I can't possibly thank you enough! precise video, no nonsense, no annoying music, not showing your car or dog or shit, you hit the nail on the head ! well done mate !!!
I'm a first time Mac user who just followed your instructions to the letter. All of my music, including roughly 8,000 songs and dozens of playlists, transferred perfectly from my Dell desktop PC to my new Mac Mini. Can't tell you how grateful I am! Thank you.
Nicely done. Straight to the point, and very well demonstrated. No fluff, no "basically" or "like" every other word, and you speak very plainly. I'm making the transition from PC to Mac and this was a great help. Keep up the good work.
Wish I would have seen this video two days ago.....I've been in agony trying to get my library and playlists etc. to copy in the same way they are on my PC! Thank you so much, this worked perfectly!
Thanks for the quick response. I went with option 2 and it worked!! For some reason I had to consolidate it twice on my pc cuz somehow it didn't import my playlists the first time around. Thanks again for the help! You should probably add this to the video or create another video explaining these steps. They were really helpful!
It worked! But I feel like a lot of the album artwork is now missing. I am still trying to figure out if it didn't load at all or if it is just REALLY slow. Any ideas on this?
Hi, thanks for the vid. Can I get the same results without consolidation the library? I prefer the look of the music folder with all of the artists in plain sight. Thank you!
Great video. I have a dilemma and ask for any advice. I have an old dell pc that runs on xp and have my original iTunes library on their where I synced my iPod, iPhone, and ipad. The pc is out of memory and now doesn’t want to turn on. I recently purchased a new iMac and MacBook along with a external hd from western digital. Any tip on how to get the pc up and exporting my iTunes library and all from it to transfer it to my new mac?
Your best bet would be to get the external hard drive and see if the case will allow you to take the hard drive out of it. If so then take the hard drive out of the laptop and put it in the external enclosure and then connect it to your Mac and see if it has the PC's iTunes library on it.
Mr Everything thank you for the reply. The western digital is a 2.5 inch PhDrive and the dell gd is bigger. I want to ask a guy in IT in my job but I don’t know him like that.
Im trying to consolidate my files in order to have them all in one, but when I do so, it says "Copying files failed. The file name was invalid or too long". What should I do? Thanks!
I'm making the move to a Mac, this video is pretty straight forward and I hope it addresses my main concern in migrating. Most everything else I have are just files and data that live in folders which I'll simply copy over. Question though, I know this is subjective, but I use Google for my contacts, calendar, etc. Since I'm moving to a mac, would it be more useful to switch over to the icloud system, or better keep things as they are? What's safer, more secure, reliable?
Hi +Angel Rodriguez, Congratulations on making the decision to get a Mac. You're right, copying your files over is as easy as dragging and dropping. Regarding your question concerning Google Sync versus iCloud, the answer really lies within your ecosystem. If you use an Android phone, you may as well stick with Google Sync. However, if you use an iOS device you're much better off switching over to iCloud. Honestly, both Sync and iCloud are very secure and reliable as long as your password isn't easy to guess. Additionally, beyond contacts, calendars, etc., iCloud has more features such as Find My Mac, and incorporates deeper integration with OS X, which makes the entire experience ultimately better overall. So to sum, Google Sync will work just fine, but you'll inevitably be creating and using iCloud for certain features anyway. Check out our video, "Setting Up iCloud" to get a better idea of the additional features Google Sync can't offer.
This worked a treat except for the fact that all the play counts reset to zero and date added is the same for every song, the date I did the transfer from a windows pc to a Mac! Is there anyway I can retrieve the original info?
I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. There was no music folder in the iTunes app so I followed the instructions at the end. iTunes isn’t seeing the file.
