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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > Migrating from one machine to another, iTunes

Migrating from one machine to another, iTunes
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CIA
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Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Utah
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Jan 5, 2006, 06:17 PM
 
Now, when I got my Quad I did the migration assistant to bring all my stuff over from my older quicksilver DP800. All in all the process was great, but.... I seem to have brought over some of the system glitches that were persistant on the older machine. So, now I want to do a clean re-install of OSX 10.4.x on my quad. I have the discs for my apps, and the web stuff is easy to download. Annoying, but not that big a deal. Plus I can finally install the newer versions of some programs that I never got around to installing. All my docs and other misc stuff are organized, so a simple copy process will take care of those. iPhoto library is burned onto some DL DVD's, so thats covered as well.
So besides the time of re-installing and setting up my mail accounts/passwords/personal machine prefs again I'm all set.
BUT
The one thing I would like to save are my playlists from iTunes, and, more importantly, my play counts. I have had a library with several thousand songs, all rated & organized for nearly 3 years, and I would like to keep the number of times played, user ratings, and other misc stuff when I go to the new install. Is there a simple file I can drag over to the new machine to retain all this? The music files are all on an external firewire drive, so moving that is just a matter of plugging it into the new computer.
Which file or files do I need to copy and place manually to save this info?
Thanks in advance.
P.s. Loving the quad.
Work: 2008 8x3.2 MacPro, 8800GT, 16GB ram, zillions of HDs. (video editing)
Home: 2008 24" 2.8 iMac, 2TB Int, 4GB ram.
Road: 2009 13" 2.26 Macbook Pro, 8GB ram & 640GB WD blue internal
Retired to BOINC only: My trusty never-gonna-die 12" iBook G4 1.25
     
Grrr
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Jan 5, 2006, 08:34 PM
 
Just copy over the iTunes prefs files, and also the xml file thats buried in the iTunes music folder somewhere. Should do it!
The worst thing about having a failing memory is..... no, it's gone.
     
GORDYmac
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Jan 6, 2006, 02:36 PM
 
Not the XML file, the iTunes Library file.
     
GORDYmac
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Jan 6, 2006, 02:40 PM
 
You know...there's an app in your Utilities folder that would just transfer everything over...no need to configure anything.

I think it's called Migration Assistant. I use it every time I upgrade.
     
Jerommeke
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Jan 6, 2006, 03:12 PM
 
As said, he doesn't want to use the Migration Assistant for appropriate reasons. When I migrated from an older iMac to my current Mac, I had all my music on an external hard drive. So I copied the library file to my new Mac, conected the external hard drive and chose the option to put all music organized in folders.

However, I don't know if it is as simple as that if the music is on the main drive on your older computer.
iMac G5 2.0 Ghz 20", 2 GB RAM, 400 GB, OS X 10.4.5, iPod with color screen 60 GB
     
Jim Paradise
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Jan 6, 2006, 04:34 PM
 
The easiest way to migrate iTunes to another computer, if you're not using the Migration Assistant, is to first open the Preferences and select an external drive for your iTunes Music folder in the Advanced options. This will move the .xml files, etc., that have your playlists to the external drive. Then once that's done, click the "Consolidate Library" option in the menu under Advanced. This will move all your music into the iTunes Music folder on the external drive.

So then you do the clean install, etc. When it comes time to get iTunes up and running again, copy the music folder from the external drive to your regular drive in your Home folder's Music folder. This should set things up to how they were before (so that iTunes sees your playlists and music on the external drive). All you have to do to get your playlists and music to reside on your comp is to follow the steps in the above paragraph, but just done so that your Music folder is selected.
     
CIA  (op)
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Jan 7, 2006, 06:49 PM
 
Normally that last post would work fine, but my boot drive is a RAID consisting of 2 74GB Raptors, so I don't have the space to copy all 60GB of music onto it (with the stuff that is already on there.
The music has always lived on the external drive so the files that link it are already there, I just needed to know which particular pref/setting/whatever files I need to copy and place on the new machine, and where.
Work: 2008 8x3.2 MacPro, 8800GT, 16GB ram, zillions of HDs. (video editing)
Home: 2008 24" 2.8 iMac, 2TB Int, 4GB ram.
Road: 2009 13" 2.26 Macbook Pro, 8GB ram & 640GB WD blue internal
Retired to BOINC only: My trusty never-gonna-die 12" iBook G4 1.25
     
cambro
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Jan 8, 2006, 11:26 AM
 
Ummm....

This all sounds way too complicated. I've moved my iTunes music library around quite a bit. I keep an eMac with an external HD as the main music machine and frequently sync the eMac iTunes library (playlists and all) with an external HD for my powerbook. This is very easy.

1. ALL of your library information, including playlists, music indexes, etc., resides in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.

If you copy this file from one computer to the other, the iTunes playlists, music list, etc. will be duplicated on the other machine, regardless of whether the music is there or not. BACKUP this file because it is the only that saves all your hard playlist work.

2. The directory that contains your iTunes music files themsevles can reside anywhere and you can move it anywhere at any time. To let iTunes "know" where your music resides, choose preferences/advanced and set the iTunes folder location to where ever you happen to put it.

This is all you need to do to reproduce your exact iTunes configuration on any number of machines any number of times.

Rarely, for some reason, when you move your iTunes music folder to a new location and reset the location in the preferences, a few songs will get the little (!) icon in iTunes that indicates that the file cannot be found. I don't know why this happens, but it is easy to navigate to the file and reset the location.
     
QTI
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Jan 9, 2006, 07:41 AM
 
what "glitches" are there, would you share with me? since I just moved all my stuff from ibook to my G5 Dual 2G after its harddisk died on me...
--
QTI
     
CIA  (op)
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Jan 9, 2006, 10:08 AM
 
Nothing really specific. I never really took the time to nail the problems down. Sometimes the machine will lock up, or a program will crash for no real reason. It's plugged into a APC RS1500 and sometimes while sleeping, the fans will kick into high gear (without waking up) and the only way to shut it off is to physically pull the plug. Then I need to wait a few min before it will let me startup again. I dunno if this is because of the Battery backup being faulty, or my OS. A clean install should at least answer that one question.
Work: 2008 8x3.2 MacPro, 8800GT, 16GB ram, zillions of HDs. (video editing)
Home: 2008 24" 2.8 iMac, 2TB Int, 4GB ram.
Road: 2009 13" 2.26 Macbook Pro, 8GB ram & 640GB WD blue internal
Retired to BOINC only: My trusty never-gonna-die 12" iBook G4 1.25
     
   
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