consumers can get a grip on it. This is a separate debate, but while this might not be the best way for you or I, it’s how capitalism works, and that’s why Apple makes money.

    @retro, I (falsely) remembered that one could easily re-download their iTunes library. You’re right, it’s not easy. But, it has been done: http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes/redownload-your-lost-itunes-music-176323.php

88. bonzi said,

    March 1, 2009 @ 1:11 am

    ” The “brilliant Apple brainwashing” has simplified what was a relatively complex process so consumers can get a grip on it. This is a separate debate, but while this might not be the best way for you or I, it’s how capitalism works, and that’s why Apple makes money.”

    I agree, to a certain extent: I *am* using iPod (I have *two* 160GB Classics, actually; bought another one used as a spare after they discontinued the model), despite being perfectly aware of its shortcomings; I am still searching for a good iTunes replacement (MediaMonkey is the candidate currently under investigation).

    BTW, iTunes (the app, not store) is another rant topic: some good ideas, some glaring omissions, and terrible implementation (at least on Windows). I doubt that memory management, multithreading, GUI event handling etc are so different under Mac OSX and Windows (OSX is probably better in most of these, but not *that* better), but it feels as if iTunes was its developers’ first complex application.

    And yet, as I said, I use both, and there is no sign that Apple is trying to improve them. Rio line is dead now; they could steal or buy their ideas now. They even have the guy behind Karma (and before that Rio Car a.k.a. empeg) on board, and it doesn’t show. You are right: that’s how capitalism (at its worst) works….

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90. Jilles said,

    March 3, 2009 @ 1:34 pm

    I’m not sure what the fuss is about. I just mount the other Mac’s drive on the target machine and run:

    rsync -avz /Volumes/ojilles/Music/iTunes/i* ~/Music/iTunes/

    (Assuming your username is ojilles and you’re currently logged as such on the target Mac)

    When the command is finished, run iTunes and done!

91. Markus said,

    March 6, 2009 @ 7:17 am

    For ratings preservation just select all 5 star songs and go to info, type 5-star in the “grouping” field and do this for all the 4-1 star songs and when you import, just sort them this way and re-rate them.

92. Sabirjan said,

    April 5, 2009 @ 6:06 pm

    I have an external drive for backups. What if I copy the whole itunes folder there? Can I use it if my library corupts and will it be usable if I transfer it to another computer?

93. Patrick said,

    May 26, 2010 @ 7:33 am

    This was really helpful until I loaded the .xml
    Afterward, the files were linked but wouldn’t play.

    Instead, I had to put the files in my new iTunes directory (/User/~/Music/iTunes Media), delete the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files, replace with the iTunes Library and new iTunes Music Library.xml file (which had I used the sites steps for), then open iTunes by opening the new iTunes Library file.

    Then, everything was there and linked!
    It took a few frustrating days but that was the difference for me. This was transferring my iTunes Library from a Powerbook to a Macbook Pro with iTunes 9.

94. Tye said,

    May 27, 2010 @ 7:07 am

    I had a MAC and all my ipod music is off my MAC iTunes. Can I still transfer my mac songs from my iPod to my new Dell Computer? When I put in my iPod it can’t red the ipod and asks me to format it which would delete the entire iPod. HELP… Thanks

95. David Kadavy said,

    May 27, 2010 @ 7:41 am

    Hey Tye, yeah, you’ll have to format your iPod for your PC to read it, and that will *delete* the songs off of it. So, if all of the songs on your iPod are also on your Mac, you are better off transferring those songs directly to your PC, formatting your iPod for your PC, then putting those songs back onto your iPod. Make sure you back up all of your songs!

96. Tye said,

    May 27, 2010 @ 7:44 am

    Ok so here’s the problem…My Mac was stolen so I only have the iPod with the music. Am I screwed or is there still a way? I’ll be sick if I can’t get this music to my PC. Thanks for the help on this.

    Tye

97. David Kadavy said,

    May 27, 2010 @ 7:48 am

    You’ll definitely need some iPod to Computer Software, but it only works on a Mac (or PC if you buy the PC version.) The trouble with the PC version would be that it couldn’t read your mac formatted iPod. So, if you can get access to a Mac with such software on it, you could copy the songs off of your iPod, then over to your PC, format the iPod, and transfer the songs back onto it.

98. Tye said,

    May 27, 2010 @ 7:58 am

    I’m confused just a bit sorry… If I buy the software (PC software) it won’t read my iPod when I try and use it correct? So where do I save the MAC ipod music? My GF has a MAC so do I need to upload my music to hers then move it to my PC? But my ipod will still be formatted for a mac, not a PC.

99. David Kadavy said,

    May 27, 2010 @ 8:06 am

    Tye, if you get the Mac software and install it on your GF’s computer, you’ll be able to get the songs off of your iPod. Then, you can transfer the songs to your PC. Once you have your songs off your iPod and backed up, you can format your iPod on your PC, then transfer the songs back onto it.

100. Tye said,

     May 27, 2010 @ 8:12 am

     So the MAC software will format the songs on her computer to PC, I format my Ipod on my computer, then transfer from her computer to my ipod correct? Sorry Im really not an idiot!

101. David Kadavy said,

     May 27, 2010 @ 9:03 am

     Tye, the format of your song files themselves is platform independent. Doesn’t matter if they come from a mac or a pc.

