How To Store Your Music On an External Drive

macmost.com/e-2122 In macOS Catalina if you are not using Apple Music you can choose to store your music files on an external drive. There are a number of methods you can use. Also learn how to clear out your Music app library to start from scratch.
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[@JamesWilliams-se3vr]

Best/most thorough explanation on KZbin, thanks. Just subscribed..

[@greenie21]

Thank you so much. Incredibly helpful with your clear explanation. I chaptered your guide with timestamps: 0:49 Method 1 - Internal Library / Don't Copy Files 3:40 Method 2 - Internal Library / External Media Folder (most will want this) 5:49 Method 3 - External Library / External Media Folder 7:54 One more thing - How to clear out Music Library

[@Anonymous-cd6ve]

Does this accomodate for your pics and videos text and app data??

[@gregklassen2168]

After hours spent on Apple support calls, this video was the one that helped me sort out my music library. Thank you so much!!!

[@markkuhar3540]

DUDE! You are a genius. THANK YOU!!!!! I have been trying to figure this out and just could not connect the dots. Much appreciation to you.

[@pardopat]

Awesome video...thank you for breaking it down! I’ve spent hours with Apple support with no resolution and your video is all I needed!!

[@labroukos1]

Excellent video: content; voice speed; explanation; resolution; camera window on bottom right! Subscribed

[@kaimikonaaihele5163]

I have been looking for the way to do this for soooo long. This is the by far the best description of how it is done. Thank you!

[@MrSoundeath]

You've been a tremendous help with this video! Thats what I was after for few weeks with a big question mark hovering above my head. Thank you

[@glennschmidt8877]

Excellent tutorial. Very clear and concise

[@familiatrois3813]

Major thumbs-up! Have migrated to a new Mac laptop from an older (pre-Music) OS. The thought of losing access to thousands of Ripped CDs was disheartening! Your tutorial was very comprehensive and your examples and methodology were very easy to follow! Again, many thanks for helping to alleviate my anxiety!

[@russellmania5349]

How do you remove the DRM on the music?

[@seattlebeard]

I'm grateful for your clear instruction. I hope you're being compensated for this public service.

[@johnburgess4561]

Gary, super helpful tutorial as I had to remove music to make space on my MacBook. The detailed step by step instructions are tremendously appreciated. You are my Apple Genius Bar!!

[@WeLovePoppy1]

Thanks Gary, this is really clear and what I needed.

[@joshferry3628]

Thank you again! Man I was making this harder than it really is. Thanks again it worked perfect on a Music backup drive on my Netgear Ready Share backup.

[@cthomasv]

Glad I found your tutorial. This was very helpful.

[@MarceloPauloDeSouza]

Wow!!! The best video out there about this subject. You should make official videos for Apple.

[@caisha1000]

Absolutely great! Thank so much for this clear & very helpful video!

[@igafer]

Excellent explanation, thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[@andrewlasso5913]

incredibly helpful video, thanks so much!!

[@JimHoy-Rockstar]

Awesome video! Just what I needed to learn!!

[@1Aquadon]

Excellent tutorial .. Thanks Gary!

[@1944MJCM]

What a great explanation. Thanks

[@olufsen69]

Just a big thank you for this. It will help me out getting that set up on my new MacBook Pro

[@elixirix]

thanks for the last tip especially, holding down alt to open and start again. cheers

[@tobstar817]

you`re a star ! thank you. 👍

[@PorscheMonster]

Great Tutorial!

[@EliseoSantillan]

Great video , thank you 🙏, it’s gonna take me a while , I need to move an 90Gb iTunes library 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@mikemiles3068]

Super video❗️this is one of my major projects and I am going to have to watch this several time and decide which way I need to go. I have 54GB of music loaded on iTunes on my old dying Dell laptop. I just purchased a new external 500GB SSD that I hope put the music on but I don’t know what I am doing. I am hopping to copy the music on the SSD so that I can use it on my new iPad Pro and I do not intend on punching a new laptop or desktop computer❗️👍✅🤔

[@ltakallen]

You Rock Gary! This was an excellent, oops, “Another” Excellent tutorial. I appreciate your works.

