Though we store more and more of our music online these days, a hard-copy backup is still the gold standard for keeping your data safe. And if you use Apple Music or iCloud Music Library, the best way to do that is still iTunes.
- How Do I Copy My Itunes Library To Another Mac Screen
- How Do I Copy My Itunes Library To Another Mac Os
Nov 14, 2019 How to Back Up Your iTunes to an External Hard Drive Save an extra copy of your music library. Sam Costello. On a Mac, go to the Finder. Drag the iTunes folder to the external hard drive to copy the iTunes library to the hard drive. How to move your iTunes Library to another location: Transfer your iTunes library to another Mac. If there's already unique content in iTunes on that Mac, copy it elsewhere, if necessary.) Once.
There are a few ways to back up your iTunes library; it's important to choose one and regularly back up so that you won't have to worry about your local copy getting lost or damaged. My music — at least for me — is one of those must-backup items; I don't want to have to manually re-build or re-buy thousands of tracks.
First: Make sure your entire library has been locally downloaded
If you use iCloud Music Library or the iTunes Store, you may have some or all of your music stored in the cloud. But to truly make sure your purchased and owned content is backed up, you'll want to download a local copy to your Mac. Here's the best way to do so:
To download specific items in your iCloud Music Library right now to your Mac's drive, do the following:
How Do I Copy My Itunes Library To Another Mac Screen
- Launch Music (or iTunes on Mojave and earlier) on your Mac.Source: iMore
- Find the Artist, Albums, or Songs that you want to download.
- Click the .. button to bring up a pop-up menu.Source: iMore
- Click Download to initiate the download of these items.Source: iMore
![Library Library](/uploads/1/2/6/2/126259866/959825420.jpg)
And if you want to start automatically downloading everything that you add to your Apple Music library from this point forward, then it's easy peasy! Here's how:
- Launch Music (or iTunes on macOS Mojave and earlier) on your Mac.Source: iMore
- Click Music in the menu bar.
- Click Preferences (or press ⌘, on the keyboard).Source: iMore
- Make sure you're in the General tab.Source: iMore
- Click the box for Automatic Downloads to turn it on.Nov 10, 2019 This is bad news if you're trying to back up your macOS Photos library. Screen capture by Brad Moon. The first move is to use Apple’s Photos library repair tool. Jul 26, 2018 The Photos library -which is essentially a database containing all the original image files- apparently had a corrupt file that was serious enough it couldn’t be copied or backed up. Rebuild corrupted photos for mac library. Feb 21, 2020 The other alternative way to repair corrupted Photos Library is to create a new Photos Library on Mac. By doing so, you'll have your Photo Library back and reuse it to edit your photos again: Step 1. Hold the Option key and double-click the Photos icon in the Applications folder (or click the Photos icon in the Dock).Source: iMore
Once that is turned on, any music you add to your Apple Music library will be downloaded automatically to your Mac's hard drive.
How to back up iTunes via Time Machine or another backup service
If you have Apple's Time Machine backup system enabled — or any other cloud — or system-based backup — your iTunes library should automatically be covered. This way, if you ever need to restore, you can just pop back in Time Machine's History (or a past backup from CrashPlan or Carbon Copy Cloner, for example) to retrieve it.
How to manually back up your iTunes library
If you're not employing a Mac-wide backup service (really, you should get on that), or if you just want to manually back up your iTunes library separately, here's how to go about that.
Consolidate your library
To ensure that all of your iTunes files are in the same place when you make a manual backup, you should first consolidate your iTunes library.
- Make sure you've downloaded a local copy of your music to your Mac.
- Launch Music (or iTunes in macOS Mojave or earlier) on your Mac.Source: iMore
- Click File in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen.
- Hover your cursor over Library in the drop down menu.Source: iMore
- Select Organize Library from the secondary menu.Source: iMore
- Tick the box for Consolidate Files when the Organize Library window appears.Source: iMore
- Click OK.Source: iMore
This will make a copy of all files in the iTunes media folder, leaving the originals in their current location.
Copy your iTunes library to a backup source
- If you are using an external hard drive, connect it to your Mac using a USB cable.
- Click on Finder to open a Finder window.
- Select your Mac's Hard drive.Source: iMore
- Click on Music in the sidebar.Source: iMore
- Select the Music folder (or iTunes on macOS Mojave and earlier) and drag that folder to the external hard drive icon on your desktop or copy it to your online backup service.Source: iMore
- Click Authenticate, if prompted, to give permission to make a copy of the iTunes folder.
- Enter your administrator password.
- Click OK.Source: iMore
The copy process will begin. This could take a very long time, depending on how big your Music/iTunes library is. So, sit back, relax, watch a movie, or whatever you do to pass the time.
Desperate times call for desperate measures
![How Do I Copy My Itunes Library To Another Mac How Do I Copy My Itunes Library To Another Mac](https://www.easeus.com/images/en/screenshot/mobimover/transfer-music-itunes-iphone.png)
If you are about to do something wild with your Music or iTunes library and don't have a way to back it up on an external drive or online backup service, you can make a temporary backup that you store right on your Mac. This is, by no means, a solid backup plan, but can be useful in a pinch.
How Do I Copy My Itunes Library To Another Mac Os
Note: After making a copy, it is a good idea to move the copied folder to an easy-to-find location that is separate from any folder you plan to make changes to (like the Music folder). This copied folder should be deleted immediately after it is no longer needed because it takes up extra space on your computer's hard drive unnecessarily and could cause confusion with your most current Music or iTunes folder.
- Click on Finder to open a Finder window.
- Select your Mac's Hard drive.Source: iMore
- Click on Music in the sidebar.Source: iMore
- Right-click or control-click on the Music folder (or iTunes folder if you're still on macOS Mojave or earlier).Source: iMore
- Select Duplicate from the drop down menu.
- The copy process will begin. This could take a very long time.Source: iMoreIt's basically a place to store things that programs need to get at, but that the user doesn't (generally) need to be explicitly aware of.Fonts, Keychains, Services), so there's just a bunch of files there. Some resource types are available to many or all programs (e.g. Basically, things that the user never needs to double-click or use an open/save dialog to access. However, some programs (mostly Apple-authored ones) are, um, egotistical enough to think they need their own top-level folder inside the library, so they go ahead and create one and store things in it.As for the name 'Library', I wouldn't read too much into it.
- Move the copied iTunes or Music folder to a new, easy-to-find location.
- Delete the copied iTunes or Music folder once you no longer need the temporary backup.
Any questions?
Running into issues making an iTunes backup? Pop them in the comments below.
March 2020: These are still the current steps for how to back up your music.
Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.
Backing up: The ultimate guide
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