     The idea of Mac vs. PC formatting only matters for the storage disc on your iPod. That’s what your PC can’t read. It can read the files, but not the disc.

     So, just getting the songs off of your computer onto your GF’s computer, you will be able to put the songs onto your PC just fine; and from your PC, you can get the songs onto your iPod once it has been formatted.

102. Tye said,

     June 2, 2010 @ 7:07 am

     David, So I moved my music from my ipod to the apple computer…Formatted my ipod with my PC, then moved those files to my ipod. I then used my ipod to move those songs to my iTunes (pc) which works fine…Only if the ipod is plugged in to my computer. If the iPod is out, it shows all of my music but wont play and says it cant find it. How do I save the music to my computer so the ipod can be unplugged? Thanks for the help again

103. David Kadavy said,

     June 2, 2010 @ 10:38 am

     Tye, I’m glad you were able to retrieve your songs. It sounds like your iTunes library is pointed to your iPod. When you copy your music into your iTunes, make sure that “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library” is checked under “Advanced” in your iTunes Preferences.

104. Bruce said,

     June 4, 2010 @ 3:36 pm

     Impressive collection of feedback. Have been muddling through and realized most of what’s out there is all here… except one thing.

     I’ve moved my library but only after giving up my old computer did I realize the xml file I’d need to preserve the playlists, counts, etc. would be useful! My iPod has my playlists, but not my whole library. So rather than wipe my library (40GB) and replace it with what I have on my iPod (30GB random selection) any idea how can I retrieve playlists from my iPod?? I tried CopyTrans (solid looking program btw) and it would transfer everything but not playlists alone! Importing the whole thing over again, and dealing with duplicates for several GB of music is not my first preference.

105. David Kadavy said,

     June 4, 2010 @ 10:40 pm

     Bruce, the only thing I can think of is if there’s some program out there that would expose the file system of your iPod, allowing you to find XML files associated with your Playlists. Maybe iFunBox would help?

     If you could find such XML files, you could import the Playlists by editing the file paths as described in this post.

106. Seth said,

     June 11, 2010 @ 11:20 am

     I am in same boat as Bruce I think. I don’t have a time machine handy so I can’t go back and make an XML file, and it never occurred to me that Apple would be so hapless and incompetent that I couldn’t transfer my files and ranks. So, now I have 3000 duplicates. Half are unplayable (926 of them ranked) and half playable (none ranked). Apple apparently is too good for open standards or writing ranks to the MP3 ID tag, so I need to manually transfer 926 tags and manually delete 1500 dupes. Or, I could manually and individually relocate 1500 files.

     First and last Apple product I will ever buy. I so regret buying an iPhone.

107. Jennifer R said,

     June 20, 2010 @ 8:47 am

     Thanks for your tutorial, as usual I lost all the data from my Itune when changing the computer

108. panos21 said,

     June 23, 2010 @ 11:49 am

     tried this too… actually have spent 2 days trying to move my playlists/ratings etc from my pc to my new mac on iTunes 9.2… and even asked apple themselves (they couldnt help!!)

     I have edited my xml file very accurately but when i import it in itunes i get the message that ‘some songs have not been imported as they could not be found’ or smth like tht; the names of my playlists have been copied but not the contents (ie tracks in the playlists) nor any ratings or other info like bpm

     please help!

109. David Kadavy said,

     June 24, 2010 @ 8:31 am

     Hey @panos21. I know you said you very carefully edited your XML file, but it really sounds like your paths are not correct. Try putting a couple of songs into an empty library on your new computer, exporting the Library.xml, and checking the paths in it to see if they match up with your edits on your old Library.xml. I hope this works!

110. Lindsey said,

     July 1, 2010 @ 5:33 pm

     I have two questions. First, how do you do a find/replace in a Mac? I haven’t managed to find it yet.

     Also, is there both a Mac and PC version of your transfer software? If so, is there anyway to switch after accidentally bought the PC version.

     Thank you.

111. David Kadavy said,

     July 2, 2010 @ 9:18 am

     Hey Lindsey, if you watch the first YouTube video on this post, you should see a pretty good description of how to find/replace.

112. JackV said,

     July 4, 2010 @ 9:49 am

     I have a large library of music about 45,000 plus (191gb) songs stored on an external drive. When I would get a new CD I would add it directly into the itunes folder on the external drive (My Music/Itunes/Itunes Music). My backup was an additional external drive. I just bought a new PC laptop using Windows 7 OS to replace a dying computer and thought I could just plug in the external drive and be able to access my music. There is only a small amount of the music purchased from itunes. I can’t see my music at all from Itunes on laptop. Is there an easy way to open the music from the external drive without copying it top the laptop. The file is to big for the internal drive.

113. Ninja4820 said,

     July 9, 2010 @ 10:27 pm

     Anyone who’s having that problem where iTunes “streams” your songs… I think I’ve figured it out!

     I had this problem at first, and I believe it’s because I was replacing the directory with just D:\etc. instead of File:/D:\etc.

