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[whigsgeek]

Okay, so I want to export my iTunes library from my work laptop to my new personal laptop. Has anyone ever done this before? Is it really as easy as clicking "Export Library" under "File," saving it to the desktop, dumping it on a FlashDrive, and loading it onto the new laptop? Before I head down this road, I wanted to ask if anyone has successfully done this -- or if there are any "lessons learned" you might want to share. Thanks!

[rva]

I don't see why it wouldn't work.  Although I would just take iTunes out of the equation in terms of the transferring. 

If your files are decently organized in folders (which they should be if iTunes is organizing your library) then just copy "mytunes" or "itunes library" or whatever the master folder is called onto your flashdrive.  Then take the flashdrive and dump the folders onto your new machine.  Then load up iTunes and have it search for tunes and your new machine. 

You know what I mean?  It's just a regular-ass transfer of data the same as you'd do with any other file or folder. 

It's not that I don't think iTunes can do this, it's just... why?  I'm suspicious whenever a program has an option for you to do something that is already so basic it's not really even saving you any time or hassle by doing it for you.  It just seems like an unnecessary layer.  It's unlikely anything will go wrong, but why even entertain the possibility when you can just do it manually?

[whigsgeek]

I didn't see your response until just now, rva, so I'll follow your suggestion tomorrow when I'm in front of the computer. I tried exporting directly from iTunes and loading onto the flash drive, but it didn't work --  when I imported the files onto the new laptop, the only things that showed up were the radio stations I have in my library. No songs.

So ... I'll try what you suggested and hopefully have better luck tomorrow. Thanks!

[Kwyjibo]

The method I used was like this..

Go into the settings (Edit>Preferences>Advanced) and change the location of your iTunes Library to the temporary drive.  Then click Consolidate Library (Advanced>Consolidate Library).  This will copy everything to your flash drive or your USB hard drive, whatever you have.  Once the copy is complete hook the device to your new lappy and set the location of your iTunes Library to that location, click consolidate.  Change your iTunes Library location once again to the new location on the new lappy and do a library consolidation one more time.

[whigsgeek]

Thanks, Kwyj! Will add this to the list of options for tomorrow.

[vizzah]

A new, but similar question.  Hopefully this hasn't been asked before. 

If I have songs on my ipod that i want to transfer to my itunes either at work or at home, how the hell do I do that?

[Cockney Rebel]

I assume the songs are only on your i-Pod?

I used software called touch copy to do this. The trial software (available online) will only allow (I think) 40 songs, but I may be able to help if you need to move more than that

[vizzah]

Thanks, CR!  I'll give it a whirl.  I don't know how they got deleted in the first place, but it shoudln't be too many.

[whigsgeek]

I'm still having no luck transferring my iTunes to the new laptop. It's been so maddening that I can only deal with trying new strategies about once a week. I tried Kwyj's suggestion, but it says the file is too large for the 4GB flash drive. So then I thought I had finally outsmarted it by going into the iTunes folder and copying the songs to the flash drive in chunks ... but when I then went to copy them onto the new laptop, it wouldn't copy all of the songs into iTunes at once ... it wanted me to copy them into iTunes one song at a time. At that time I had about 2100 songs in my iTunes library ... one at a time wasn't going to cut it.

So I did an iTunes houseclean and got the songs down to about 1750. I then decided to burn the playlists onto blank discs and then import the songs from those discs into the iTunes on the new laptop. Oh, it'll import them all right -- WITHOUT ANY TITLE, ARTIST, ETC. When I tell it to grab the song info from the database, it tells me it can't do it. And I'm not going to manually input information for 1700 songs!

*sigh*

I'm starting to think I should just reload all of my music onto the new laptop from scratch. I know there's got to be an easier way, and it's probably staring me in the face. I'm just too frustrated to see it.

[Butter]

Where's Doug when you need him?

[rva]

Just forget about iTunes.  It's what I'm saying man, they turn something really simple and make it unnecessarily complex.

1)  Copy as many folders/files onto your memory stick as will fit. 
2)  Make a folder somewhere on your laptop called "Music" or something.
3)  Copy the folders/files into your new "Music" folder.

That's just a regular-ass transfer of files, same as you'd do for anything.  This way, at least you know you got all the files transferred. 

4)  Fire up iTunes and have it scan your "Music" folder for files to add to your library.

[Kwyjibo]

Um... yeah, that'd work.  Duh, why didn't the rest of us think of that.  You'll loose all of your play counts and such though, so be warned.

Unfortunately the method I described would require a single drive big enough to hold your entire library, sorry, I should have mentioned that.

Also, the burning to CDs and reimporting thing... not only would it not have the title artist information but you'd also be transcoding (compressing a file that's already suffered the loss of being compressed once) the music and it wouldn't sound very good.

[whigsgeek]

Also, the burning to CDs and reimporting thing... not only would it not have the title artist information but you'd also be transcoding (compressing a file that's already suffered the loss of being compressed once) the music and it wouldn't sound very good.

I have about as much luck outsmarting iTunes as I do outsmarting my cat.

W, I'm following your directions, using the files starting with A and B as a test. Waiting for the files to copy to the flash drive.

[whigsgeek]

W, I'm following your directions, using the files starting with A and B as a test. Waiting for the files to copy to the flash drive.

Sweet mother, I think it's actually working. So far I've successfully imported the A's and B's from my work laptop's iTunes files into iTunes on the new laptop. Thanks so much, W! If we ever meet in person, the first few rounds are on me!!!

[rva]

See, the whole thing is stupid.  If you had a large enough storage unit, all you really have to do is copy all the contents of the folder My Music/itunes from your old machine to My Music/itunes to your new machine.  It would copy all your songs, all your album covers, all your itunes settings, all your playcounts and ratings.  Bang, all done.  Just copy one fucking folder from a PC to the same place on another PC.  But noooooooo, iTunes has to make it seem all complicated with useless "wizards."

whigsgeek, you have two options:

1)  Copy the folders from your work laptop and put them in the exact same place on your laptop.  For example, if all your stuff is in My Music/itunes/itunes music then just copy them to My Music/itune/itunes music on the laptop.

2) Copy the folders to whatever folder you want to create or already created in your laptop.  Then you have to take one extra step, which is to fire up iTunes and go to edit>options.  Then change the itunes music folder location to the folder you made.  Do this BEFORE you scan the files if possible.

If you don't take the extra step, and you have "copy files to itunes music library when adding files" checked what it will do is copy all you folders into wherever itunes has designated as your itunes library folder.  You'll end up with all your music files in two directories.  So if you have 50 gigs worth of files, you'll end up with 100 gigs.

It's not THAT big a deal, because all you have to do is delete one of the directories.  But deleting 50 gigs takes a little time, plus it just goes into your recycle bin and then you have to clean your recycle bin.  It's just an annoyance and a bit of a time waste.

3)  If you really care about your playcounts and ratings and all that, find the file called "itunes music library.xml"  It is probably in My Tunes/itunes.  Just copy it to My Tunes/itunes on your PC.