If you use an iPod, iTouch, or iPhone and plan on getting a new computer, you will want to read this article! OR, if you use any of these devices and want to make sure your library stays safe, you will want to read this article!
Yesterday, I helped a customer setup a new Windows 7 computer and transfer email, favorites, and other data from his old Windows XP computer. Turns out that he also needed to move his iTunes library of more than 8,000 songs and almost 150 playlists!
There isn’t too much I panic about when I arrive at a customer’s home or office, but moving large, customized iTunes libraries is something that does get me a little nervous. In the past, I have had to open an iTunes XML file in a word processor and then use find and replace to enter the path to the storage location on the new computer. It was extremely difficult and tedious.
I am happy to report that I successfully transferred the entire 36 gigabyte library and playlists using the following technique:
- On the old computer, open iTunes
- Click Edit –> Preferences from the menus
- Click the Advanced tab
- Click the check box next to Keep iTunes Media folder organized [if it isn’t already]
- Click OK
- Click File –> Library –> Organize Library [if the box wasn’t checked, be prepared to wait for a few a minutes as iTunes organizes your library].
- Now close iTunes and copy your entire My Music folder to an external hard drive, or you can do as I did and pull the hard drive from the old computer and use an USB hard drive adaptor to connect it to the new computer.
- DON’T COPY THE MUSIC TO THE NEW COMPUTER YET.
- Instead, download and install iTunes on the new computer
- Start iTunes and repeat steps 2-5 [above]
- Close iTunes
- Open the Music folder on the new computer
- You should see an iTunes folder, double-click it
- Now you will see either an iTunes Music or iTunes Media folder [doesn’t matter what name it has]
- Click one time on the folder and delete it
- Connect your backup hard drive to the new computer and navigate to the My Music folder and open it
- Push Ctrl+A on your keyboard to select all contents in the My Music folder
- Drag the files to the Music folder on the new computer
- Click yes when asked if you want to overwrite any existing files with the same name
- Close open Windows
- Start iTunes and your libary, including playlists, should be there.
Good luck!
For those of you with a DVD burner on your system [most systems built after 2006 include a DVD burner], you can backup your iTunes library and info via DVD using these steps:
- Make sure you have 5-20 blank DVDs [DVD-R or DVD+R] on hand for the backup
- Start iTunes
- Click File –> Library –> Backup to Disk from menus
- Click Back Up button
- Follow on-screen instructions.
To restore the backup:
- Start iTunes
- Insert the first DVD in the backup set
- Follow on-screen instructions
Links to Apple’s official instructions on this process:
- For Mac Users
- For Windows Users
I went through the trouble of making a killer playlist on my Apple iPhone. This playlist took quite a bit of time to create and contained hundreds of songs I currently love listening to. After jamming out to this playlist, I thought “Wow, these songs I selected would make a great playlist for when I listen to music on my computer!”
I attached my iPod to my computer, fired up iTunes and created a new playlist called “Rawk”. I then selected the playlist on my iPhone and tried to drag and drop them to the playlist on the computer. It didn’t work though. iTunes doesn’t let you copy a playlist from your iPhone to your local computer. Nor will it allow you to drag individual songs to from an iPhone to a computer playlist.
What a bummer! I just had to find a workaround for this. Fortunately, I was able to find one rather quickly. You can do the following.
Note: This tutorial has been revised to reflect iTunes version 12.
- Connect your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad to your computer.
- From the “Devices” section, expand the selections under your device.
- Select the playlist you wish to export.
- Select “File” > “Library” > “Export Playlist…”to export the playlist to a text file. Give the export a name, then select “Save“.
- Select the “Songs” option on the left pane under “Library“.
- Select “File” > “Library” > “Import Playlist…“, then select the text file created in step 5.
There you have it. You have successfully added a playlist from your Apple iOS device to iTunes on your computer.
FAQ
Why do I get an error that says “Some of the songs in the file were not imported because they could not be found”.
This tutorial assumes that the actual music files existon your PC as well as the device. If they don’t, you will need to transfer the music files to the PC you’re working with. If they only exist on your device, you will need to research how to extract music files from your device.
Many DJs do a majority of their playlist organization within iTunes – especially DJs who find themselves regularly trying out new DJ software and platforms. Doing things in iTunes means that you have a near-universal organizational structure that most softwares can use. But when you want to move 50+ iTunes playlists to another computer or device, what’s the best way? Keep reading for two ways.
Why Would DJs Need To Export iTunes Playlists?
There’s a few different situations that a DJ might find themselves in that would require moving around large numbers of iTunes playlists onto external drives. Here’s some that you might be able to relate to:
- Having a backup USB drive with your DJ music on it where the file structure mirrors your playlists [this is great for emergencies!]
- Moving a set of playlists to another DJ’s laptop to play a B2B set [I recently did this with a B2B Traktor set]
- Wanting to “start fresh” but keep a “cold storage” archive of all of your old playlists and associated tracks
- Wanting to export a bunch of DJ playlists to review in your car if you have a USB reader
Yes, we’re well aware that you can move your entire iTunes library to a new computer or create a backup of the entire library all together. This article is focused on moving playlists and the associated songs – not your entire collection.
Move It Manually [More Time Consuming, But Free]
This one is reasonable if you have 5-10 playlists that you want to move. iTunes actually allows you to click and drag the contents of individual playlists. Note that you can’t drag playlists or playlist folders from the left side of iTunes directly into a Finder folder – there’s a strange limitation here that likely “trying to reduce piracy”.
Instead, your best bet for a process is:
- make new folders on your USB drive for each playlist you want to export, named for each one
- click into each playlist in iTunes
- select all [control/command + A]
- drag the tracks into the folder
If you just have a few playlists, this is reasonable. If you’re like me and you have hundreds of playlists [447 and counting!], it’s completely unreasonable – move on to the paid solution below.
Playlist Export Tool [Paid, But Fast]
Here’s the real tool that everyone who has to do this process should probably use: it’s called Playlist Export. There are other scripts and apps out there that do something similar, but this one is the most efficient that I’ve found so far [feel free to correct me in the comments].
- App: Playlist Export
- Developer: Eric Daugherty
- Price: $4.99
- Available on: MacOS only, in the Mac App store
The app is really easy to use:
- open Playlist Export and it will read your default iTunes library [and tell you how many playlists and tracks you have]
- hit “New” to create a new Export Template [templates are useful if you have to do this again later!]
- Choose what playlists you want exported, if you want them to include .m3u playlist files [great for loading into other iTunes or Traktor installs], if you want the music files to be copies, etc
- Select an export directory, then hit Save
- Hit Export and your playlists will start writing to your selected folder!
The one drawback is that while your playlists are grouped by their master folders in the template manager, they are shown at the same level – so if you have multiple levels of folder hierarchy that you want in your USB drive, you might have to do some more work manually.