[@jamesmauldin5520]

Thank you. That worked.

[@sarahtooldtocare8561]

Great and helpful 👍

[@wadewade5915]

excellent - thank you

[@CAPITANxMARVEL]

Amazing thank you

[@PhG1961]

Exactly what I was looking for... ;-)

[@lovelyjubblyy2657]

THANK YOU SO MUCH

[@jonteboe748]

Excellent/// very well explained

[@mehmd1913]

You can use method 2 or 3 to place your music in an external media server and/or a NAS. However, the NAS must be on and running and it will mount the drive/folder and the run the music. I did this with iTunes a few years ago. It works well as long as the NAS is running.

[@lawrence1md]

After a update I found my music files are in a iTunes library transfer folder. My complaint is that my playlists are no longer available. Do you have a way to retrieve that? Thank you!

[@Ferdinaand]

Awesome stuff from this channel. I was using method #2 on Mojave with iTunes and I was curious to see how it changed in the new "Music" app. My 2015 macbook pro is pretty much just a media player so I don't see myself upgrading from Mojave in the short term.

[@zibaa1234]

Thank you 🙏

[@harrylevin2582]

Terrific video.

[@ken808surf]

Great vid. thanks...

[@saturnslipper]

Oh this too funny! I just searched for Beatles music & got blocked by that annoying Apple Music popup. This video was sooo helpful! I just purchased the songs I wanted on my macbook air & shared them with my iphone too. Thanks so much for the Itunes store browsing/purchasing tips. Your tutorial made this easy!!☺️

[@WizzRacing]

I always have a hard time with iTunes organizing my Music folder. Now being I just. bought my first Mac. Using the Mac Mini. M1...I need to learn how to navigate all these options and organize. my folders. So thank you for. the help....As. I knew. this was going to be headache. When it come time to setup iTunes and Movies..

[@gman76utube]

Good stuff, Gary. Method 1 works great for me. I have an external drive on my Mac mini and use an Apple TV in another room to play media. The problem I now have is that this doesn’t seem to work with movies and the TV app. The TV app creates another folder on ext drive called Home Movies but copies the original movie. So it duplicates the movie on the ext drive. What gives?

[@Ziggy_v2]

Great tutorial video - Maybe you can do a tutorial on how to keep your playlist and meta data when you move your iTunes/Apple music collection to an external harddrive. Thank you

[@sven2869]

Yes, I agree with this request. I have spent hours on the phone with apple and there are completely clueless how to move iTunes/Apple music to an external harddrive.

[@gavinduerson]

so you lose your metadata if you do this? ditto on the playlist idea. thanks for the tutorial!

[@jannmcrock]

I agree. I need info on playlists. I had my playlist and then it disappeared. How do I get it back. I don’t want to recreate it!!

[@MesaholicTX]

Yes, playlist preservation tips, please!

[@sharonawalker521]

We need a tutorial on putting our photos on an external hard drive. First try seems the hard drive isn’t big enough? TIA

[@stewartroxburgh8844]

Thanks Gary, I'm still a little petrified to do this. I have an 8TB drive ready to set up as my external music library and to hold music that I have on the MBP and a number of external drives too. I would have preferred to find some application that could find and store all of my music for me as I know that finding all of them will be tough. Thanks, as always, for the clear methodology.

[@corinnetitcomb7167]

Brilliant video - really well explained as I wanted to put my music on my NAS.

[@mathiasmydlak6827]

Did you manage to move an existing library to the NAS? Including playlists and ratings etc.?

[@corinnetitcomb7167]

@@mathiasmydlak6827 - I still have it to do and is on my 'to do' list to get done!

[@mathiasmydlak6827]

@@corinnetitcomb7167 Good luck. I could not find any resources on this so far. Applying the "external disk procedure" did obviously not work for me..

[@marionb5780]

1000 like for you!. Thank you so much.