Thank you for this video! After reading/watching countless other instructional guides for iTunes transfers I can definitely say that this was the most concise and easy to understand. I was able to get the music from my old pc onto the mac but unfortunately the playlists and play counts didn't transfer over. During the initial steps, I checked both boxes in the Advanced Preferences tab as directed, but had some trouble with the "Consolidate Files." When I checked the box a status bar came up for a few seconds that said "Copying files" or something similar, but it quickly disappeared. Then when I tried this step again, the "Consolidate Files" box was showing as unchecked. My PC is running the latest version of iTunes but it's quite old and has little space on it, so I assumed that was the issue and just proceeded anyway. But I'm wondering if this may be why the playlists didn't transfer or could that have been caused by me selecting the 'merge itunes' option on my mac instead of the 'replace'. If it's the latter I'll do the process over, but wanted to get your input before to see how I should proceed. Thank you so much in advance for any advice you could offer!
Hi lanaguz, you may have this resolved by now, but yes. If you have a lot of music and videos, consolidating files needs a good amount of disk space to copy the media into one location, so it makes sense iTunes on your old PC wasn't able to perform that action. iTunes doesn't have a real "merge" option, so when you copied your iTunes library folder over to your Mac, it would have asked you to 'stop' or 'replace.' Since you didn't replace, you ended up using a new library which downloaded your purchases from iTunes, but doesn't sync playlists. Freeing up a few gigs of space on the old PC before consolidating the library and transferring, should rectify all your issues. Good luck!
Andrej Patrman Nice, half of your work is already done. Make sure to still consolidate your library using the old computer, then plug the external drive to your new Mac and hold the Option key as you click the iTunes icon. Select “Choose Library...” in the prompt that appears, and point to the library folder on the external drive. Good luck.
Great video ! Just one question: after transferring my library, will iTunes try to erase everything on my iPhone if I connect it to my Mac for the first time?
Hi +mattster51, The great thing is, your iPhone will recognize the iTunes library its been paired with, even after it's been transferred to a different computer. As long as you follow each of my steps exactly, your phone will not attempt to erase anything. Thanks for asking!
Great video. I'm trying to transfer my iTunes library from an older pic w/ Windows XP. But my older MacBook I believe has so tiger installed. Would I still be able to do this from my old pic to my Mac?
+hhova29 Thanks for asking. The version of iTunes within OS X Tiger is likely to be too old to open your library. However, you can still migrate the music if you don't mind sacrificing your playlists, ratings and other customized metadata. Follow all the steps as my video describes, but instead of placing the iTunes folder in the Music folder on your old Mac, open the iTunes folder from within the external drive, navigate to "iTunes Media" then drag that "Music" folder onto your Mac's iTunes icon. By doing so, you'll be copying the raw music into iTunes without the additional incompatible library files. Best of luck!
+Easy Mac Training thanks so much in this case my other option is to transfer it to my new hp notebook on Windows 10! Would I still experience this problem do you think? Do you advise this as a better recourse in your opinion
+hhova29 You're definitely better off migrating your iTunes to your newer PC with Windows 10 than the old MacBook with Tiger. OS X Tiger is literally 10 years old now, that wouldn't be worth your time.
I tried this and it didn't transfer music that I had uploaded to my pc via a CD. ie: all my garth brooks albums that I have hard copies of didn't transfer over when I copied iTunes. Your help will be really appreciated!
Hey! Thanks for a good guide, it worked for me....kind of. Due to little space on my computer, i copied my iTunes file to my external hard drive and then consolidated. Afterwards, i followed the steps and it seemed to work. But now when i open iTunes, a good 4800 out of my 8800 songs cant be located. Some of the songs i can locate by finding them in my iTunes media file on my mac, but it seems like a LOT of my songs were missed out when i consolidated everything on my hard drive... The reason for this might be because my music is spread out af on my pc. Some of it is bought, some of it is saved in random folders on my desktop, and a lot of it is in my downloaded files. Do you know what i might have done wrong? :)
Apologies for the late reply, Jacob. You may have already resolved this problem, but I can still help you understand your error to prevent it from happening again in the future. Since you had limited storage on your computer, it may seem logical to copy your iTunes folder to your external drive to then consolidate, but if you look at 0:35, you'll notice iTunes is looking for its library folder in that particular path. Therefore, unless you pressed that "Change..." button and point to the copied folder on the external drive, when you consolidated, all your random music from every corner of your computer didn't go to the library on the external drive. So when you moved to the Mac, what you though was consolidated, was likely consolidated to the iTunes folder that was still on the PC and not to the one you copied externally. Hopefully that makes sense, as I agree that file structure systems on computers can get a bit obtuse.
