Transfer iTunes Music Between Machines

June 8, 2007 by AC.

The question recently came up about transferring itunes music files between machines so I thought I would comment and offer some resources online.  I am a big fan of the iPod and have a good deal of music from my own collection and from online purchases.  I have used multiple machines to save & play the music, so the transfer issue was never a problem for me but the question came up recently on a service call and also from some friends.

This pertains to iTunes software but may have some benefit for other music players.  It is also written for Windows users but I do have some links to Mac iTunes users below as well.  iTunes generally saves music in a folder within “My Documents” and the “My Music” folder in a new folder it creates, “iTunes”.  You can check or change the folder used by clicking on “Edit” and then “Preferences” from inside the iTunes software.  From there navigate to the “Advanced” tab and you will find the folder information in the box at the top.  You can change or reset the folder location with the buttons to the right of the location box.

The easiest way to copy and/or move music between machines is to copy the iTunes folder (or the entire My Music folder) and paste that folder to a new location.  Because many people are accumulating large amounts of music files, a direct connection between the computers (shared drive) or an external drive (back, etc.) may be necessary.  If you have a big collection it is doubtful all your music will fit on a disc, flash drive or CD.

Once the music is moved to a suitable device, let’s use an external drive for an example, move that drive to the other computer and copy & paste the data you saved (My Music or iTunes folder from Computer 1) to the My Music folder within Computer 2.  The process does not end there.  From within iTunes, (it needs to be on both machines) you must now locate the music by clicking “File” and then “Add Folder to Library”.  Locate the folder you just copied and iTunes will do the rest to import the songs into your music library.

If you have purchased some of your music from Apple or have secure music you will be prompted to enter your iTunes username & password.  You can register multiple machines per the Apple User Agreement.

For more information please see the following pages from Apple:

For Windows Machines - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93366

For Mac Machines - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93063

The question also comes up about getting music off an iPod device - back onto a computer.  Generally this is a one-way path - music from your PC can be added to an iPod, but music from an iPod cannot be copied back to your computer.  There are third-party software solutions and hacks out there to reverse the process but unless you lost your music on your PC and the iPod is the only backup of the music I do not advise going this route.

Thanks for reading!

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