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How Do I Backup My iTunes Library?

Hello. In my itunes library I have 35000 songs which I back up on an external drive and time machine.
My question is that if I import another album or two, how do I back this up without having to backup the whole library again which takes 3-4 hrs with usb2 and 1.30hrs through thunderbolt.
Up to now nobody i spoke to can answer this question.

P.S. I know time machine backs it up automatically. My question relates to backing up on other external hard drives.
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George Uzarowski

Comments: 5 Responses to “How Do I Backup My iTunes Library?”

    7 years ago

    If you are using Time Machine, there is nothing to do. Time Machine does incremental backups. So if you add a new album to your iTunes library, only the new songs will be copied to the backup.
    It shouldn't take 3-4 hours unless you are importing a lot more than that or somehow modifying other files.

    George Uzarowski
    7 years ago

    I back up on 2 other external hard drives and its these that my question was about. Sorry. NOT TIME MACHINE
    Up to now I have had to delete the library and start again in order to back up the new content with the old. Does that make sense to you?

    7 years ago

    Oh, I see. Wow that's a lot of backups.
    Easiest thing to do is to just do it as you are, but maybe not every time you add something. After all, you do have a Time Machine backup. So maybe once a month just do it the last thing before you go to bed.
    Or, you can always just copy the new files from your Music folder instead of the whole thing.
    Or, you can use an app like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to do these backups. They will only copy new files to "sync" the drives.

    George Uzarowski
    7 years ago

    Thank you very much Gary.
    So glad I got in touch with you as its very hard to know who to trust nowdays. Regarding "Super Duper" or "Carbon Copy Cloner" is the software safe and which one would you choose if you were buying.
    It has took me years and a lot of money to build my iTunes library so I keep 3 backups in different places just in case. Once again THANKS!

    7 years ago

    George: Yes, both are safe. I've been using them for more than a decade. They are both nearly the same since they have been competing with each other all this time.

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