Moving iTunes (music and library data) to a new machine

Filed under: Audio, Windows, Podcasting, Apple, Freeware, How-Tos

Moving iTunes (music and library data) to a new machine

by Jason Clarke Jan 17th 2007

I was getting myself all geared up to write a new iTunes related HowTo article for Download Squad about how to move your iTunes music and library data to a new machine. Apparently this is quite simple if you let iTunes manage your music library, but not so much for those of us that choose to wrest control of our library from iTunes and manage it ourselves.

I found myself reading through various articles online regarding how to do this, and was finding that the information was so scattered it would be worth writing up a HowTo myself. But then I found HowTo: Move your iTunes music while preserving library data (when you don't let iTunes manage your music library) over on HiFi Blog. It turns out they've already written the post I was planning, and it's extremely well done. If this is a question that has been haunting you, click through to find out how it's done. It worked great for me (with iTunes 7.0.2.16, no less).

Tags: iTunes, iTunes library data, iTunes library management, ItunesLibraryData, ItunesLibraryManagement, move iTunes, MoveItunes

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

fgfghfghfghertesdf said 5:48PM on 1-17-2007

Better yet: Control Panel > Software > iTunes > Remove

John said 7:24PM on 1-17-2007

iTunes library management is really easy. All you ever have to do is edit the XML file and then import that to the new machine.

TM` said 7:33PM on 1-17-2007

wow that was certainly an enlightened first comment. another way (if you have a small library) or you have dvd's to waste go to file > backup to disk. A 3rd way is to use a 3rd party program that allows you to go from the ipod to the computer and reverse sync from your ipod to the new computer.

Mike C said 8:56PM on 1-17-2007

Don't forget to Deauthorize your old computer (in the Advanced menu) if you use iTunes Music Store.

God said 9:08PM on 1-17-2007

Guys,

All you have to do is "Show Hidden Folders", then drag the Music folder located on the iPod to the My Music of your computer, then load it onto itunes. I've done it multiple times, takes 5 minutes.

Cheers.

Jason Clarke said 12:45AM on 1-18-2007

Yes, that will let you get your current collection of tracks into iTunes, but will it maintain all of your ratings, play counts, skip counts and other meta data about your preferences that iTunes and iPods collect? That's what I'm talking about in this post.

John Carricaburu said 6:06AM on 1-18-2007

iTunes frustrates the crap out of me! It ignores the file names I gave my mp3s and renames it "unknown" artist/song or something to that effect, because it wasn't encoded the right way. I wish it would recognize MY naming system!!

JT said 7:23AM on 1-18-2007

I used to love itunes... until my mp3 tracks that i didn't rip from itunes started losing their names. Then I started using foobar, and seriously... its so much easier to use!

Matidio said 7:49AM on 1-18-2007

It's much easier.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~smulleke/2004/06/10/index.html#post200406101029

Short:
- do backup ... bla, bla
- Shrinking the iTunes Music Library.itl to zero bytes (NOT deleting it).
- Replace in a text editor all paths of iTunes Music Library.xml.
- Start iTunes and it will automatically import your iTunes Music Library.xml.

That's it. Done several times and there were never problems.

ThwartedEfforts said 9:49AM on 1-18-2007

Isn't buying a new machine the ideal opportunity to remove iTunes and use an application that not only looks and feels like a Windows application but also doesn't hog system resources?

Konstantinos said 10:30AM on 1-18-2007

Hey there, I wrote the HiFi Blog article referenced in this post. (Thank you for the link Jason, and glad the article was of help.)

As Jason noted again in his comment (#6), most of the methods you guys mention result in the loss of metadata. The HOWTO article on the HiFi Blog details a way that keeps most of the metadata intact.

Lastly, Matidio (#9): if you had bothered to read the article Jason linked to you would have realized it's basically an updated version of the article you link to. Schmolle was the first (that I know of) to document this hack/HOWTO but it was a bit dated -- I updated it and added some parts to reflect the changes in the newest versions of iTunes that came up in the meantime.

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