     I inititally used the “file” root, like in David’s tutorial, but that didn’t work because (I believe) I had the files in a folder that wasnt the iTunes default folder. When I removed the “file” part of the directory root, then it worked, but it “streamed” them since they still weren’t in the default folder. I initially didnt put the files in the default folder because I figured that once they were uploaded then I could just consolidate the library and have iTunes move everything to where they needed to be.

     But, since the files were “streaming”, I kept messing with it, eventually moving the files in the folder that I knew iTunes would default them to anyway. Then when I changed the directory path back to include the “File:/” before the “D:” then it worked!

     Part of the problem for me was the fact that my new laptop has a partitioned harddrive, with the C drive only having like 40 gigs since it’s only intended to really store the OS and core applications. The D drive has over 200 gigs, so that’s where I was planning on storing all my media.

     Anyways, I hope this info helps some people, I know a few other people had this problem as well, and I’m GUESSING it’s because they made the same mistake that I did.

     Cheers.

114. Anoymous said,

     July 11, 2010 @ 6:42 pm

     I didnt have to edit the XML all i had to do was open iTunes and then go to file and click Add to Library… then after that i just selected the itunesmusic folder.

115. REDDY said,

     July 14, 2010 @ 11:10 am

     Hi, I Downloaded the itunes on my work computer and when i connected my ipod to work computer i accedentally deleted all songs from my ipod. Is there any way to get those songs.

116. David Kadavy said,

     July 14, 2010 @ 11:34 am

     Hey Reddy, there are a number of different iPod Recovery software packages, such as this one, which is available on my partner site. I haven’t tried all of them, but from what I’ve heard they can usually help you restore some, if not all, of your deleted music from your iPod.

117. Marc said,

     July 14, 2010 @ 12:24 pm

     Hello,

     Question from a new Ipod Touch user.

     I changed my home computer. I installerd Itunes on the new machine. When I try to sync my Ipod Touch with this new computer I receive a message. The message is that this is not allowed since the computer is different. So I am looking for a solution to tell Itunes that the previous computer is not there anymore and that it should use the new one. I understand that I may not be able to sync the music but I am more preocuppied by my contacts, agenda, etc. I do not want to loose all that information

     Thanks in advance!

     Marc

118. David Kadavy said,

     July 14, 2010 @ 12:39 pm

     Marc: try going under Store < Authorize this computer. You will then have to enter in your iTunes account credentials (I’m assuming you have one). This, I think, should also authorize your computer to sync with your iPod. BE CAREFUL though not to allow it to delete the contents of your iPod if this doesn’t work. There should be some way to get this to work for free, but if you want to make it easy to transfer your music from your iPod to your computer and back, you can also try iPod to computer software, which is available from my partner site.

119. Ken Wilson said,

     July 19, 2010 @ 10:55 am

     I transferred my iTunes from my desktop to my MacBook using the itunes feature “Home Sharing”.

     1. Select Advanced>Home Sharing enable on both devices.
     2. A new device called “Home Shared” will be displayed on the target device.
     3. Select All.
     4. Drop it into the itunes library.

120. kelly said,

     July 19, 2010 @ 7:30 pm

     I am trying to transfer my itunes library from my old computer to a new one via an external hard drive. I do not have my ipod anymore. How can I do this?

121. Celine said,

     August 1, 2010 @ 1:50 am

     So i got a new iTouch but my computer has a virus so we get the virus takin out but it deletes my iTunes Playlist and now that i try to put new music on my itouch i have no playlist so i download Itunes again but i have no music on the list and when i try to put music on it nothing ! How do i recover the music on my computer and put new music on my iTouch ?

122. Angie said,

     August 6, 2010 @ 10:53 am

     my harddrive crashed, I installed a new one, now itunes will not allow me to move purchased movies to the ipod because the ipod is attached to another library, it tells me it will erase what is already on my ipod….help

123. MB said,

     August 16, 2010 @ 9:15 am

     HELP!!! I am wanting to transfer my itunes library from old imac to PC is there difference in the “xml” language???? I tried one way on youtube but when I imported the file it made a “shared folder” which doesn’t allow me to find the files for media sync with a blackberry:( I don’t want a shared folder I want to files in my actual Library. can anyone help? I would be very grateful!:) Thank you

124. Tamye O. said,

     August 23, 2010 @ 9:52 pm

     The Home-Sharing feature was a life saver for transferring my itunes music from my old laptop to the new! Thanks a million for posting this video!

     T.O.

125. Aaron Coleman said,

     August 25, 2010 @ 11:31 pm

     hey,
     I followed it step by step. but after I completed the file path change and tried to save the XML file it said santax error. but it let me save it. so i went to open the file through itunes and I got all of my playlists but it said it could not find the songs. so i’m lost. Please help!

     Thanks,
     Aaron

126. Jinx said,

     September 1, 2010 @ 12:42 am

     I’m not sure if this will work for others, but I just completely copied over my entire iTunes folder over to another computer, and all information, including ratings and play counts and playlists, were retained.

127. Carlos said,

     September 12, 2010 @ 9:38 am

     I’ve changed from pc to Mac and I’m traying over iTunes 10. I followed it step by step but doesn’t work.
     Scores and the date of initial inclusion do not come
     Please help me.