What about merging two iTunes libraries? If you're replacing the Mac iTunes folder with the old Pc iTunes folder, will that remove music that's already on (and only) on the Mac iTunes??
iTunes doesn't have a merge library feature, so if you drag a copied iTunes folder into a Music folder with an existing iTunes folder, your computer will ask if you wish to overwrite the existing one. The only way to "merge" libraries is to open the iTunes application, then open the copied iTunes folder. Within it, you will find a folder named "iTunes Media." Drag that iTunes Media folder into the actual iTunes application, then everything will copy and add to the existing library. Hopefully that makes sense! Best of luck.
I have a bunch of songs currently on my new Mac from songs I've purchased from my phone. Which is not connected to my PC iTunes. If I transfer the PC music to the Mac, will it delete all of the music currently on the Mac? I don't necessarily want all of this music on my phone, just on my Mac so I can get rid of my old computer.
Hey there Tarra, if you follow the steps in this video, it will replace your new Mac's library with your old PC's library. However, your purchase history is always accessible no matter what, so media tied to your Apple ID can be re-downloaded for free any time, even to old libraries. If you no longer care about any playlists and song ratings from your old PC's library, then instead of copying over the entire iTunes library folder, you can copy just the "Media" folder that's within, then drag and drop it on top of the Music app icon on your new Mac. Good luck.
I folloed the instructions on your video and I can't get my library to work in my itunes do you have any ideas on what I can do to get all my music over
Hey Easy Mac Training, if I already have an iTunes library on my new Mac will this delete the songs and playlists that I have on my Mac? Or will this simply add my old PC songs and playlists to my new Mac iTunes? Thanks in advance
Wow +daveyosh88, sorry for the delayed reply. Your message got lost among the others. I'm sure you've determined the answer by now, but yes, when replacing a library, it will delete what you previously had. There's no way to merge libraries, however, you can open the iTunes folder from within the external drive, and drag the "iTunes Media" folder onto your Mac's iTunes icon. Doing so will append your media from one library into the other, but it won't bring over any playlists or ratings with it.
It would actually be the same exact process, just beginning on your Mac instead. The whole key is to consolidate everything into the iTunes folder, then you can move that to any Mac or Windows machine and point iTunes to it.
Howdy boss, everything worked until I tried to open iTunes on my mac, it is saying "The file "iTunes Library.itl" cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes. Would you like to download iTunes now?" and then id I press download iTunes it says it is already downloaded and updated fully, but I am still unable to even open the application because the content within it is apparently too new for my mac's iTunes. Any advice?
Heya *****, It reads like your operating system may be incompatible with the latest version of iTunes. You'll need to make sure your mac is using OS X Lion or later in order to download iTunes 12.1. (You can check out our video "About This Mac" to see which version you're using.) If your Mac is too old to operate OS X Lion or newer, you can still manually drag the "iTunes Media" folder that's inside the iTunes folder onto the iTunes app icon to import everything. The only downside of doing that is that you loose any custom organization such as playlists. I hope this helps.
what if the pc says when trying to consolidate the library that "there is not enough room on "OS" to copy all of the requested files". Obviously, it means that my hard drive is pretty much maxed out so it won't be able to consolidate the files, so is there any other way to do this? Thanks!
Daniel Lizarazo Hi there Daniel. Thanks for referring to our video! You have two options when there isn't enough internal hard drive space: 1. Go on a mass deletion spree of any unwanted media files or documents in your computer, or 2. With the iTunes program completely closed, copy your existing iTunes folder as it is to an external hard drive exactly as shown in the video. Once it's on the external drive, hold the Shift key and open the iTunes program. When presented with a pop-up to choose a library, select "Choose Library..." then navigate to the folder you just copied to the external drive, select it and press Open. By opening the library from an external drive as described in step 2, you can then continue to consolidate the library. After it's consolidated, you can then eject the drive, and directly plug it into another computer to complete the remainder of steps. Hope this helps!
