ITunes query

[sylla]

I have a new lap-top....how can I transfer my I tunes stuff from my old lap-top to the new one? It's maybe more complicated because I downloaded I tunes onto the new lap-top for an I Phone from work??

Confused....I am!

Any help appreciated.

[spider]

You can download your library to a hard drive and then upload it from that hard drive to your new PC.

I've done it myself earlier this year.

I've forgotten the detail.

I remember though that I Googled the question and got lots of web sites setting out how to do it.

I remember it took about half a day to do reading through all the instructions before I started, so I'd set aside some time to do it if I was you.

The help links in iTunes are quite helpfull as well.

[Bob Singleton]

You should have a folder called "iTunes" which contains all your music (if you don't know where it is you'll find the details by clicking Preferences then Advanced)

Copy that folder to your new laptop (in whatever way you normally prefer to transfer large files). Best to transfer it to a similar folder/sub folder tree on the new laptop. Then start up iTunes on your new laptop and select "Add to Library" and iTunes will do the rest

An alternative (and far easier) method, if you have an iPod, is to use that to transfer your music.

If you're not going to use your old laptop again, don't forget to de-authorise iTunes on it... you can only use 5 machines at any one time, so every time you switch machines and forget to de-authorise you "lose" one potential machine.

[Essex Lad]

Not that I want to query Bob's answer but I was under the impression that iTunes can be copied onto an iPod but not the other way round. So if you have an iPod full of music and attach it to a blank iTunes and sync it, you will end up with a blank iPod.

[spider]

That was my understanding as well.

Before you back-up your library to removable media (like a hard disk) you need to consolidate the files (because they could be stored in different places in your hard drive. Consolidating them gets them in one location (the iTunes library).

To do this you go File/Library/organise library/consolidate files.

I still advise look at the help files on iTunes and google the question - if I recall there were even links to a youtube video that took you through the hard disk transfer method.

[Bob Singleton]

Essex Lad wrote:

> Not that I want to query Bob's answer but I was under the
> impression that iTunes can be copied onto an iPod but not the
> other way round. So if you have an iPod full of music and
> attach it to a blank iTunes and sync it, you will end up with a
> blank iPod.


My apologies... you are absolutely correct in what you say and I forgot to mention that I transfer music from my iMac to my MacBook by syncing my iMac with my iPod, then using TouchCopy on my MacBook to transfer the music from my iPod into iTunes.

TouchCopy was free and works beautifully. You can either copy all or let it search for songs that are on the iPod but not in iTunes and just copy those... which is so much faster when, as in my case, you're only adding a few hundred "new" songs to a playlist of over 15,000 songs

[Bob Singleton]

Just looked at the Touch Copy web site and it seems it now costs $25... probably because it allows you to also transfer aps to and from iPhones and iPads as well as music between iPods, iPhones and iPads, etc

http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchc ... 4woddQr0JQ

[Essex Lad]

The way I copied my iTunes library inc all the little album covers I patiently (and sometimes not so patiently scanned in - I know, sad git that I am) from a PC to a Mac was via home sharing (under advanced on the menu list). It was quite simple but I did find that if I tried to copy hundreds of songs at once it would freeze so I did them in smaller batches. I am sure that you could do this PC to PC or mac to Mac...

I know there is a way of getting artwork for the songs but I found when I did that in many, many cases it assigned the wrong album covers.

[Peter]

There's a bit of software called senuti (iTunes spelt backwards, geddit?) that allows you transfer from iPod to computer.

Never done it myself though, so beware if you use it.

I'm afraid as a mac user, it was as simple as dragging the old iTunes folder over to the new mac. Don't know how do do it on a pc.

[spider]

Don't pay for software to do it.

The transferring to hard disk works I've done it myself so it's not that difficult.

iTunes help and Googling the question will point you in the right direction.