[@elkewheeler]

I found this so useful! I have all of my media (music and videos) on an external drive, and used Method #1 as you described. I have a question: I'm planning on getting a new iMac. Is there a shortcut to keeping all my media on my external hd, but cloning my Music (and Apple TV) media library organization? - I'm not sure if that makes any sense (i.e. my files stored on the external hard drive work great. But it took me days to load 1 TB of folder organization. Is there a simpler way than the drag and drop when setting up my new iMac?)

[@gregf9160]

... and you have good taste in music!

[@ramsesalonsorodrigue]

Nice music taste, Gary 👍

[@karendancheck6335]

HUGE thank you!!! I spent hours on the phone yesterday with Apple and got nowhere. I moved my music to an external HD last year but now want to add NEW music. I have option #2. Thanks to your video, I figured out how to do that. Now I want this new music (all music that I own) on my phone. With Apple Music open pointing to my files on my HD, if I sync my phone, will the new sync to my phone?

[@simon359]

Thanks for the info! 🥳🤙 It took awhile as it seemed harder on Ventura. I didn’t have to make an extra folder, I just grabbed the folders of the Musician’s and dropped them into the space you had shown. Had to authorize my new computer, before they would play on my Apple TV. Too bad Apple can’t fix the artwork problem, too many albums, with no artwork?

[@pauldonnell6223]

Thanks so much for this video! Will albums purchased through apple music also transfer to the external drive to save space on my internal hard drive? When wanting to sync songs on my phone, will my phone recognize the new location of the songs?

[@brnogahr4599]

I'm still in Mojave; I assume Catalina works the same: I pretty much don't do anything inside of the iTunes program except a) play music, and b) construct playlists. Otherwise, I do everything else in finder. The libraries are FOLDERS - you can treat them as folders. I back up my libraries (I have numerous separate music libraries that total about 1.6T), by simply copying them to external disks. I open iTunes libraries by hitting the option key and then the dock icon. Another backup tip: iTunes tracks can be selected and then copied to external file folders, from which you can add those tracks to other libraries, either by opening iTunes and using File Add, or simply selecting them from the above-mentioned filed folders and dragging them into a newly-opened iTunes library. I've read and looked at a lot of instruction guides and I've never seen anybody discuss this approach. I really don't know why - I've been doing it this way for years and it's always been fast, easy, reliable. Why isn't this ever documented? iTunes libraries are FOLDERS. The contents are FILES.

[@samielias4141]

You are great as usual How can I do IPAD and Iphone backup files on external drive to save my internal drive space ?

[@Corihogg]

Thank you for your great videos - wondering if you would do one on cleaning up a music library - getting rid of duplicates, etc.?

[@macmost]

Just go through your list of songs and look for identical ones. If you have a lot, do it for 5-15 minutes, then come back and do more later. Repeat until done.

[@brentstwocents]

Thanks! I finally got my music library working from an external drive. Leave it to Apple to take a simple to use app like iTunes and make it way more complicated to set up.

[@macmost]

The way you set up Music to use a library on an external drive is exactly the same as how you would have done it years ago in iTunes.

[@lucfrans4497]

Great video, I had doubts when i heard that i-tunes was discontinued after the first video about apple music I knew that it is practicly the same only it is split in 3 parts. The part of moving music libraries to an external drive was a real revelation, I was in real trouble about how to do it but after 10 minutes i realised is was very simple and I save about 800gb on a drive of 1tb so an imens gain.

[@jun9147]

Great video. I have a question. I would like to transfer all the music, movies and TV series in an external harddrive. How do I go about it? Thank you for your help

[@DBLCreations]

I actually use always method 1. But man, with every update, i always need to recreate all the maps that i've build within the Music app. I know you could save it and export it. But when going from iTunes to the Music app (when Apple changed everything), it didn't really accept that file anymore and so i needed to restart all over again. I personally like to have it all organized. But i don't know if there is a better, more simply way to do it? Anyway, i love your tutorials, they are always explained so well!

