[jasonscott71]

Hi everyone, I'm just looking for some reassurance or redirection on what is the best way to transfer my iTunes library, currently on an older machine (w/Panther), to my new MBP with Leopard, via an external hard drive?

Basically . . . I'm copying userfolder/music/itunes to my external hard drive, with the whole 'itunes' folder just getting copied. But on my new machine, there is also userfolder/music/itunes . . . with 5 things (3 folders) already inside. What should I do about those 5 things?

I was going to use the "itunes" folder from the old machine and overwrite the local machine's new itunes folder and everything inside it. But I'm worried about doing that because inside my new machine's "itunes" folder are the 5 items that are part of the new 10.5 OS. My old machine is 10.3.9.

If I just go one level deeper, to the itunes music folder, I get all the artists folders ad songs, etc., but all the "temp files" would have to be manually added. Should I do that and add the temp files?

Thanks for any guidance.

[skybolt]

Here's the way Apple says to do it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

[jasonscott71]

Originally Posted by skybolt 

Here's the way Apple says to do it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

Thanks but what I'm actually looking to do is not just move it to the external, but have iTunes on my new machine reference that location so I can play iTunes while that drive is connected. Is this possible?

[DarkStarRed]

Umm that was a little confusing, but skybolt link is a good one to follow if you want to move your iTunes to be "shared" this can also be done by moving iTunes to the Public or User's/Shared folders for local net or across the net.

Before I start confusing you, you can without harm use Target Disk Mode I've done this three times now since 2003 moving my stuff to new computer without problems & at the time had no backup's!

Ofcourse with Leopard you've got Time Machine & has advised to back up your important files if you've got an extra HD? Getting back to those Folders in Music/iTunes you should see >Album Artwork, iTunes Music, Previous Library Folders plus your actual iTunes Library & XML file. Don't mess with those at all.
In my Previous Library I have 8 libraries altogether backdating to 03.

Still you can back up your iTunes from Panther to HD, but this will leave the Permissions of that iTunes Music
with the old Panther User & Password has "Author" this is OK if your going to use same U&P on new machine you don't have too.
Then follow this to allow others to share your iTunes Music Folder on the HD http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1203 Don't be worried about the term "Publicly Accessible" that's just what your HD is once you setup correctly... even more so easily if you've got an Airport Extreme or TC connected to it.