Where is the Music?

[ecirwin at mac.com]

Terry,

Once you have pointed iTunes to a directory (on your external drive), 
run the Advanced/Consolidate Library command.  This will copy all music 
that may be scattered about on several hard drives into the new folder 
on your external.  Once that process is complete, you can delete all 
music files that are not in the new music folder on your external 
drive.  This assumes that all music files on your computer's drives are 
in the iTunes library.

This process will keep all your playlist info intact and keep from 
getting duplicates in the iTunes library or having missing files.  The 
bad news is that it copies all the files to the new location, instead 
of moving them.  I guess there are good things and bad things about 
this, but it usually means the extra step of deleting the extra music 
files.  I do like to do a random check on the files that got copied to 
make sure that something major did not happen.  I don't check every 
one, just a few to make sure they work.  Then I start deleting the old 
files in the Finder.

iTunes can read files from several locations without any difficulty.  
Setting the location of the Library to some particular folder really 
only makes the software place newly ripped files there.  You can have 
iTunes organize the files there as well.  I recommend you do that 
because it can come in handy at times to have files sorted by artist 
with album folders under each.  There really isn't anything special 
about the Library folder you choose, it can be any folder you want.  By 
default, iTunes does make one under your user folder somewhere.  If you 
have the external drive disconnected and rip songs, they will be placed 
in that default folder.

I hope this helps explain a little about iTunes file organization.  If 
you have more specific questions, please ask.

Eric