How can I save all my songs from iTunes to an external hard drive?

Question

I have more than 2,000 songs in my iPod now and if I delete anything from iTunes and update my iPod, it automatically deletes those songs also. I need to reformat our computer because it has been really slow and we can't figure out what it's causing it. I am buying an external hard drive to save all my important files before I reformat it, but I don't know how that works with iTunes. Will I just go to "My Computer, open "Programs" folder, copy the entire "iTunes" folder and paste it to the new drive? Has anybody done this before? I can't write all those songs in CDs. It took me a long time to upload all these songs from CDs to iTunes. I don't want to do that all over again when I reformat the computer. Any inputs would be very much appreciated. :-)

Answer 1

first things first go vote for your answer to the ?s you answered so you will be able to ask me more ?s
yes you can go into your folder to do that i will get back to you in a sec for ways to do it i wrote alot because there is alot of little stuff and some explaining

ok here is how it works you can just go to your library in itunes and highlight all of your songs you can do only so many at a time because eventually it will slow you computer down to much as far as coping them but select your song on the top of the list by highlighting it press and hold shift scroll down and click the song at the bottom all of them should be highlighted then open your external hardrive and move or copy them into the folder on it remember you can't do all 2000 of them at one time but just remember where you left off

also another tip is if you have more then one place you keep music on your computer go into itunes and go to advanced and click on consolidate library it will search your computer and put all other music files on your computer in the itunes folder that were not allready there. Then you can copy the whole folder to your external harddrive instead of song by song this may take a while just highlight the itunes folder after you consolidate it and right click and copy it or move it into your external harddrive after you have opened the ExternalHarDDrive in my computer so it will sit next to all the other folder in your external harddrive it willl say itunes music folder then when you open it all 2000 songs will be there then you will be so happy if you have enough memory you can move or create as many folders in your external hardrive as you want also briefcases are nice to and yes it can be undone the itunes consolidation but you have to delete the songs from your itunes on your computer but since you have an external hadrive it will not matter and if you do not understand feel free to let me know

any time you are in a place with folders (lots of them)you can go to view (next to edit and file in the tool bar) >arrange icons by and you can arrange all your folders automatically in those different ways do this often as you add and change folders you can arrange by title auto name type and some others do this on your external to to keep them neat and fresh

Answer 2

Open itunes, file, insert file from library then you can go from there and find your external hard drive under my computer or whatever and find the songs on that external hard drive and you can hold your ctrl button down and click on multiple songs at a time and when your done clicking on your songs and just click on insert or whatever.

Answer 3

You can just copy the entire folder in the My Music>Itunes folder to your external hard drive. When you reformat, just copy it back after you reinstall itunes, and choose add folder in itunes. If you wanted to burn all your songs to a DVD or some CD's, you need to burn them as a Data Cd/DVD, not an audio.

Answer 4

ertw t is right there is not a better answer plus he wrote alot he seems to have alot of expirence other then 2 external harddrives incase one breaks or stops working also is it a good idea to take all the songs and burn them to cds so you have hard copies i burn them so i can listen to them in any cd player you only have 2000 for 20 bucks you can buy 100 cds and i guarntee they will all fit on them in any format i never use my back up cds though but i could if i wanted to so they are in perfect condition

Answer 5

iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748

Backing up your music

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/musicstore/backup/

Answer 6

Yes indeed, do what you mentioned AND go to 'My Music' and copy the iTunes folder in there (as this one actually contains all the music).

Afterwards, just restore these files, and everything should be fine.

Answer 7

Install WinAmp, remove the bundled iPod support, add ML iPod support instead. Right click on the albums you want saved and select copy-to-hard-drive.

WinAmp is a much better way to manage an iPod.

Answer 8

actually those songs will be saved somewhere in ur computer hard disk...find the location of the songs and save in the external HDD..

Answer 9

you can back up your library to cd. I have about 4,000 songs, and it's all backed up onto 24 discs.

Answer 10

Was wondering the same thing