***** I attempted to use this option, as I want the source of my iTunes to be my external hard drive. Want to keep my internal drive as free as possible. I took all the steps, but when I chose my iTunes library in my external hard drive, it gave me an error message that the file was locked from usage on other devices. Would you happen to have instructions on how to remove these restrictions? Thanks!
+Luke Hammer Thanks for writing in. Would you mind clarifying which of the folders you don't have? If you're referring to the Music folder in Finder on your Mac, I've included that step near the end of the video at 2:48. Please let me know if you have any more questions!
Hi there, I followed all these steps but I used a flash drive to transport the library. I did exactly what you said but when I opened iTunes, my music from my old PC wasn't there. Am I supposed to reset my computer? Help please, thank you!
Hey Megan, Depending on how many songs and videos you have in iTunes, chances are, a flash drive may be too small in size to migrate your entire library, so a capacious hard drive may solve your problem.
when i selected paste it gave me a merge or replace folder I'm now replacing the folder to see it it wrks the first time i did this method it didn't work for me ill let u know thanks
As long as you consolidate files exactly as the video shows, this entire process will transfer everything, including your apps. However, all your apps are accessible in the Purchased section of the iTunes Store, regardless. Thanks for checking out this video!
Hey Raees. First thing you'll want to do is make sure you're running the latest version of iTunes and all your computer's updates are installed. Assuming that's all done, since this is a recurring issue, it's likely because there's a corrupted song or file in your library. Within the consolidation window, iTunes shows the current song being copied. The next time your computer freezes, note the song it shows, then simply delete it from iTunes before attempting to consolidate again. Good luck.
This worked but did not transfer my playlists. I deleted it and will try again. Also I wish there was a way to only transfer the music in the playlists and not all songs in library. Is this possible?
Hey Travis, It is possible to transfer music within playlists instead of transferring everything, however, it's the process is different than that in the video. You must make sure both computers are on, connected to the same network, and has iTunes open. Go to the File menu and turn on Home Sharing on both computers with the same Apple ID. Once that's done, either computer will see the other within the sidebar. Clicking on a shared computer in the sidebar will show everything in that shared computer's iTunes library. From there, you can click and drag a playlist into the current computer's iTunes Library to transfer just those songs. Good luck!
raychul ryuujin If your library is transferred properly, as shown in the video, your phone will recognize it as the same iTunes it's used to and won't erase anything.
Carping&Shooting Windows XP is very similar to the version of Windows which is shown in the above video. You can find the iTunes folder by opening Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) and navigating to My Music.
![How To Transfer iTunes Library To A New Computer [Tutorial]](/img/n.gif)
I can't possibly thank you enough! precise video, no nonsense, no annoying music, not showing your car or dog or shit, you hit the nail on the head ! well done mate !!!
I'm a first time Mac user who just followed your instructions to the letter. All of my music, including roughly 8,000 songs and dozens of playlists, transferred perfectly from my Dell desktop PC to my new Mac Mini. Can't tell you how grateful I am! Thank you.
You're very welcome, Michael! Your praise helps to keep this channel alive. Enjoy your new Mac!
Nicely done. Straight to the point, and very well demonstrated. No fluff, no "basically" or "like" every other word, and you speak very plainly. I'm making the transition from PC to Mac and this was a great help. Keep up the good work.
Years of practice, my friend. Thanks for the recognition!
Wish I would have seen this video two days ago.....I've been in agony trying to get my library and playlists etc. to copy in the same way they are on my PC! Thank you so much, this worked perfectly!
The only thing I don't see is my device backups listed. Hopefully I have no problems with all my devices. Crossing fingers!
how are you getting this done? I tried and I can't get it to work
Thanks for the quick response. I went with option 2 and it worked!! For some reason I had to consolidate it twice on my pc cuz somehow it didn't import my playlists the first time around. Thanks again for the help! You should probably add this to the video or create another video explaining these steps. They were really helpful!
I'm glad it helped Daniel Lizarazo, and thanks for the suggestion. We'll definitely consider!
Worked perfect. Totally appreciate your thoroughness in a 3 minute video! I've been dreading this project, but it was so easy thanks to you.
Such an encouraging comment, Amy. Thanks for watching!