128. Bryan said,

     September 13, 2010 @ 11:57 am

     PLEASE HELP, so close to success!! So i imported my library via Home Sharing no problem. But after i “library>import playlist” and go to play a song, it doesn’t play. Something obviously went right for once because my playlists are there, but nothing plays. NOTE: Theres a little symbol next to all the songs, looks like a “wifi” symbol. I assume this means the songs only play when my other computer is on and connected to the network? If i manually go into my “iTunes Media” folder and click on a song, it will play via itunes and that symbol will go away. What is up with this?

129. David Kadavy said,

     September 13, 2010 @ 12:04 pm

     Hey Bryan, It sounds like iTunes is recognizing your songs as “streams” somehow. When you right-click on a song from iTunes and select “show in Finder” does it choose the file in the correct location?

130. lambdse said,

     September 15, 2010 @ 9:37 pm

     Hey this is really helpful – I’ve transferred my iTunes from PC to PC before and it worked great, but now I’m trying it again from PC to Mac and I have run into a glitch. I think it might be because iTunes 10, but I’ve done all the above – copied all my iTunes folder files from my PC to a external to my Mac iTunes folder and then tried opening iTunes. I thought this should essentially work, but my iTunes obstinately remains EMPTY with no files whatsoever. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!

131. Arielle said,

     September 18, 2010 @ 6:34 pm

     Hey!!
     I just wanted to say thank you SOO MUCH. I could not find ANY other website to help me with this issue!!!! You saved me from so much suffering, and i’ve had to switch itunes libraries to 3 different computers. If only Apple could make it a little easier….
     Anyway, thank you so so so much again, this really helped me.

     

132. Randy said,

     September 22, 2010 @ 2:14 pm

     Does the iPod to PC software also import album artwork? Is there any loss in audio quality (is it a virtual duplicate)

133. ScottyP said,

     September 22, 2010 @ 4:24 pm

     David – I don’t think I’m an idiot, but I must be. I was able to successfully import my full 7000+ song library AND all my playlists (smart & regular). I was able to do this via multiple methods – always successfully. (Curiously, each time my non-smart playlists were empty though; but after RE-importing the library, duplicates of all playlists showed up, and this time the non-smart ones were properly stacked w/ the right songs.)

     Anyway, the reason I must be an idiot is: my ratings & playcounts don’t show up. Yes, playlists….but NO, ratings.

     The only thing I could think of is: I never exported my library or backed up my files in the way iTunes prompted me to. Instead, I would manually copy/paste songs from my C Drive into the external hard drive. Ditto, I would just copy/paste my xml and iTunes database library files. Maybe this method of copy/pasting library files never saved my ratings in the first place?

     Why is my carefully maintained and saved XML file void of precious ratings??? #FAILme

     Thanks in advance, if you have any ideas. Great resource!

134. joao said,

     September 24, 2010 @ 8:53 am

     Everything in this helps works like a charm, thanks and keep the good job

135. ScottyP said,

     September 27, 2010 @ 8:03 am

     David, you know what I really don’t understand? I can look inside my xml document a SEE the play counts and ratings code in each song !! Why does everything else import…but not these? Peculiar, dontcha think?

136. David Kadavy said,

     September 27, 2010 @ 8:51 am

     That is really strange, ScottyP – what versions of iTunes are you transferring to/from? I still haven’t tested this method with the new iTunes 10, so I wonder if something has changed.

137. ScottyP said,

     September 27, 2010 @ 8:55 am

     Not sure of exact versions, David, b/c it has happened to me a few times now. I’m always current w/ the latest version, so maybe we can guess the version #. First time it happened was Dec 2009, and it just happened last week from 10.0 to another 10.0, and then today from 10.0 to 10.1 (I’ve been having computer issues the last month, and had to reinstall all my programs twice).

     Does it matter if you connect the database first and then the xml library file or vice versa? Because I’ve done it both ways, and actually I can answer my own question that it doesn’t matter. I’m stumped.

138. Shawn said,

     October 2, 2010 @ 4:13 pm

     I’m in a similar boat to ScottyP. I’m running the latest iTunes (on PC) and after doing everything I’ve got play lists and all my music, but no playcount or ratings.

139. darren said,

     October 8, 2010 @ 7:15 am

     Hey,
     thanks for the article. I also didn’t fancy wrangling with raw XML until I realised that my situation is slightly different.

     My raw MP3 files have always been held on a SMB server, and iTunes (and hence it’s XML library ) has run on a client. My problem was to move the 10,000 song library on client A to new computer client B.

     It turns out to be really simple. I’m using iTunes 10

     Client A has always accessed the MP3 files on the server using a mapped drive letter ; M: to the root folder of where the MP3 files are ( \\server\music\ )

     1. On old client A ; File / Library / Export Library.
     this created a ~16Mb XML library file. I saved this XML file on the M: drive

     2. On new client B ; map the same drive letter M: to the server and then File \ Library \ Import Playlist
     yes, *Playlist* – and it chuncked away happily importing all 10,000 songs in around an hour. (and then another few hours to go and do the gapless analysis thing..)

     If you wanted to change the drive letter mappings, then iTunes Library Mover http://www.squidoo.com/copy_itunes_library would have been really helpful, but I just didn’t need it. (this time !)