[@Prince-B]

Wonderful

[@blackcatalogue]

Thx for this video. I have a 4 TB external drive that I’ve been using with my Music library. It’s now full so I would like to transfer that library to a new 8TB drive. Which method should I be using in this scenario? This has been driving me crazy!😂

[@ApurvaShah]

What a classy explanation, can u plz help, to copy the Playlist as it is, in the same order, along with music library, sourced in external drive, so I plug my external drive to any blank mac or iPad and play my music….thanks in advance

[@macmost]

That will be difficult to pull off. You can store the entire Media folder and the Music Library file and then on that other Mac you can choose that Media folder in the Music app. Experiment with that. Though it is hard to know what would work for you as the "any blank Mac" idea needs some explaining. This won't work for iPad either.

[@stewartroxburgh8844]

Very helpful. I have music on internal and multiple external drives. I lost a load of tracks before when attempting to transfer files to the external drives. I'd love to bring everything together on one external drive if possible. Any advice?

[@susanscott3711]

Stellar tutorial!! I have a lot of playlists that I want to keep. I'm assuming the metadata for those playlists are stored in the "Music Library.musiclibrary" file so I want to make sure I don't recreate or write over this file-right? I think I would like to keep this data file on my internal and put all the music files on an external. SO....will changing the location of the music files make this musiclibrary file confused? ALSO...what if I also do a little reorganizing of the newly moved music files...will that confuse the musiclibrary file, specifically the playlist info?

[@ariellet1282]

Will this move the playlists that are made as well? I’m a playlist making person and I have playlists from 2009 and I want to keep them when I start to utilize my HD as my main iTunes hub

[@carlosvaldesmuzik]

thanks for the video's. im trying to figure out if you can use these methods and apply these to drives on a cloud? I have tried for example just selecting my collections and dragging them to ituens and it works. I also use it as playlists for my rekordbox. However, am i asking to much of the system? does it matter?

[@menolopes6479]

Thank you for this video. Further question, if the music is on an external hard drive only, do you lose the ability to sync playlists with your iPhone and iPad? Thanks

[@emotionalintelligence776]

No you don't. Been running my iTunes library on separate drives for almost a decade just remember to boot the ED before you start iTunes.

[@JimCim]

Thank you! I am finally able to access all of my personally created music, and purchased music with none of it being on the internal hard drive. Would this work the same way for Photos?

[@murviper]

Do these same tips work on the TV App? The reason is I have almost 6. GB of TV Shows.

[@marcopolimeni2356]

Thank you for this tutorial. You have a new subscriber. Greetings from Rome, Italy.

[@seanedwards2425]

Great video, I did it and it works. How about a video on adding the external hard drive to a WiFi network, as you mentioned. Thank you I am now a subscriber.

[@macmost]

The problem is that it differs almost completely for every Wi-Fi solution.

[@UncleHanz]

Hi Gary, I have a sample tank application from ik multimedia in my older MacBook Pro but now I bought an iMac 2020. I downloaded again the sample tank app but when I open the sound library gone due to expired. How do i copy or transfer from my older MacBook Pro? Please advise me, thanks.

[@DaveRenfroe]

Great presentation, thanks. I did step 2 and it worked! Saved a lot of space on my Macbook Pro HD. But ....... what about Podcasts? I have quite a large Podcast library that I move to my iphones and an old ipod. I don't understand how you manage those with Apple Music. Do I need something else on the Macbook Pro? Or do you treat the podcasts as "music" and put them in your Music folder.

[@macmost]

You don't manager Podcasts in Music, you manage them in the Podcasts app.

[@KB-kc2yc]

If you use method 3 (everything on external) can you use the external hard drive with any computer? ... And if you can use with any computer, is any information (such as album artwork) lost?

[@IsmaelMartinezPR]

Thanks M1 MM migration of music from old MM back up complete.

[@toma1610]

About “My Music” folder. Yes, you explain it, but it would be better if it‘s visually illustrated if it is an external or internal drive drive, so we can see a notorious difference between the three drives. Also, these new organization of files does not use the word “iTunes” anymore, right? to name files for example. Before they called “iTunes Library.itl” or the folder of the Album Artwork; all has been simplified? Could you make a video talking about the changes? Do you have a video about “iTunes Match”?