It worked! But I feel like a lot of the album artwork is now missing. I am still trying to figure out if it didn't load at all or if it is just REALLY slow. Any ideas on this?
I am new to Mac from pc and this really got me out of a spot.Thanks very much.
Hi, thanks for the vid. Can I get the same results without consolidation the library? I prefer the look of the music folder with all of the artists in plain sight. Thank you!
Awesome just so awesome thank you made notes feel confidents I can tell share with others.
Haha, yes! I'm glad you feel empowered!
Great video. I have a dilemma and ask for any advice. I have an old dell pc that runs on xp and have my original iTunes library on their where I synced my iPod, iPhone, and ipad. The pc is out of memory and now doesn’t want to turn on. I recently purchased a new iMac and MacBook along with a external hd from western digital. Any tip on how to get the pc up and exporting my iTunes library and all from it to transfer it to my new mac?
Your best bet would be to get the external hard drive and see if the case will allow you to take the hard drive out of it. If so then take the hard drive out of the laptop and put it in the external enclosure and then connect it to your Mac and see if it has the PC's iTunes library on it.
Mr Everything thank you for the reply. The western digital is a 2.5 inch PhDrive and the dell gd is bigger. I want to ask a guy in IT in my job but I don’t know him like that.
Im trying to consolidate my files in order to have them all in one, but when I do so, it says "Copying files failed. The file name was invalid or too long".
What should I do?
Thanks!
I have the same problem. But no answer... 😔
Excellent video, thanks for the help
I'm making the move to a Mac, this video is pretty straight forward and I hope it addresses my main concern in migrating. Most everything else I have are just files and data that live in folders which I'll simply copy over.
Question though, I know this is subjective, but I use Google for my contacts, calendar, etc. Since I'm moving to a mac, would it be more useful to switch over to the icloud system, or better keep things as they are? What's safer, more secure, reliable?
Hi +Angel Rodriguez,
Congratulations on making the decision to get a Mac. You're right, copying your files over is as easy as dragging and dropping.
Regarding your question concerning Google Sync versus iCloud, the answer really lies within your ecosystem. If you use an Android phone, you may as well stick with Google Sync. However, if you use an iOS device you're much better off switching over to iCloud.
Honestly, both Sync and iCloud are very secure and reliable as long as your password isn't easy to guess. Additionally, beyond contacts, calendars, etc., iCloud has more features such as Find My Mac, and incorporates deeper integration with OS X, which makes the entire experience ultimately better overall.
So to sum, Google Sync will work just fine, but you'll inevitably be creating and using iCloud for certain features anyway. Check out our video, "Setting Up iCloud" to get a better idea of the additional features Google Sync can't offer.
This worked a treat except for the fact that all the play counts reset to zero and date added is the same for every song, the date I did the transfer from a windows pc to a Mac! Is there anyway I can retrieve the original info?
Thank you so much after months of trying.......am now sat fingers crossed 😜 Whilst it pastes a few thousand songs phew!!!
I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. There was no music folder in the iTunes app so I followed the instructions at the end. iTunes isn’t seeing the file.
Thank you for this video! After reading/watching countless other instructional guides for iTunes transfers I can definitely say that this was the most concise and easy to understand. I was able to get the music from my old pc onto the mac but unfortunately the playlists and play counts didn't transfer over.
During the initial steps, I checked both boxes in the Advanced Preferences tab as directed, but had some trouble with the "Consolidate Files." When I checked the box a status bar came up for a few seconds that said "Copying files" or something similar, but it quickly disappeared. Then when I tried this step again, the "Consolidate Files" box was showing as unchecked.
My PC is running the latest version of iTunes but it's quite old and has little space on it, so I assumed that was the issue and just proceeded anyway. But I'm wondering if this may be why the playlists didn't transfer or could that have been caused by me selecting the 'merge itunes' option on my mac instead of the 'replace'.
If it's the latter I'll do the process over, but wanted to get your input before to see how I should proceed. Thank you so much in advance for any advice you could offer!
