Switching Your iTunes Library Location

Published by Blake Macleod | Filed under How To, Technology

My good friend Drew Bennett has asked me how to change the location of his iTunes Music directory. He wants to use the music from his external hard drive, not his local music folder. It is not too difficult, but I thought I would share the way I would do this with all of you.

I am using iTunes 7.6 on a windows machine (my new mac is coming soon). The first thing that I would do is start with a blank slate (remove any old music / file references). Click EDIT, SELECT ALL and hit DELETE. Chose the option to remove files from iTunes, do not put them in the trash. Now, with your iTunes empty simply click EDIT and go to PREFERENCES. Click on the ADVANCED tab. In the sub tab titled GENERAL you will see the top item which says ‘iTunes Music Folder Location.’ Click the CHANGE button on the right. Navigate the file structure to your music location. In Drews case it would be on his external hard drive.

Now with your new location set you have to add your Music (seems like it should add all the music that is there, but it does not). Click FILE and go to ADD FOLDER TO LIBRARY. Select the location where you music is. This should be the same as the location we set in the Preferences->Advanced Tab. iTunes will now add all your music to your library. All new music you add will go to this location as well.

This should do it. If you have any questions, or I left something out or can think of a better way to do this please send me a comment.