Using iTunes on External Hard Drive
To store and use your iTunes library on an external hard drive, do the following: At this point, you can delete the iTunes library on your main hard drive, if you want. However, before you do that, make sure that everything from your iTunes library transferred to your external drive, or that you have a second backup, just in case. Remember, when you delete things, they’re gone forever (at least without redownloading purchases from iCloud or hiring a drive-recovery company), so make absolutely sure you’ve got everything you need before you delete.
Tips for Using iTunes With an External Hard Drive
While using your iTunes library on an external hard drive can be very convenient in terms of freeing up disk space, it also has some drawbacks. To deal with them, here are some tips you’ll want to keep in mind:
If you delete the iTunes library on your main hard drive, you won’t have any music, video, or other iTunes files with you when your external hard drive isn’t connected. This may be OK if you’ve got an iPod or iPhone, but if not, it might be a pain. When you sync an iPhone, iPod, or iPad, make sure you’ve connected the external hard drive first. Since your iTunes library lives on the external drive, when you try to sync those devices, they’ll look for that drive. If they don’t find it, syncing will be messy or problematic. Consider disabling the auto-sync feature in iTunes to prevent that kind of problem. If you do sync to your main hard drive, or buy/download items to the main hard drive, you can easily add them to the external hard drive next time you connect it. In that case,
