Moving iTunes from external hard drive to My Cloud and running it on a new device

Legacy Products My Cloud OS 3
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Hi, so basically what my problem is that I have the EX2 ultra 8tb. and its created a music folder which includes iTunes inside as standard I believe on the my cloud EX2 but I don’t store my iTunes in that folder so it only has a couple of item in it. I store my iTunes on my external hard drive. I used to store it on my old Mac but was taking up too much space so I configured it to run from the external hard drive.

I now have a new Mac and I want to use this laptop instead of my old one to run my iTunes but I don’t want to have to keep plugging in my external hard drive every time I want to add music etc. (Hence buying EX2) but to do this is need to get the music that is on the the external hard drive into the my cloud but I don’t want to mess any of the settings up. i’m struggling to find anyone who is trying to do the same thing of has done it and can share the wisdom.

many thanks

2

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3

Google is your friend.

Do some research here: Move your iTunes library to another computer - Apple Support

The section you want is the “Restore from a backup”; and the file you need to move to the EX2 is the “iTunes Library.itl” file.

Now, the following advice is worth exactly what you are paying for it (i.e. FREE; and worth nothing). Also, bear in mind that I will speak WINDOWS. Working with MAC may be different.

The key in doing this is WHERE the *.itl file sits relative to your music and what your drive letter assignments look like. Also, it depends on how “smart” the iTunes software is.

If your iTunes music was all in " [User folder]\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media." and the *.itl was in the
“[User folder]\music\iTunes”, I will bet a nickel that if you move everything to the NAS, it will work fine. BUT. . .

It sounds like your *.itl is on one machine, and your music is on a different drive. If you MAP the drive letter, and the NAS uses the same letter as your external drive USED to use. . .I bet it will work fine. If, however, the drive letters are different, or if you are accessing the files without a permanent drive letter (Like: \network\MyEX2 friendly user name\Music folder), I bet everything will be goobered up.

So: I would punt and do the following:

  1. Protect your external drive and old mac until everything is done. That way- - → If you goof up, you can start over :wink:

  2. Install iTunes on the new MAC. Use the latest version.

  3. Copy all the music files to the NAS.

  4. Copy the *.itl and other misc files in the iTunes folder over to the new machine.

  5. Open iTunes using the “Shift” key as talked about in the article I linked to.

  6. I will bet a full DIME that iTunes won’t be able to find the music because the drive letter assignments are different. You can either try to find the music, album by album. . . . .OR. . .get a cup of coffee and do the next steps. I am basically telling you to recreate the library file from scratch.

  7. Delete each and every song and album from iTunes (From the library only) that you think iTunes won’t find.

  8. Do the “Add folder to library” option under file; and add back the music folder where you put everything on the NAS.

If I am right, all your songs should repopulate properly. The data added will be wrong; but the song counts, playlists, and album art should be ok.

Now, I have migrated computers and HDD’s several times with iTunes; but fundamentally my music has always been on “D” drive. So I never got iTunes confused.

HOWEVER, I have played with Windows Media Player’s library system. I have done similar shenanigans to what I describe to get that up and running. The only issue with iTunes is that I am a bit foggy on how it stores phone backups and playlists. I suspect that is the “meat” of the *.itl file you are transferring.