Transfer Your iTunes Library from One Computer to Another

So you’ve got a brand new computer and you can’t wait to start using it, but how are you supposed to enjoy it without any tunes? Your old computer still has your iTunes library on it, so get those files transferred to your new machine pronto! Follow this guide to learn how.

Steps

Using Home Sharing

  1. Check that you meet the necessary requirements for Home Sharing. In order to use Home Sharing between two computers, you must have iTunes installed on both, they must be on the same home network (wired or Wi-Fi), and you must have an Apple ID that is linked to your iTunes account.
  2. Open iTunes on both computers. Make sure that they are both connected to the network, and that they are both updated to the latest version of iTunes.
  3. Select the Home Sharing icon on the first computer. The icon is located in the left menu where your Music library is. If the Home Sharing icon is not there, click File, go to Library and then select Home Sharing. Choose “Turn on Home Sharing”.
    • The Home Sharing icon will not appear unless Home Sharing is enabled on both computers.
  4. Enter your Apple ID and password. Once you have entered your information, click the Create Home Share button.
  5. Authorize your second computer. On the computer that you are transferring your library to, click the Store menu and then select “Authorize computer”. You will be asked to enter your Apple ID and password.
  6. Select the Home Sharing icon in the left menu. Beneath the icon will be all of the libraries on your first computer. Select the contents that you want to copy, or click Edit and choose Select All to copy everything.
    • You can choose to copy specific files, specific playlists, or your entire library.
  7. Click the Import button. Your files will begin copying to your new computer. Depending on the size of your library and the speed of your network, this could take a while to complete.[1]

Using an External Drive

  1. Consolidate your iTunes library. Before you copy your files to an external drive, you can make your job much easier by making sure that all of your iTunes files are in one location on your computer.
    • Open the preferences. On Mac, click iTunes and then select Preferences. On Windows, click Edit and then select Preferences.
    • Click the Advanced tab. Make note of the iTunes Media folder location on your computer. Close the Preferences window.
    • Click file and hover your cursor over Library. Select Organize Library and then Consolidate Files. A message will appear stating that all of the files will be copied to your iTunes Media folder and cannot be undone. If you are doing this on Windows, duplicate files will be made.
    • Click Consolidate. The contents of your library will be copied from their various locations on your disk to the iTunes Media folder. This may take a while if you have a lot of files that need to be copied.
    • Quit iTunes once the consolidation is complete.
  2. Plug in an external drive. It will need to have enough free space to store your entire iTunes Media folder. You can check the size of the folder by right-clicking on it in Finder or Explorer and selecting Properties.
    • Make sure your drive is Format-an-External-Hard-Drive. Drives formatted for Mac can only be used on other Macs, while drives formatted on Windows can be used on Windows and read on Macs.
    • You can use your iPod or iPhone as an Put-an-iPod-Into-Disk-Mode if they have enough free space.
  3. Drag and drop the iTunes Media folder onto the external drive. The iTunes Media folder can be found at the location you noted in Step 1. The files will begin copying to the external drive. This will take a while for large libraries.
  4. Eject the hard drive. Once the copying process is complete, right-click on the hard drive and click Eject. You can now safely unplug the drive from the computer.
  5. Open iTunes on the second computer. Locate the iTunes Media folder location using the instructions in Step 1. Plug the external drive containing your iTunes library into the computer.
    • If you have music already on this computer that you don’t want to lose, make a copy of the existing iTunes folder and place it somewhere else on your computer, such as your desktop.
  6. Copy the iTunes folder from the external drive. Replace the iTunes folder that currently exists. The copy process may take a while for large libraries. Once it is complete, iTunes will automatically reload all of your song info, ratings, playlists, and other settings.[2]
    • If you need to add your existing library back to iTunes, click File and select Add Folder to Library. Navigate to where you moved the folder and press OK. Do this after you have finished loading your library from the external drive.

Using iTunes Match

  1. Sign up for iTunes Match. iTunes Match costs an annual fee. The service stores all of your music files through iCloud, including files that you added to your library from CDs or sources other than the iTunes store. This is a very useful service if you have a lot of music that you didn’t purchase from iTunes.
    • To sign up for iTunes Match, click the Store menu in iTunes and select “Turn On iTunes Match”. You will be asked to enter your Apple ID and password, and you will then be taken to the ordering page.
    • iTunes Match will only upload songs that it cannot find matches for in the iTunes library. If a match is found, then that iTunes file takes the place of the file that you would have uploaded. This makes the uploading process quicker than uploading your entire library, and can result in higher-quality versions of your songs (it can also result in lower-quality versions if your original was super high-quality).
  2. Wait for iTunes Match to scan your library. Once it is finished matching the songs on your library to the songs available in iTunes, the remaining songs will be uploaded to iCloud. You can store up to 25,000 songs, along with all of the songs that were matched.
    • If you have a lot of songs that can't be matched, the upload process can take a significant amount of time. This is also heavily dependent on your internet connection speed.
  3. Access your songs from any iTunes registered to you. Once all of your music is matched and uploaded, you will see an iCloud icon next to each song. The songs will be streamed by default from now on, but you can also download them by clicking on the iCloud icon next to the song.
    • You can access your iTunes Match on your iPhone by opening Settings, selecting Music, and then toggling on the iTunes Match slider.
    • The iTunes that you are using to access your songs will need to be authorized for your Apple ID.[3]

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/09/setup-use-itunes-home-sharing/
  2. ↑ http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
  3. ↑ http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-itunes-match.html
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