LJ Genie really *does* work! Now: iTunes.

[kitchen_kink]

So I'll try to explain this simply yet thoroughly, because if I confuse myself, I'm *sure* to confuse others.

Here's what I want:

I run iTunes on Mac OS X. I recently bought a huge mother external hard drive. I would like to put my entire music collection on this hard drive, so that whenever the drive is plugged in, I can access all of my music that way.

However, I also wish to keep a selection of my music on my laptop's hard drive, so that I can take my very favorite stuff with me whereever I go.

The problem:

The easiest way to get my music onto the external hard drive would appear to be to tell iTunes to locate my iTunes music folder on the external hard drive rather than on the laptop's hard drive, then begin importing the CDs into iTunes. However, I worry that doing that would prevent my laptop from being able to access the music on its own hard drive when the external one is not plugged in, or at least that it would confuse it.

The question:

Should I move my iTunes music folder to the external drive, and if so, should I keep another version of the same folder on my laptop? If not, what *should* I do?

Comments

[sol3.livejournal.com]

Tell iTunes to keep your library in your home directory (e.g. the default)

Then, go in to preferences, and unlick "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library"

Now, plug in your hard drive, and import the music on there in to iTunes, using File | AddToLibrary (and you can just give it the root of the drive and it will find all music on there) - and will leave it on there.

When the hard drive isn't in there, iTunes will just not play any tracks that are on said hard drive. This does meant that you'll need to manually copy files to either the hard drive or your laptop's music folders when you add it.

(My wishlist is two fold - i want iTunes to be able to intelligently manage a split library - and I want an iPod to be able to act as a sync between two machines)

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Ah - I knew I'd miss a piece of this.

The music isn't *on* the external hard drive yet - it's all on CD. My question is, how do I get it there, and after that, how do I move certain songs onto the laptop's drive?

[sol3.livejournal.com]

Actually - this set of scripts may help quite a bit. It lets you maintain multiple libraries.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, that completely solved it. Thank you!

[dda.livejournal.com]

I want an iPod to be able to act as a sync between two machines

It is relatively easy to make the get the iPod to act as a transfer device between machines. There are several programs and plug-ins that let you get music off the iPod and back onto another machine. I don't know of stuff off-hand that does this automagically, which is what I think you mean by "sync."

The first thing I did with my iPod was turn off the auto-sync with iTunes so I just manually copy anything new to the iPod after importing it into iTunes. If I had another machine that I wanted to keep current, I'd just plug the iPod into it and copy things back.

Does that help at all?

[sol3.livejournal.com]

Nope - I like autosync - i have a machine at home that i regularly rip cds onto as i buy, and i like being able to just plug the ipod in and have it up to date. However, I also buy music from the iTunes store on my laptop, and would like -that- to copy to the ipod as well when I connect the iPod. I don't necessarily want sync off of the ipod (at least not on the laptop - but possibly on the central music machine at home, to transfer songs that i've purchased).

I think what I will have to do is write an app to do my own syncing - something that reads the library file on the ipod, and the library file on the "current machine" and copies over to the ipod anything that's on current machine and not on the ipod, updating the library file appropriately and optionally pulling things back. The file formats are simple enough to work with.

[dda.livejournal.com]

I also buy music from the iTunes store on my laptop, and would like -that- to copy to the ipod as well when I connect the iPod.

I take it that laptop is not the "home" machine for the iPod? Otherwise, it should transfer that music as well. I'd check out some of the shareware/freeware out there as I'm sure this problem isn't unique. :-)

Of course, if you want to write your own, go for it! I haven't bought anything from iTMS so I never run into this particular issue, although I do have music in various places so the scripts you pointed out might solve my problem and the shareware fee is mighty reasonable.

Thanks.

[sol3.livejournal.com]

Ahhh - no, the laptop isn't the home machine. I have a cube with a couple hundred gig of media files (dvds make up a lot of it - audio is about 35 gig) that is my media machine at home. (My laptop doesn't have enough disk space to hold my music :)

It's been a while since i've dug through ipod/itunes software - if i find something, then yah, there's no need to write it.

Just an idea

[cycon.livejournal.com]

If you set up your folder on the external drive, and set that folder as the default place you save iTunes to or call the up from to listen to them, then if your external drive isn't there (like you're on a train or something), shouldn't the iTunes player tell you it can't find the folder it's supposed to look for and ask you to give it another folder to look in? And if it does, can't you tell it to look in a folder on your laptop where you keep copies of your favorite iTunes?

[cycon.livejournal.com]

what *should* I do?

Well...

red.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

*scratches head mightily*

[unknownrockstar.livejournal.com]

I listen to records. :p

and tapes, the odd CD.

[coraline]

unrelated to computer stuff -- your lantern pictures can be found here. enjoy :)

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Eek! I cannot load that page. :(

Off to friend you, finally. :)

[coraline]

is it tsitll being a problem? it works for me....