Hi lanaguz, you may have this resolved by now, but yes. If you have a lot of music and videos, consolidating files needs a good amount of disk space to copy the media into one location, so it makes sense iTunes on your old PC wasn't able to perform that action.
iTunes doesn't have a real "merge" option, so when you copied your iTunes library folder over to your Mac, it would have asked you to 'stop' or 'replace.' Since you didn't replace, you ended up using a new library which downloaded your purchases from iTunes, but doesn't sync playlists.
Freeing up a few gigs of space on the old PC before consolidating the library and transferring, should rectify all your issues.
Good luck!
Looking for a way to do this, but my external drive is my default library drive. I intend to keep that same external drive on Mac. Any way to do that?
Andrej Patrman Nice, half of your work is already done. Make sure to still consolidate your library using the old computer, then plug the external drive to your new Mac and hold the Option key as you click the iTunes icon.
Select “Choose Library...” in the prompt that appears, and point to the library folder on the external drive.
Good luck.
Worked like a charm! Thanks for the vid!
Nice! You're very welcome.
Great video ! Just one question: after transferring my library, will iTunes try to erase everything on my iPhone if I connect it to my Mac for the first time?
Hi +mattster51,
The great thing is, your iPhone will recognize the iTunes library its been paired with, even after it's been transferred to a different computer. As long as you follow each of my steps exactly, your phone will not attempt to erase anything.
Thanks for asking!
Great video. I'm trying to transfer my iTunes library from an older pic w/ Windows XP. But my older MacBook I believe has so tiger installed. Would I still be able to do this from my old pic to my Mac?
+hhova29 Thanks for asking. The version of iTunes within OS X Tiger is likely to be too old to open your library. However, you can still migrate the music if you don't mind sacrificing your playlists, ratings and other customized metadata.
Follow all the steps as my video describes, but instead of placing the iTunes folder in the Music folder on your old Mac, open the iTunes folder from within the external drive, navigate to "iTunes Media" then drag that "Music" folder onto your Mac's iTunes icon.
By doing so, you'll be copying the raw music into iTunes without the additional incompatible library files.
Best of luck!
+Easy Mac Training thanks so much in this case my other option is to transfer it to my new hp notebook on Windows 10! Would I still experience this problem do you think? Do you advise this as a better recourse in your opinion
+hhova29 You're definitely better off migrating your iTunes to your newer PC with Windows 10 than the old MacBook with Tiger.
OS X Tiger is literally 10 years old now, that wouldn't be worth your time.
+Easy Mac Training Thank you. Now I have to figure out how to!
Hello, Will this transfer the actual music as well? Or is this just playlists? Thanks.
This will transfer everything in your iTunes library, including music.
In the step of transferring iTunes folder to external hard drive ... mine is expected to take 13 hours!! Does that sound right??
its saying a folder was specified instead of a file it won't save.
Luke Hammer mine said the same :/
I tried this and it didn't transfer music that I had uploaded to my pc via a CD. ie: all my garth brooks albums that I have hard copies of didn't transfer over when I copied iTunes. Your help will be really appreciated!
Hey! Thanks for a good guide, it worked for me....kind of. Due to little space on my computer, i copied my iTunes file to my external hard drive and then consolidated. Afterwards, i followed the steps and it seemed to work. But now when i open iTunes, a good 4800 out of my 8800 songs cant be located. Some of the songs i can locate by finding them in my iTunes media file on my mac, but it seems like a LOT of my songs were missed out when i consolidated everything on my hard drive...
The reason for this might be because my music is spread out af on my pc. Some of it is bought, some of it is saved in random folders on my desktop, and a lot of it is in my downloaded files. Do you know what i might have done wrong? :)
Apologies for the late reply, Jacob. You may have already resolved this problem, but I can still help you understand your error to prevent it from happening again in the future.
Since you had limited storage on your computer, it may seem logical to copy your iTunes folder to your external drive to then consolidate, but if you look at 0:35, you'll notice iTunes is looking for its library folder in that particular path. Therefore, unless you pressed that "Change..." button and point to the copied folder on the external drive, when you consolidated, all your random music from every corner of your computer didn't go to the library on the external drive. So when you moved to the Mac, what you though was consolidated, was likely consolidated to the iTunes folder that was still on the PC and not to the one you copied externally.
