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Saving iTunes to an external hard drive

I am wanting to copy my CD collection to my external hard drive. I was going to start by ripping it into iTunes. Once I have moved the files to my external drive, is it ok to delete the songs out of iTunes to save hard drive space?

— Joshua Tabor

Comments: One Response to “Saving iTunes to an external hard drive”

    14 years ago

    Watch episode 372 to get the basic idea:
    http://macmost.com/moving-your-itunes-library.html
    As far as "is it OK" that depends on what you are trying to do.
    If you just want to rip the songs to have then on your hard drive, then OK. I would create a new iTunes library (on your external drive) by holding down option when starting iTunes. Then do you ripping. Then switch back to your original library when done. Then you can keep the second iTunes library, or dismantle it by taking the ripped songs out of it (using the Finder) and throwing the iTunes library folder away.
    But if your intention is to have those songs in your iTunes library, just stored on your external drive, then do the same, but then import them into your original iTunes library when done (drag and drop the folders with the songs into iTunes). But first, make sure you have iTunes set to NOT "copy files and folders into iTunes media folder" in the advanced settings in iTunes prefs.

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