     Even if I didn’t have a server, I would still map a “network” drive letter to an local folder ; ie M: \\localpc\My Documents\Music and store the raw MP3 files there to make the inevitable transition to another PC down the line easier.

     cheers,
     darren

     ps, only one issue – none of the archived and subscribed podcasts that I had on client A came across, but that’s easy to fix manually – I only have a few subscribed podcasts.

140. Bram said,

     October 21, 2010 @ 5:50 pm

     I think I have a problem similar — but not close enough — to some that have been solved.

     Computer was stolen, I have all the music and the iTunes library on a backup. Have copied the songs to the new computer and specified in iTunes which folder to use (I’m not using the default).

     I’ve thrown away “iTunes Library” and “iTunes Music Library.xml” from the new computer, launched iTunes, loaded the “iTunes Music Library.xml” from the backup — and get an error that it’s unable to load all the songs. I wind up with an odd assortment of about 30 from what should be in the thousands — most of them were free downloads of one sort or another, but not all, and there’s one complete CD, and two of the streaming radio stations.

     Any thoughts? Thanks.

141. Bram said,

     October 23, 2010 @ 12:24 pm

     Fixed — just pointed the new iTunes to the correct folder, and copied the iTunes folder from the backup over the iTunes folder on the new computer. All playlists came through and it found all the music.

142. Tony said,

     November 26, 2010 @ 1:21 pm

     When I am trying to transfer my music from PC to my Mac using that file sharing it works but when I am trying to get my playlists and ratings and play count still intact it will not work for me. Because I am trying to edit the code in my Mac and it seems like it isn’t working well for me. Since I don’t have that .xml file code in my Mac’s Desktop and the iTunes folder which is confusing me a whole lot. Could you please help me Mr. Kadavy. Thank you very much.

143. Krysta said,

     November 28, 2010 @ 2:18 pm

     so, like. my old computer had my itunes on it, and it broke.. and i got a new computer, but i dont know how to put all my songs from my itouch, onto itunes?
     PLEASE HELP.

144. larry said,

     December 3, 2010 @ 10:28 pm

     For those having problems, here are some suggestions. The s/w does not do much error checking, so it may appear to be not working when there is actually a problem.

     Make sure your device has enough space. It won’t report a problem if it runs out. Make sure the new Library.xml file is created properly. Open it with notepad, and check that it contains the right path name for your target computer.

     When you select the path for files, you’ll need to add a “/” at the end. The program should add this itself, but it doesn’t. If you don’t add the slash, the program will run and complete very quickly, but nothing will be copied.

     Lastly, in iTunes 10 you use file…library..import playlist. Select the Library.xml file and it should start copying.

145. Mike said,

     December 6, 2010 @ 3:59 pm

     Own an ipod and have an itunes account and apple id and about 1000 tunes. Bought an iphone and registered it following the instructions but accidentally created a new account. Now I can’t get my tunes into the new account and onto the iphone. How on earth can I populate the iphone with the old tunes from the old account?? Help needed! Thank you.

146. Raecheal said,

     December 15, 2010 @ 9:17 pm

     my computer crashed and all my music is on the itunes account for that computer, there was also the problem that i had to reset my ipod and there are only two songs on it that i had to redownload if i create itunes on another computer will it delete my original itunes account

147. Pete said,

     December 20, 2010 @ 3:49 am

     This is the best solution I found on how to import song ratings from iPhone to iTunes
     http://www.from-iphone-to-computer.com/how-to-transfer-ratings-and-personal-settings-from-iphone-to-computer.html

148. Joe said,

     December 20, 2010 @ 4:34 am

     Not sure if this has been said already, but if you have a folder with many subfolders containing all your music (e.g. the iTunes Music folder, if you tell iTunes to keep it organised, that is), you can choose File>Add Folder to Library and select the ‘iTunes Music’ folder. All your music will be added, without any need for .xmls and whatnot!

     NOTE: ALL your ratings will be lost, however, so this method might not be helpful for some.

149. meribot said,

     December 21, 2010 @ 1:25 am

     Thanks Dude, I figured it out in 5 mins, easy peasy. xx

150. Jamie Kay said,

     December 26, 2010 @ 4:36 am

     Totally helpful! Thank you so much!

151. Mark said,

     December 28, 2010 @ 5:55 pm

     Hi David, I went ahead and transferred my itunes library from my macbook to my new imac through home sharing. However, I need to now transfer my playlists. What is the best way to do this? Thanks, Mark

152. jade said,

     January 17, 2011 @ 10:45 am

     very helpful. i even put it in my favorites list because it is the easiest to follow and read without too much tech talk. THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!

153. frank said,

     January 28, 2011 @ 4:11 am

     this was the worst problem with transferring itunes… The metadata was not transferred. I tried a lot of things but what finally worked was to go to itunes folder of new system.
     put all those funky looking itunes files that are not music into a new folder (for safekeeping).
     then copy those same files from original itunes computer and simply paste them into same itunes folder location.
     Fire up itunes then viola! playlists have the rights songs and are playable, playcount, check box checks are all there! SUH-WEET!

     remember to have “keep itunes media folders organized” and “copy files to itunes media folder” checked. those are in edit> preferences>advanced

154. Erin said,

     January 31, 2011 @ 2:28 am

     k my predicament is that after my computer crashed i purchased my music straight through my ipod. now that i have my itunes account restored on my computer i cant seem to figure out how to get the songs i purchased through my ipod onto my computer. i can see them in my purchase history but cant figure out how to transfer them. any ideas would be appreciated

155. Anna S. H. said,

     February 5, 2011 @ 12:37 pm

     Thanks for listing CopyTrans TuneSwift (looks like a very handy program)- I just downloaded it and am backing up my itunes library to an external hd – plan on transferring it to my macbook from a pc netbook.