[@DanielSamulewiczXXI]

Does it work if I have Apple Music subscription, but also have part of my library as audio files? Or it works only without Apple Music?

[@s2seltaeb]

Thank you for this excellent video. I just purchased an external drive and I'm in the process of organizing things. May I ask a follow up question about iTunes Match? In an effort to save hard drive space, I have been an iTunes match customer for probably 7-8 years now. When I add music to my library, I often times will click "Remove Download" so the native file is not stored on my iMac's hard drive. However, I notice that sometimes when I do this, the song's file size will say "Stream", which sounds like what I want... but other times, when I click "Remove Download" a song's file size may display as "4.3 MB" or something similar. When I check my Music folder, the song is not stored on the hard drive. This has confused me. I have close to 9000 songs, but probably 95% of them are stored in iCloud/iTunes match... so my music library should not be 30 GB. I simply don't have that many songs actually located in folders in the iTunes-iTunes Media-Music folder on my iMac. Is there a place on my iMac that is story a cache of music files to help them stream faster? I'm not very knowledgeable in this area, and I've yet to find an official explanation from Apple, despite much effort. Thanks for your channel!

[@macmost]

I think there is a cache, though I don't know the details offhand.

[@muddyexport5639]

Great video -- Thanks. Could you also talk about using Time Machine to work with the new music file storage area both for backup and restore? In my mind that would complete the loop.

[@macmost]

Not sure what you mean by "new music file storage area." If you use Time Machine and store music in the Music folder (or any folder) it will be backed up.

[@JohnMHammer]

Connect and mount your external drive. Go to Time Machine Preferences and click on the OPTIONS button. Be sure your external drive is NOT on the ignore list. If it is, click on it to highlight it then click on the minus sign (-). After that, as long as your external drive is connected and mounted, Time Machine will back that up along with your startup volume (or whatever you have Time Machine set to not ignore). It is important to examine the OPTIONS for the ignore list, though, because Time Machine tries to intelligently determine which external drives to ignore - it's usually pretty good at making this decision but it's best to take a look to be sure. I check it each time I connect an external drive for the first time.

[@zecasari]

@@JohnMHammer do you think if. I use a 10TB hard drive as the time machine backup disk, it will be safe, because I have a 7TB music library in a external drive and I just use the method of copy from the currently in use and paste it to the target backup drive. Should I continue using my method or should I switch to the time machine method?

[@JohnMHammer]

@@zecasari If you have a backup of your music library on some other external storage and update the backup regularly, you can exclude it from your Time Machine backup. Using 7tb of a 10tb backup drive just for your music media doesn’t leave a slot of space for snapshots of all your other data but it really depends on how much space your other data consumes and how frequently it changes.

[@alexkroezendijk8346]

I just discovered MacMost! Excellent content! I have one question; I hope that you will see it. I have a MBP with an optical drive slot that has been converted to an additional drive. Will that drive work the same as an external drive?

[@WizzRacing]

Yes it will....

[@mineralinsulated]

thanks so much for yet another brilliant and useful video. Question though for you Gary, how do these methods work when you have an Apple Music subscription and have an old library (ripped CD's, iTunes purchases etc) now mixed in with the Apple Music downloads? Seeing as the AM songs are only yours for as long as you're paying the subscription. Many thanks in advance for yours or anyones help.

[@macmost]

It gets complicated. You would mostly then choose your Library location, setting that to internal or external. But since Apple Music includes iCloud Music Library the problem of how to store a large Music library is solved without needing that. See support.apple.com/en-us/HT204926 (Also technically none of the songs are "yours" ever. You only license songs whether you buy them on CD, iTunes or stream them via Apple Music.)

[@JasonicAus]

Thanks for the great video - Can the same methods be used to store photos?

[@macmost]

There are similar options in the Photos app. Take a look. But the problem is you can't use them and iCloud Photos at the same time.

