How to transfer your entire iTunes life to a new computer

All your favorite music is there in your iTunes library. You've created playlists, ratings, and incurred impressive play counts. But now you need to transfer all that to your new computer. This guide is for iTunes 8 and will work for both Mac and PCs.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Your old computer
• Your new computer
• Some type of external media
• iTunes 8

1. 
    

   Organize your iTunes music folder. Go to your Preferences for iTunes. It can be found under the iTunes menu in OS X, and the Edit menu in Windows XP and Vista. Under the Advanced tab, make sure "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" checked. If it is, uncheck it, click OK, and repeat the process to make sure the folder is ready for transfer. Take note of the folder location listed above the check box.

2. 
    

   Consolidate all your music in one place. File -> Library -> Consolidate Library is the same for PCs and Macs. It will give you a warning message pictured here. Click "Consolidate". Depending on how fragmented your library is, and how much music you have, it may not show anything or take several minutes/hours. It will not give you a message when completed.

3. Use the iTunes music folder location you looked at in Step 1 to find the iTunes folder. In Windows XP, it's most commonly found in Documents and Setting/user name/My Documents/My Music. In Vista and OS X it can found usually in Users/user name/Music.

4. Copy the iTunes library to the external media of your choice. Like the other steps, this can take some time depending how much music you have. Also dependent on the size of your library is what media you need to use. Small libraries can use a CD or a DVD. But you might need to use an external hard drive or an iPod prepared for disk use.

5. While it's copying, make sure that you have the most recent version of iTunes on our new computer. It's a free download for Mac and PC from apple.com/itunes/download.

6. After the iTunes folder is done copying, properly eject the media and connect it to your new computer. Take the iTunes folder you copied in Step four and drop it into the Music folder. Hopefully this will take less time than the copy to the external media as you have a new computer with better hardware than your old one.

7. When finished, launch iTunes. iTunes will update the library if needed.
   
   Enjoy the tunes.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're still having trouble with the transfer and just purchased a new Mac, go to your local Apple Store and see if they will transfer the music and other files for you. Often times this service is free, but sometimes fees apply.
• Step Two will copy any media to the iTunes music folder that's not in that location. This can theoretically double the amount of space your music and videos take up on your hard drive. Feel free to delete any music of videos you see outside of the iTunes music folder.
• If Step Two gives an error message that there is not enough hard drive space, delete unwanted files and programs to leave enough room. If that's not possible, you may have to find where all your music is stored scattered around your hard drive and move it manually. See future guides on how to do this.
• As with any data transfer, file corruption may hinder your progress. If your hard drive is damaged, you may have to cut your losses and re-import your CDs.

Resources

• Support site for Apple iTunes