156. Malyatrax said,

     February 9, 2011 @ 12:27 pm

     COPYTRANS TUNESWIFT IS NOT FREE! I just tried to transfer my Ipod data to my new computer with it (thinking it was free) and then it does it all, and tells me it could only do 100 tunes unless I buy full version for 40 Dollars ARGH!

157. David Kadavy said,

     February 9, 2011 @ 12:36 pm

     @Malyatrax, you’re probably getting TuneSwift confused with one of their other products. TuneSwift is for transferring from one computer to another. For transferring music off of your iPod, you have to use one of their other products, which do cost money.

158. Marty said,

     February 12, 2011 @ 11:10 pm

     Anyone have suggestions for moving my itunes from one internal drive to another one? I just installed a second hard drive and would like to move all my itunes to this new internal hard drive. Thanks for any help you can provide!

159. David said,

     February 15, 2011 @ 3:09 am

     @Marty, CopyTrans TuneSwift can transfer your iTunes library from one internal drive to another one.

160. Lindsay said,

     February 18, 2011 @ 3:48 pm

     Thanks for this. I was ready to throw my iPod out the window and buy something non-Apple. My songs, playlists and play counts are now successfully imported. I seem to have lost half the artwork but it’s a small price to pay

161. Dusty said,

     February 21, 2011 @ 9:45 am

     Help! Yesterday, I moved my iTunes music from one external hard drive #1 to another external hard drive #2 using the consolidation feature. Everything worked fine. However, I now notice that iTunes is opening from the files on hd#1 using the music files on hd#2. THere are no iTunes files on hd #2 except the music files. What do I need to do to have iTunes open/boot from hd#2 instead of hd#1? I’ve moved the iTunes Library and Library extras databasee file and the Library xml file to hd#2 and tried opening from there, but that approach doesn’t work. What do I need to do to have the iTunes and the music open from the hd#2. Appreciate ant advice. Thanks Dusty

162. PJay said,

     February 28, 2011 @ 12:13 pm

     Woot! Thanks for the great blog. I was going to try to do this, rather than keeping my library on my work computer, and I made it work. I realized that the iTunes Library XML file had the information, but didn’t realize that the iTunes DB needed to be damaged in order for it to rebuild it. I clicked on import playlist, pointed to the updated ITL and voila! It rebuilt it, and even brought back all my playlists with only minor handholding (resubscribing to podcasts, telling iTunes to look for album artwork again, and unfortunately resyncing my iPod, which it now has to completely erase and start over again with).

     The major hangup was the ITL file, since I have a lot of music, roughly 13,000 music/podcast/videos. And the ITL file was 22 megs, but for some reason, while Word was finding and replacing, it’s temp file grew to around 18GB. Why? I have no idea, just more evidence of Microsoft’s poor program design. But I got it to work and I’m happy to say that it’s resyncing my iPod now. So, in 2 or 3 short hours, I might end up with something resembling my old iPod. Yay!

163. Emre said,

     March 5, 2011 @ 4:33 pm

     Great, the instructions worked as expected however ? did it on windows and the exposrt didn’t create the xml file, it created a temp file then I changed the file name and extention.

164. Wayne said,

     March 6, 2011 @ 6:18 pm

     After much hand-wringing and many choice expletives, your handy tutorial made everything come together.

     Many, many thanks.

165. Lori said,

     March 11, 2011 @ 11:59 am

     I downloaded itunes on my work computer because I wanted to buy some new songs to listen during my workout that night. I then downloaded the music from my ipod to the computer at work so everything is there except the new songs I bought. If I erase my ipod and download all of the new music I will lose my playlists and still won’t have my new music at home. I want to delete this account and not mess with 2 computers. Is there a way to get the 3 songs that I bought on my home computer? Can it be done through my Itunes Store account or anything like that? I’m afraid I’ll lose these songs; albeit only 3 so not the end of the world

166. ALaModeGurl said,

     March 24, 2011 @ 8:58 pm

     Thanks for the instructions David. It worked seamlessly when I followed your steps. Just wish the whole process was simpler with itunes to begin with.
     But thanks again!

167. Devin said,

     March 29, 2011 @ 11:28 pm

     you can copy your songs from your ipod to your pc. Just have to unhide the files. Although you will have to get most of the names back.

168. Colin said,

     March 31, 2011 @ 4:53 pm

     Hi There,

     I’ve looked thrtough all the advice here (which is great) but I don’t think it solves my problem.

     My hardrive recently crashed which caused me to loose my itunes library (ie I had playlists for each genre of music in my collection). I’ve now got a new hardrive within my exisitng pc and am having to start from scratch. Luckily all of my music (incl tags etc) were stored on an external hardrive.