[@LorelPhomet]

I have a question, for any of these options I need my external drive to be plug in to be able to play any file?

[@georgegeorge5509]

One more question. I'm running iTunes 12.4 and El Capitan (no judgement please). If I choose to move the Media folder to ext HD, would that have any effect on my Play List (s)?

[@keithpares7361]

Thank you for this @macmostvideo! Question: if I have all my music & playlists on my hard drive now and I use option 2 will I have to rebuild my playlists, or will they carry over when I move all my music to the external HD?

[@macmost]

Not completely sure, sorry. Been a long time.

[@kdcarver]

Gary Do you have to perform the same steps for Movies and TV Shows within those respective applications, or does setting up the library for Music also sets it up for TV and Movies (as it was in iTunes prior to Apple dropping that application)?

[@macmost]

The TV app keeps a separate library.

[@toma1610]

Now, on 2021, an MP3 file can show the album cover either in the iPod or in the computer? Before, it was possible only with AAC (m4a) or Apple Loss Less.

[@georgegeorge5509]

I am still sitting on the fence moving my iTunes folder to an ext HD. Altho, I'm leaning toward the Option to move the Itunes folder to the Ext HD. would like to ask you if it is necesesary to Consolidate the Itunes Media folder before moving iTunes to an ext HD? There a several discussions online and they all pointed to Consolidate before moving the iTunes folder. I'd rather not. Please tell me your comments. thanks

[@filk2300]

Great video thanks! I have 3 multiple library folders on my Mac and not sure which one is the one that is reference In my current go current library with all my playlists etc. I need to delete some files on my Mac but do not want to delete the wrong library files. Is there a way to check which library I am using as my main? Also all my music song files are on external drive and I do copy my songs to my media folder on my Mac.. thx

[@macmost]

Should in in Music, Preferences.

[@hshadowens9695]

Also, it is asking me if I want to move and rename the files to your new media folder to match the keep media folder organized preferences? No idea if that’s a yes or no answer.? Thank you, newbie to all your videos, grateful, and greatly appreciated that you did them

[@macmost]

You have to decide. Probably yes, but read the instructions carefully and understand them to decide.

[@monicarose1]

I have been using method 2 to move music. My issue is that I'm moving it from a libary on an external drive back in thru music on a new (to me) computer and saving on the same drive. A lot of it moved, but now I've gotten to a point where no more will move. I'm not sure if the drive is full. I've deleted it from the other spot it was being stored on the same drive. Shouldn't there be more space as I've deleted? I'm not very techy....help?

[@MesaholicTX]

I'm moving from iTunes on Windows to Music on Mac. My old iTunes folder is on an external NAS. Will any of these methods allow me to preserve my old iTunes playlists?

[@TH-vb6iw]

Great instructions ! I have not upgraded to Catalina yet - Q: Is there something about Cat (loss of iTunes) that makes these instructions - wanting an external music drive - preferable ? Or, upon the Cat upgrade, does my music simply end up in the 'new' internal music library and life goes on..? If not, what's the downside? Am I missing something? Thnx (and just use the external HD as my safe back up)

[@macmost]

No, nothing about Catalina. This was a method many people have used for years. It is just that some people have a huge music collection and a small internal drive so this works better for them. No reason to use this method if the default method is working fine for you.

[@mayragarcia883]

Will this work for movies, audiobooks and ebooks?

[@MikeDaep]

New Subs here. I like your content videos. But if I may ask something related to Music App, Suddenly my Macbook pro music app cant play my newly downloaded mp3 on the other streaming site, But the old downloaded music is still ok. Would you know what seems to be the problem? I already did lot of research and I even update my OS to Big Sur. thank you. hoping you could help me.

[@devarni]

Have you made a video on how to synchronise the music library across different devices? There is no automatic synchronisation, e.g. with the iPhone?

[@macmost]

There are two methods: Apple Music (which also includes the whole Apple Music streaming service) and iTunes Match (just cloud syncing).

[@donsolis12]

What if you want to keep your playlists and track info?