In macOS Catalina or later, your previous iTunes media library is now available in the Apple Music app, Apple TV app, Apple Podcasts app and Apple Books app. And when you back up your Mac, your media library will be included automatically in that backup. When you set up a new Mac, you can also restore your Mac from a backup.
Consolidate your iTunes library Open iTunes.From the menu bar at the top of your computer screen or at the top of the iTunes window, choose File > Library > Organise Library.
Select Consolidate files.
Click OK.When you consolidate, copies of any files that were outside your iTunes Media folder will be added to your iTunes Media folder. To save space on your hard drive, you may want to delete the original files. Make sure the copies are in your iTunes Media Folder before deleting the original files.
When you make iTunes consolidate files in iTunes library, you will essentially want a program to group copies of all music on your computer into one iTunes music library folder. It means that iTunes will access to every song if they are stored on your computer. It also means that iTunes will locate all your music files on your computer and add it into one single library file for managing easily. But if you are using an operating system like Windows, you need manually set the iTunes library to make iTunes consolidate files. The operating details about how to consolidate iTunes libraries will slightly vary based on your operating system or version of iTunes. But the difference of instruction given below is slight.
Maybe you will find iTunes consolidate files not working. For example, in iTunes preference, you have made a series of settings, but after that, nothing happens. And you tried again, but it is the same result. Like such situations, your files may have been already consolidated.
This will move all your iTunes media files, from wherever they are stored on your computer, to the iTunes folder. Thus, after you consolidated your iTunes library, all your iTunes contents will be stored in a single place.
Having your iTunes or Mac Music App library a mess can slow you down when finding, loading and sorting your tracks. We have provided a list of six of the best top tips to arm you in the fight to sort out your jumble of music to ultimately have a nicely organized, clean iTunes library.
Depending on how you imported items into iTunes, some items in your library might be stored in different locations (in another folder or on another hard disk, for example). That's why we need to consolidate iTunes library. Actually, iTunes consolidating is quite easy. In this post, we would like to show you how to consolidate iTunes library with detailed steps.
The location mentioned above is also the place where the media files would be saved when we consolidate iTunes files. By acknowledging where the consolidated iTunes files would be saved, now let's see how to consolidate iTunes library in detailed steps.
Also, when you add an item already on your computer to your iTunes library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder. The original file remains in its current location. If you want to add files to iTunes library without adding them to iTunes folder, you could click "Edit > Preferrences > Advanced" option and then deselect the checkbox next to "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library."
You can set storage locations for each of your libraries. You view and define storage locations for media, Motion content, cache files, and library backup files using the Library Properties inspector. You can store these files within the library or in external folders. You can also consolidate (collect all files as managed media) inside the library for easy transport or archiving. See What are libraries? for more information about managed and external media.
However, content you imported to iTunes from elsewhere on your Mac could get lost during your upgrade. Depending on your preferences, iTunes may not have copied this content to the media library when you imported it.
To fix this, you need to consolidate your iTunes Media library, which creates a copy of missing content in the iTunes Media folder. After consolidating your library, you may want to delete the original files on your Mac to save space.
Unfortunately, this user-friendly approach has one serious limitation: When it comes time to move your iTunes library, it can often be a bit of a challenge to figure out exactly what pieces you need to move and how to go about doing this. Many iTunes users start out with a basic iTunes library and use the default settings to store all of their media content on their primary internal hard drive. However, as you add new content over time, particularly with the additional video content now supported by iTunes, you may soon find that your library threatens to take over your computer.
Generally, when trying to optimize disk usage, the iTunes Media Folder is what most users will want to move, as it contains the bulk of your library. By comparison, the iTunes Library Database is much smaller and is usually best left in its default location.
Keep iTunes Media folder organized determines whether tracks in your iTunes Media folder are automatically organized based on the track information found within each file. With this option enabled, iTunes will move and rename files within the iTunes Media folder as necessary into sub-folders by media type, with music organized in an ARTIST\ALBUM subfolder structure and each file named by its track name from the iTunes library. If this option is disabled, then files within the iTunes Media folder will be left with whatever name and sub-folder they were placed in when you first imported them, regardless of changes to the tag information within iTunes itself.
If you plan on putting your iTunes Media folder in a different location on the new computer you will want to read on for the process of relocating the iTunes Media folder itself. Whether you choose to do this before transferring your library to your new computer or afterwards largely depends on your specific situation. For example, if your media folder has been stored on a drive on your original computer that does not exist on the new computer, you will need to consolidate your library before moving it to the new computer. Similarly, if you plan to keep your iTunes library on an external hard drive, it makes more sense to consolidate the media folder onto that external drive from your original computer and then just copy the iTunes library database over to the new machine and let it pick up the media from the external drive.
However, the good news is that since iTunes will default to looking for any missing files in its normal iTunes Media folder, you can leverage this behaviour when migrating your library to a different operating system.
Once you have consolidated your library content onto an external hard drive, iTunes will continue to use that location for any newly imported or downloaded content, subject to your iTunes preference settings.
If you've got a huge music library, you want to be able to take that with you when you upgrade your devices so it's a great idea to back it up. It's also prudent to do so in case of theft, disaster, or mechanical failure. Hopefully the above guide will have your music collection backed up in no time.
It's slightly more complicated to create a manual backup of your iTunes library. You need to perform some maintenance tasks within the app itself before proceeding -- namely, you need to consolidate your library.
The dreaded exclamation points in your iTunes library! Edited metadata that doesn't show up outside of iTunes! Most of us have had at least some of these issues, and if you're unlucky most or all of your library can end up like this. Maybe you moved your library from one hard disk to another, you had to get your library back from an old backup, or maybe your disk was failing and this is what you got after running recovery software.
Another important note: There are a couple of features in iTunes that are on by default on Mac but are normally off on Windows. If you're unfamiliar with them, you probably should have them turned on, as they will help keep all of your music tidy going forward. In File > Preferences > Advanced, you should allow iTunes to Keep iTunes Media folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library.
Don't worry, you don't need much disk space for this step as you're not exporting your actual entire library, you're only creating a simple databaseof what is in your library and playlists. In iTunes, choose File > Library > Export Library.... Give it a unique name and save it somewhere like your Desktop.
A much less stressful method is to use an application created specifically to repair damaged iTunes libraries. It's called Song Sergeant, and when it is launched it will automatically find and scan your music library for a variety of problems, some of which it can silently fix immediately while scanning.
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