How to move your iTunes media onto a new hard disk

I run iTunes on Mac OS. I'm at the latest version (8.2 at the time of writing).

I have filled a hard disk with 11,000 tracks, many videos, podcasts subscriptions, and applications. I like to keep a separate hard disk for all my iTunes use, distinct from the main drive. This drive contains the audio, video, and the iTunes database files.

Having filled up my media disk, it was time upgrade to a larger disk in the same machine. It's not too hard if you let iTunes manage your music manually, just follow this HOWTO.

However, I like to manage my files manually. I have a directory structure for files which separates them according to use (I use my media with programs other than iTunes, but you need iTunes to sync with iPods). iTunes permits, but doesn't like this.

Moving the iTunes media onto a new disk is hard because:

• iTunes does not cope well with its database files being moved
  
• I sync with a number of iPods and an iPhone. Don't want to lose sync with those devices.
  
• The iTunes database file is a closed binary format, and not easy to edit.

(On the mac, at least) iTunes is clever enough to track file movements on the same disk. You can rearrange your media files, and iTunes won't get confused. This is true for HFS+ at least (perhaps iTunes is tracking files by ID rather than filename, I never worried how it works). However, iTunes cannot cope with files moved between disks, which makes migrating your iTunes database somewhat complex.

There are a number of good HOWTOs on the net for this kind of thing (see the references at the end), but they all didn't quite describe what I wanted to do exactly.

So here's my HOWTO. If you know any better versions of these steps, let me know.

Prerequisites:

1. You have installed the new drive, and formatted it, etc.
   
2. You can see new drive at same time as old drive.

Steps...

1. Quit iTunes. Best not to have it updating the database or downloading podcasts whilst you're working on it!
   
2. Copy entire contents of old media disk to new one, including all your media and the "iTunes" directory full of database files, application downloads, podcasts, etc.
   
3. For safety's sake, I renamed the "iTunes" folder on the old disk to try to prevent iTunes from using it again and confusing matters. Based on iTunes cleverness, it might have spotted the rename magically - perhaps it would have been better to archive the old "iTunes" directory and delete the original?
   
4. Go to new media drive. Look in iTunes directory. Open the "iTunes Library" file - it's iTunes's binary-format database. Open it with a text editor, select everything in it, and delete it all. Save the file. Ensure it has size zero.
   
5. Open the "iTunes Library.xml" file in the same directory in a text editor (this is a XML human-readable version of most of the data in the database). Do a global search and replace for all "/Volumes/OldMediaDriveName" to "/Volumes/NewMediaDriveName" (changing those names appropriately, obviously).
   
6. Start iTunes with the Option (alt) key held down. It asks for you to provide the location of a new iTunes data file. Select the new drive's iTunes directory.
   
7. Get ready for a long wait. iTunes will now rebuild it's binary database from the XML file. For a large database this takes a VEEEEERY long time. I was waiting for over 30 minutes (on a PPC Dual G4, to be fair). Answer nagging questions as required. Trashing the iTunes database loses a lot of important, but non-essential information like album art associations, window setup, etc. iTunes will spend a while churning through all your albums trying to download cover art, work out volume normalisation, etc.
   
8. Sort out the applications you have downloaded. Look under "Applications" in iTunes' source list and you'll see that iTunes hasn't picked and of them up. Drag all the "*.ipa" files from your "iTunes/iPod Games" and "iTunes/Mobile Applications" directories into the Applications view. They'll magically appear. Purchased applications will copy over fine.
   
9. Sort out your podcast subscriptions. Sadly, they've been lost, too. Despite some tutorials descriptions, I can't easily find a way resubscribe. You'll have imported a load of podcast mp3 files which have genre "Podcast" - you can see them in your library with a simple search. The corresponding podcast subscriptions have been lost. You can therefore see the podcasts you were subscribed to; their feed URLs is available in the "Get Info" iTunes dialogue box for each file. You'll have to resubscribe manually.
   

That's it. We're all done. You can now sync your iPods fine. Sync settings are NOT lost, thankfully.

References

• Apple document: how to move your iTunes Music folder. This doesn't move the iTunes database, as far as I can see. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
  
• HiFi's blog: http://hifiblog.com/past/2006/05/11/howto-move-your-itunes-music-while-preserving-library-data-when-you-dont-let-itunes-manage-your-music-library/ http://hifiblog.com/past/2006/05/11/howto-move-your-itunes-music-while-preserving-library-data-when-you-dont-let-itunes-manage-your-music-library/. This is PC-centric, and the closest guide yet. But it's not entirely accurate (iPod applications aren't covered, and it hints that you can copy podcast mp3 files into the podcast "source" which isn't possible - on the Mac, at least).
  
• Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/238296/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-external-drive Requires you to consolidate your library and lose your directory structure.