Moving music files to iMac from PC

[Ding Dang Doo]

I've just taken the leap (gulp!) got myself an iMac. However, I am struggling to find an easy way of moving my iTunes files from either my (old) PC or (preferably) my iPhone to my Mac... Plenty of 'ideas' banded about in the interwebby, but nothing simple for someone new to Macs...


Please keep it simple!

Pete

[Ding Dang Doo]

Oh.... Ummmm... If you clever lot can't help, then it's back to the drawing board for me...

[Bantam]

You can't really copy back from the iPhone without using a (usually paid for) piece of software. They're all a bit kludgy really.

Assuming you don't have any music stored yet on the mac...

First off, spark up iTunes on the Mac (if you haven't already) and it'll create a folder called macintosh HD\users\[yourusername]\music\iTunes and then some subfolders under there.

If you have the ability to map the PC's drive onto the Mac via your LAN then do that, otherwise use a USB hard disk and grab the iTunes folder off your PC and shove it on the USB disk;

You can just copy the contents of c:\documents and settings\[yourusername]\my documents\my music\iTunes (assuming that is where iTunes hides your music and you're on something like XP - the folder structure and DB files are the same on PC and Mac) and all the subfolders to the USB disk or copy it directly across to the mac if you can map the drive via your LAN. USB disk's probably easier if you're not used to mapping drives. If you make sure that the iTunes Music Library.xml plus other similar files, and everything below (i.e. your music) is in the correct (same) folders. Once you re-open iTunes on the mac it should find the database file and subfolders and work.

There's a really good run through here.

(And I can vouch for the process as I migrated one of our board directors from a PC to a Mac on Monday night - and that was the process I used to migrate his massive iTunes library!)

Just realised - what I've suggested isn't the most simple thing. Let me see if I can make it a little easier (step by step).

[Ding Dang Doo]

Gulp! Is that the easy version?

I'll have a look at the run through in the morning... I've backed everything up onto an external HDD... So going to try moving it from there! Many thanks for this...

Pete

[Bantam]

Gulp! Is that the easy version?

I'll have a look at the run through in the morning... I've backed everything up onto an external HDD... So going to try moving it from there! Many thanks for this...

Pete

If you've got everything on the external USB drive, (i.e. you've copied the files off the PC, not used a backup tool) literally it's drag and drop.

Plug the USB disk into the Mac. It'll appear on the desktop as a hard disk.

Double click it and the finder will show the structure. Best thing would be to double click your Macintosh HD disk too and have two finder windows open.

Drill down to find where your iTunes folder is on the USB disk.
On the other finder window, drill down (double click through the folders) to users\yourusername\music\iTunes. Should look like this;


In the right is the copy of iTunes on my Bootcamp disk (my Windows 7 Partition) and the left is the one on my Mac OS partition. Make sure you're definitely in the iTunes folder - don't just expand open and drop it in - you need to be in the folder (so the window title is the folder name). Otherwise it might put the files where you don't want them!

Highlight everything in the Windows iTunes folder (including the XML files - you should see similar files in this folder on both sides.). Easy way to do this is click the top one, hold down shift, and click the bottom one. All will highlight.

Then drag the files from the USB disk to the Mac. It'll ask you to overwrite files on the Mac side - just say yes. May take a while to copy but when it's done, re-open iTunes and it should work fine.

[Stumo]

I'm doing similar - if it's in iTunes on both computers, it'll do it for you.

iTunes 9: At Home With Home Sharing

[Ding Dang Doo]

Bantam, you are an absolute star! Worked a treat... just dragged and dropped... everything fell into place with no fuss or changes required.

Easy peasy when you know how!

I'd spent a while reading 'forums' about the right and wrong way of doing things... it all seemed very complicated and prone to files getting lost or things pointing the wrong way.

So far so good with the old drag and drop... just making sure you drop the folders in the right place and you are away!

Good stuff.

ATB

Pete