Hopefully that makes sense, as I agree that file structure systems on computers can get a bit obtuse.
What about merging two iTunes libraries? If you're replacing the Mac iTunes folder with the old Pc iTunes folder, will that remove music that's already on (and only) on the Mac iTunes??
iTunes doesn't have a merge library feature, so if you drag a copied iTunes folder into a Music folder with an existing iTunes folder, your computer will ask if you wish to overwrite the existing one.
The only way to "merge" libraries is to open the iTunes application, then open the copied iTunes folder. Within it, you will find a folder named "iTunes Media." Drag that iTunes Media folder into the actual iTunes application, then everything will copy and add to the existing library.
Hopefully that makes sense! Best of luck.
Thanks so much, will try it out one day soon, also thanks for the quick response 😀
thank you thank you, and thank you once more!
very good video
hepled me alot :)
So glad to be of service!
I have a bunch of songs currently on my new Mac from songs I've purchased from my phone. Which is not connected to my PC iTunes. If I transfer the PC music to the Mac, will it delete all of the music currently on the Mac?
I don't necessarily want all of this music on my phone, just on my Mac so I can get rid of my old computer.
Hey there Tarra, if you follow the steps in this video, it will replace your new Mac's library with your old PC's library. However, your purchase history is always accessible no matter what, so media tied to your Apple ID can be re-downloaded for free any time, even to old libraries.
If you no longer care about any playlists and song ratings from your old PC's library, then instead of copying over the entire iTunes library folder, you can copy just the "Media" folder that's within, then drag and drop it on top of the Music app icon on your new Mac. Good luck.
I folloed the instructions on your video and I can't get my library to work in my itunes do you have any ideas on what I can do to get all my music over
In what way is your library not working? Are you seeing your list of music on the new computer but they aren't playing?
I redid it. What helped was quitting out of iTunes then restarting it before launching ITunes then all the music showed up! Thanks for the videos!
Glad you figured it out!
Hey Easy Mac Training, if I already have an iTunes library on my new Mac will this delete the songs and playlists that I have on my Mac? Or will this simply add my old PC songs and playlists to my new Mac iTunes? Thanks in advance
Wow +daveyosh88, sorry for the delayed reply. Your message got lost among the others.
I'm sure you've determined the answer by now, but yes, when replacing a library, it will delete what you previously had. There's no way to merge libraries, however, you can open the iTunes folder from within the external drive, and drag the "iTunes Media" folder onto your Mac's iTunes icon.
Doing so will append your media from one library into the other, but it won't bring over any playlists or ratings with it.
We both have that kool and the gang emergency album good taste man 👌🏾
Album's FRESH!
I plan on moving to a windows laptop one day, how can I move my iTunes library from my iMac to a windows laptop?
It would actually be the same exact process, just beginning on your Mac instead. The whole key is to consolidate everything into the iTunes folder, then you can move that to any Mac or Windows machine and point iTunes to it.
Easy Mac Training Thanks! 😃
Howdy boss, everything worked until I tried to open iTunes on my mac, it is saying "The file "iTunes Library.itl" cannot be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes. Would you like to download iTunes now?" and then id I press download iTunes it says it is already downloaded and updated fully, but I am still unable to even open the application because the content within it is apparently too new for my mac's iTunes. Any advice?
Heya *****,
It reads like your operating system may be incompatible with the latest version of iTunes. You'll need to make sure your mac is using OS X Lion or later in order to download iTunes 12.1. (You can check out our video "About This Mac" to see which version you're using.)
If your Mac is too old to operate OS X Lion or newer, you can still manually drag the "iTunes Media" folder that's inside the iTunes folder onto the iTunes app icon to import everything. The only downside of doing that is that you loose any custom organization such as playlists.
I hope this helps.
what if the pc says when trying to consolidate the library that "there is not enough room on "OS" to copy all of the requested files". Obviously, it means that my hard drive is pretty much maxed out so it won't be able to consolidate the files, so is there any other way to do this? Thanks!
