How to Move all of iTunes Music between two Computers
If you want to move all of your music from in the iTunes library/iPod from one PC to another, the best option is to do the transfer using the iPod. However, the entire process may not be as simple as you might want it to be. Although, you can achieve this by simple following the steps given below.
- Enable disk usage by switching on the manual usage
- For this, you have to first plug in your iPod and open iTunes.
- After this click on the iPod icon on the Devices tab of left hand side panel.
- In the dialog that shows up, click on the Summary tab and check the box next to the Manually manage music and videos options.
- Click on Apply.
- At this stage, also ensure that you have enough disk space on the iPod hard drive, as shown in the bar at the bottom of the main iTunes window that contains the Summary tab of Step 1c.
- Consolidate your music folder in iTunes (to ensure that all of your music in one place before the transfer)
- For this, you have to first go to the Preferences menu of iTunes. [In Windows, navigate to Edit -> Preferences, and in Mac, navigate to iTunes -> Preferences.]
- Note the iTunes Media folder location as you will need this later.
- Now, go to File -> Library -> Organize Library -> Consolidate, or File -> Library -> Consolidate Library, (depending on the version of iTunes you are using), and click on Consolidate.
- This will give a warning message where you have to click OK, and all of your files will be transferred to the iTunes Media folder location of Step 2b.
- Transferring the files to the iPod disk
- Now, all you have to do is go to the directory that contains the iTunes Music folder.
- Go one level up, where you will find that the iTunes Music folder is contained in a folder called iTunes. [This is typically in the default My Music folder of your system.]
- Simply drag this folder to the iPod drive.
- Now plug in your iPod into the second PC and drag this folder into the default Music folder of that system.
That is all there is to it.