Chances are the time may come, where you find yourself running out of space on your default iTunes volume. Moving the location of these files (without rebuilding all the metadata) can be done, it just may not be that obvious how…
- Open iTunes Music Library.xml from ~/Music/iTunes/ in a text editor. I recommend TextMate.
- Find and replace all the paths to your old (or current) library files with new ones. ie: /Volumes/External/Music/ to /Music/
(this operation can take awhile even on modern Macs, especially if your library is huge… I waited a few minutes for about 30 thousand tracks) - Open iTunes. Don’t panic if you try to play your songs and they’re all missing!
- Open Preferences (Apple+,) and under Advanced change the Music folder location to the new music path.
- Wait another long while, while iTunes rebuilds the binary library data from your XML file.
- Voila! You’ve moved around your files and kept the metadata intact.
Another useful maintenance script I’ve found is Super Remove Dead Tracks. If you’re like me and don’t allow iTunes to keep your music folders organized, it can be a lifesaver when renaming files.
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