Daniel Lizarazo Hi there Daniel. Thanks for referring to our video! You have two options when there isn't enough internal hard drive space:
1. Go on a mass deletion spree of any unwanted media files or documents in your computer, or
2. With the iTunes program completely closed, copy your existing iTunes folder as it is to an external hard drive exactly as shown in the video. Once it's on the external drive, hold the Shift key and open the iTunes program. When presented with a pop-up to choose a library, select "Choose Library..." then navigate to the folder you just copied to the external drive, select it and press Open.
By opening the library from an external drive as described in step 2, you can then continue to consolidate the library. After it's consolidated, you can then eject the drive, and directly plug it into another computer to complete the remainder of steps.
Hope this helps!
***** man, you guys know your stuff! respect.
***** I attempted to use this option, as I want the source of my iTunes to be my external hard drive. Want to keep my internal drive as free as possible. I took all the steps, but when I chose my iTunes library in my external hard drive, it gave me an error message that the file was locked from usage on other devices. Would you happen to have instructions on how to remove these restrictions? Thanks!
I've run into a snag when dragging it to that music folder. I don't have that Folder there so i cannot drag it into it any ideas?
+Luke Hammer Thanks for writing in. Would you mind clarifying which of the folders you don't have? If you're referring to the Music folder in Finder on your Mac, I've included that step near the end of the video at 2:48. Please let me know if you have any more questions!
Hi there,
I followed all these steps but I used a flash drive to transport the library. I did exactly what you said but when I opened iTunes, my music from my old PC wasn't there. Am I supposed to reset my computer? Help please, thank you!
Hey Megan,
Depending on how many songs and videos you have in iTunes, chances are, a flash drive may be too small in size to migrate your entire library, so a capacious hard drive may solve your problem.
Same even after using a hard drive
when i selected paste it gave me a merge or replace folder I'm now replacing the folder to see it it wrks the first time i did this method it didn't work for me ill let u know thanks
+Luke Hammer Great. Replacing the folder is what you want to do. Good luck!
Will this transfer Apps and such as well?
As long as you consolidate files exactly as the video shows, this entire process will transfer everything, including your apps. However, all your apps are accessible in the Purchased section of the iTunes Store, regardless.
Thanks for checking out this video!
MY MAN!! Said the Mailman.
hi dude, when consolidating the files after a minute it just stops and the pc just becomes non responsive, have to basically shut down..
Hey Raees. First thing you'll want to do is make sure you're running the latest version of iTunes and all your computer's updates are installed.
Assuming that's all done, since this is a recurring issue, it's likely because there's a corrupted song or file in your library. Within the consolidation window, iTunes shows the current song being copied. The next time your computer freezes, note the song it shows, then simply delete it from iTunes before attempting to consolidate again.
Good luck.
This worked but did not transfer my playlists. I deleted it and will try again.
Also I wish there was a way to only transfer the music in the playlists and not all songs in library. Is this possible?
Hey Travis,
It is possible to transfer music within playlists instead of transferring everything, however, it's the process is different than that in the video.
You must make sure both computers are on, connected to the same network, and has iTunes open. Go to the File menu and turn on Home Sharing on both computers with the same Apple ID. Once that's done, either computer will see the other within the sidebar. Clicking on a shared computer in the sidebar will show everything in that shared computer's iTunes library. From there, you can click and drag a playlist into the current computer's iTunes Library to transfer just those songs.
Good luck!
Hi, will I be able to sync my phone to the mac transfer without everything being erased?
raychul ryuujin If your library is transferred properly, as shown in the video, your phone will recognize it as the same iTunes it's used to and won't erase anything.
Ok and I only have 203 songs in iTunes only, will a 64gb usb drive be able to transfer everything?
this dosent work !! the playlists don't show up in the mac itunes.
Will apps transfer also?
Using the method shown in the video, everything in your iTunes library will be transferred.
Mahalo nui loa! It worked for me too.🤙🏾
Mai hopohopo!
where do i find the folder in xp?
Carping&Shooting Windows XP is very similar to the version of Windows which is shown in the above video. You can find the iTunes folder by opening Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) and navigating to My Music.
I love you so much
Cheers