[Since EBCDIC]

The way it's supposed to work (as I understand it): move iTunes Music folder to external hard drive, tell iTunes, unplug and travel the world and collect music (which is placed internal hard drive in ~/iTunes/iTunes Music), return home, use Consolidate Library to copy new stuff over to external, delete stuff from internal.

Except when I leave and go to work iTunes resets the location of the iTunes folder to point to the internal hard drive. So Consolidate Library does nothing. If I change the folder location to point back at the external hard drive it takes a good hour to churn through my 40k library while an annoying modal dialog box (Updating iTunes Library) makes iTunes block. (Note to others: if you start music playing it'll continue during this process.)

I'm posting because anyone who writes a blog about how to manage iTunes music on an external hard drive never mentions the "must repoint iTunes to external hard drive and start baking a pizza while you wait" step. Is this because I'm doing something wrong or because they've got a library of four Raffi records and they just don't notice the churn.

I mean, I know Apple folks don't seem to use their own products outside of their quiet offices, always connected to a high-speed LAN with unlimited internal hard drive space, but this can't be the best Cupertino could do...

/Sitting here, waiting for the Updating iTunes Library dialog box to go away... it'll only be another 40 minutes or so... Grrrrrr

[iTunes 7.6.2 on Mac OS X 10.5.3]

[Cold Warrior]

That's not the correct behavior. Quit iTunes. Connect your drive and let it mount. Start iTunes but hold down option as it starts. You'll get an option to create or choose a library. Create a new one, placing it on your external drive. Then add/import your media that's on the external.

Now whenever you want to load your library, hold option at iTunes startup and navigate to the library on your external. This should fix the reload issues.

[Since EBCDIC]

Thank you.

So when I return home I select the external library and then Consolidate Library to have it search my internal HD for things to add? Or do I just import things manually?

[Cold Warrior]

In iTunes you have the option to consolidate -- iTunes will copy media to its library folder -- or you can leave it in place (e.g., on your internal drive. Double-check the application preferences to see what it's set for.

You can import by pressing Command-O, then navigate to the folder where your media is stored.

[Since EBCDIC]

Most excellent. I'll give it a try over the weekend and report back. Thanks for your help.