My music is already on an external hard drive and I got a new laptop. Here is how I got my new Mac working with my existing library located on my external. (I’m putting the instructions here since every time I change machines I wonder how I got it to work last time, and the articles online just send me in circles.)
If your library is on an external hard drive already:
Here’s how you make the old library work with the new laptop:
On your external, navigate to iTunes Music. Inside that directory find iTunes. Copy iTunes back onto your local machine at: user:Music/iTunes/iTunes Music (yes, the finished result will be iTunes/iTunes Music/iTunes)
Launch iTunes while holding down the Option key. This will cause iTunes to prompt you to select an iTunes library. Navigate to your external and select the iTunes Music directory.
iTunes should now work properly. But iTunes can be temperamental and it may give you a file-not-found error for each track (looks like an exclamation point.) If this happens:
Troubleshooting steps:
1. Relaunch iTunes.
If that does not work:
1. Go to iTunes>Preferences>Advanced. Change the music library location to your external.
2. Select “Keep iTunes Music Folder organized”. Select “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library”
3. Click OK.
4. Go to Library>Consolidate Library. Click OK.
If this does not fix the problem:
1. On local hard drive, go to: user:Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/iTunes
2. Open iTunes Library.xml with a text editor
3. Change the below string to the correct path:
4. Relaunch iTunes.
3. If this does not fix the problem either, just copy all the music files off your external hard drive into the local iTunes Music folder, relaunch iTunes and start over with all the music locally. It’s annoying but ultimately faster and less frustrating than fighting with iTunes.