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iTunes Music library vs. music folder(s)
Authored by: zzmcclos on Sep 30, '05 09:24:20AM

I skimmed the above comments, and now here's my humble (ahem) solution for "getting" music from one iTunes library to another; pseudo-code for general solution follows. If and when someone automates these steps, please provide the script for all to enjoy. Thanks...

1. Create a playlist with the music to copy/move in the source iTunes library, say toGet;

2. Right click on the toGet playlist, and "Export Song List..." to an .xml file, toGet.xml;

3. Copy toGet.xml to the target machine, and now work from there i.e. I'm now sitting at the machine where I'm copying/moving the files to;

4. Network mount the drive where the source library resides - this will cause the source iTunes library to be visible in: /Volumes/mntPoint/myUID/Music. My local iTunes library (the target) is /Users/myUID/Music;

5. Modify toGet.xml with one global search and replace as follows:

Globally seach for

localhost/Users

and replace it with

localhost/Volumes/mntPoint/Users

6. From the current/target iTunes library, File --> Import... the modified playlist, toGet.xml

After some network activity, all the music will have been copied to the target iTunes library!

7. (optional) To make this a move, goto the other iTunes library, and delete the songs.

Wah lah!

Enjoy. (-:



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iTunes Music library vs. music folder(s)
Authored by: sjk on Oct 01, '05 09:26:28PM

I wonder if it'll ever be possible to do that kind of iTunes library/content management without manually modifying XML files or use external scripts.

Conspiracy says Apple's being conservative with iTunes features now to get more people to have reasons to buy the more feature-rich Pro version they've been secretly developing. :-)



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iTunes Music library vs. music folder(s)
Authored by: zzmcclos on Oct 03, '05 04:35:09AM

I think Apple makes this kind of iTunes library management obscur to preservse the perception that Apple doesn't promote illegal music dissemination. Allowing the movement of copyrighted material freely between arbitrary libraries walks a fine line...



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iTunes Music library vs. music folder(s)
Authored by: frickster on Oct 02, '05 02:33:37PM

This seems a bit much. I have three hard drives for music: one external, two internal. In my /user/<me/iTunes/iTunes Music folder I have two simlinks, one for the external FW drive and one for the secondary internal drive.

All of my music sits on either the firewire or secondary drives. New music imported goes to the primary drive, and then I manually sort it because I'm ridiculously picky about how my music is organized.

All you have to do is add the songs to iTunes from the location in which they're likely going to reside, and the files should be located just fine.

Or am I missing the point??

---
-frick



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iTunes Music library vs. music folder(s)
Authored by: sjk on Oct 04, '05 07:43:36PM
I don't understand why you're manually sorting music folders after you've imported it. Why not just unset the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" preference before importing your preorganized music folders? Do you leave the "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" pref unset?

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