     It wouldf be great if someone could help me get bafck to my old set up – I had about 15 playlists, covering about 25k tunes. Today I have re-installed itunes on my PC, have none of my origanl playlists, and have all of my original itunes library, artwork etc on an external hardrive. So do I need to re-create the origianl playlists (do the names have to be exact of the playlists?) and what’s the best / easiest weay of importing everything back into itunes, incl artwork

     Cheers, any help much appreciated!
     Colin

169. Richard said,

     April 3, 2011 @ 8:04 pm

     I follow the directions all the way to the end and then it fails with an error “some songs could not be transferred because the files could not be found”. no songs are transferred, but all the playlists are. every time I try, it replicates the playlists…so now I have many copies of playlists, but no songs. The path looks right, no spaces, no backslashes, and a trailing slash. I’m stumped. it seems like many people had this problem…any idea what the solution is?
     thanks

170. Steve said,

     May 17, 2011 @ 11:25 am

     What if I want to move my songs, but leave a copy of them on the computer I moved them from?

171. Will Davidson said,

     May 18, 2011 @ 2:44 am

     Could anyone offer any advice on transferring an iTunes library from a Mac to a PC? I don’t seem to be able to export from the Mac via my Philips external hard drive – I think because it is formatted to back up the PC. Is this likely, and if so is there another method? I can’t find much (if any) guidance on Mac-to-PC transfers. Many thanks in advance.

172. Kelly said,

     May 18, 2011 @ 6:54 am

     i didn’t a chance to back up the music from my i-tunes on my old computer before it died( when i mean died, the screen is completely blank it still charges and turns on, but you don’t see anything on the screen).so the only place my music is right now is my i-pod( and that maybe the only place if the person trying to fix my laptop can’t save my music) .how do i transfer the music from my i-pod to my new computer? or does it mean im screwed and i’ve lost all my music??

173. Billy Hill said,

     May 18, 2011 @ 7:58 am

     Someone may have mentioned this before already, but in step 3, I believe it should say “target” instead of “source” library. If we have already copied the files and exported the xml in previous steps, then changing options in the source library is not going to change anything on the new computer. Kind of confusing at first, but I got it figured out.

     Thanks for the wonderful tutorial!

174. John said,

     May 31, 2011 @ 3:17 am

     I tried this
     http://www.transfer-itunes-library.com
     Worked great for me

175. sunny said,

     June 11, 2011 @ 7:51 pm

     everything went smooth and i have itunes up and running on my new mac. however, in itunes all the songs say i added them June 11, 2011 and not the when i really added the song into my playlist. someone please help

176. Paul said,

     June 15, 2011 @ 9:37 pm

     I had same problem as Sunny, plus a few hundred that did not import. Any suggestions?

177. Kim said,

     June 23, 2011 @ 8:32 pm

     I followed the directions on the apple support website and successfully transferred my library from PC to PC using my iPod. I didn’t really care about playlists, ratings, etc., so that worked fine for me. However, I had also transferred a bunch of stuff from my external hard drive, and now I have doubles of all my songs. How do I get rid of the duplicates? Please explain as to a child–I am not very computer-savvy.

178. ismena said,

     July 9, 2011 @ 9:56 am

     I’ve tried finding solutions to my problem in this large feed! But I’m super confused.
     I have copied my itunes library onto my external before my laptop crashed. I have a new laptop now and I want to transfer my music (that’s easy). I want my ratings, play counts and playlists!!!! This is what I’m struggling with.
     If someone could give me advice on how to do this/if it is even possible?
     I have the xml file on my hard drive that was copied from my old laptop.

179. michael said,

     July 15, 2011 @ 4:21 am

     Hi, just read this blog form top to bottom, but can’t find an answer to my problem.
     I manage my iTunes library on my desktop, organised with ratings etc. This auto-backs up to an external NAS (WD MyBook). I can then access the music on the NAS using DLNA devices around the house (PS3, Roberts Wi-Fi radio etc) but the ratings are not visible on the NAS. I’ve accessed the NAS directly and cannot find an XML file. When I view the NAS stored music via my iTunes desktop (it appears under SHARED) the ratings are blank & I cannot edit the file info (Greyed out). When viewing the NAS files via desktop iTunes, I tired to create a playlist but it always points to the desktop music files, not the NAS ones.
     Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

180. Brian said,

     July 18, 2011 @ 7:46 am

     Thanks for the tutorial, David — it was a great help. encountered one glitch but was able to figure it out.

     I was importing from an old G4 to a new 2011 iMac (with Snow Leopard v10.6.8 and iTunes v10.3.1), and at first the XML file didn’t pull anything into iTunes.

     I realized that the problem was that when I did the find/replace, my Mac wanted “file://localhost/Users/[myusername]/Desktop/itunesmusic/” not the “file://Users/[myusername]/Desktop/itunesmusic/” you demonstrated in the video.

181. Track Counts said,

     July 24, 2011 @ 1:15 am

     Hey. I only care about track counts. Instead of going to the xml file and moving your library and taking all that time download this guy’s software. It let’s you go into itunes and edit mp3 playcounts like you would mp3 names.

     http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=addorsubtractplaycount

182. Windows 7 User said,

     July 28, 2011 @ 5:28 pm

     I successfully transfered my iTunes library using this method but with EditLite (a Windows program). It worked flawlessly. A few points:

     (1) It is not necessary to have iTunes manage your library for this to work. The original article and video imply that you do. I manage my library and this method worked fine.

     (2) There is no duplication of files. This, again, is an unnecessary artifact of the original post.

183. Stuart said,

     July 31, 2011 @ 7:30 am

     When you transfer the library do the play amounts also transfer.
     It has taken thousands of hours of dedicated music listening to have the song plays?

184. David White said,

     August 2, 2011 @ 9:04 am

     iTunes now seems to have the ability to self-adjust to a moved library. I just changed the library location in iTunes preferences ITUNES>PREFERENCES>ADVANCED PANE>ITUNES MEDIA FOLDER LOCATION, closed the popup, then went to FILE>LIBRARY>ORGANIZE LIBRARY from the menu and… voila! After a little processing the library works fine. It kept my ratings and play counts as well.

185. Victoria said,

     August 2, 2011 @ 3:50 pm

     I’m having a little bit of trouble. I’m trying to move my library from a mac to a pc (laptop) but for some reason it allowed me to transfer my movies and apps using home share but not my music. It won’t let me drag my music into the library. Help????

186. alexa said,

     August 2, 2011 @ 9:43 pm

     THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH!!!!!

187. mitch said,

     August 7, 2011 @ 3:51 am

     Please help me I am confused and drowning…….I have just bought a new MacbookPro Laptop and an iPod Classic [160g]….I had my whole library from my “previous” Classic iPod downloaded to a PC then transferred to my new Classic iPod….no biggy except I didn’t own the PC that was used to do the transfers. So now I want to purchase from iTunes on my new Macbook Pro and download to my new classic iPod……heres the catch….i had to register my new ipod with my new laptop. The new laptop has recognised that i already have a shit load of songs on my ipod that did not come from this laptop. so it wants to transfer them to my iTunes Library on my Laptop. Question is this……..will my laptop then allow me to transfer them back onto my iPod once it has been transferred once. I am suspecting it will ban me from transferring again back onto my classic iPod once transferred off it.. Can anyone help.

188. TZ said,

     August 7, 2011 @ 7:26 pm

     Hi – - I’ve used your instructions twice. Thanks. Works great.

189. ralph said,

     August 30, 2011 @ 11:54 am

     Great tutorial! I am looking forward to trying it to create a copy of my library on my new Mac Mini.

     Question – does this preserve “Date Added” and “Last Played” metadata? These drive several of my Smart Playlists?

190. David said,

     September 2, 2011 @ 9:21 pm

     YamiPod is a freeware can manage the content of your iPod without the need to have iTunes installed.

191. Andy said,

     September 24, 2011 @ 2:21 pm

     Okay, so I’ve followed all the steps, and while I can import the library and all of my playlists come over with the dates/ratings/times played/etc. only 1/4 of my songs actually make it into iTunes. The playlists have them there, but they do not play. At first I thought it was because the “iTunes media folder location” was wrong, so I changed it to where my files were, but the same thing happened. The only thing I can think of, is that the music I have is in folders (and sub-folders)I received from people, and even iTunes when you purchase a song implants it about 3 folders deep. Do I need to move every individual file into one folder instead of the folders they are in? This is an annoying process. I was so excited when the playlists copied over. I thought I won, but I didn’t. Please help.

192. Shea said,

     October 13, 2011 @ 7:38 pm

     Thank you for posting this. The first time I tried, all the song information transferred fine except for the ratings. So I deleted the iTunes library .xml file as well as the .itl file and re-imported the .xml file I edited and voila–it did the trick. This saved me a lot of headache and hassle–many thanks!!!

193. Muna said,

     October 24, 2011 @ 6:18 am

     Hi, does this work between PCs? I can see the video only talks about Mac? I want to move my entire iTunes library from my WinXP to my Win7. Thanks for your help. I am completely blind when it comes to computers. I only want my music to work out fine with the move.

194. Ratnasari K. said,

     November 1, 2011 @ 6:21 am

     Muna, the way to move your iTunes library to another PC is similar to the way you do this for Mac. however, be careful when moving between Windows XP and Windows 7, as folder locations of your iTunes Media folder are different.

     If you would rather risk less, I would advise you to use a program which automatically backs up and transfers the contents of your iTunes library to another PC. You can find of such tools throughout the web. Here are some instructions that have proved useful for me:

     http://transfer-itunes-to-new-computer.blogspot.com/p/how-to-transfer-itunes-from-pc-to-pc.html

     There is also a good Apple-provided article on their support page on how to do the manual transfer (be careful with the manual, though).

195. Flick said,

     November 1, 2011 @ 10:21 pm

     thank you, this was made very easy for myself who isnt that computer confident. I only wanted to do this for the playlists and wasnt sure if it would work until the end of the clip where you say ‘it will even move your playlists’ i think you should make this more clear at the beginning for people like me, who care about their playlists
     thanks again

196. katie said,

     December 4, 2011 @ 4:47 am

     Hey I have both a MAC book and a PC desktop… I am on my PC more now then my laptop… I have 12 days worth of music on my laptop, none that was purchased all cd’s from friends and family members.. I need directions on the best way to transfer from the MAC to the PC.. I don’t care about rating or anything like that.. I will take the time to figure that out I just need my songs on a bigger hard drive and on the computer i use more often…if you can help the more basic you are the better im not the best with computers!

     THank you so much

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