Sometimes simply learning how to do things reveals just how easy it is, even if the task is not initially obvious. This might be a helpful tip for users who rely on iTunes to manage a local music library collection.Ī similar difficulty for some iTunes users is when selecting an iPhone or iPad in iTunes, which can be counterintuitive or confusing for some people. Basically they were unable to find their iTunes Music because they were looking in the wrong part of the app, so don’t go for that menu item to find a library – the dropdown menu chooses the type of content seen (Music, Movies, etc) rather than the library itself: In fact the iTunes Music Library was still there, but because iTunes opened directly to the Store and they kept using the pulldown menu to try and access Music, they stayed stuck in the iTunes Store and never found their actual music library within iTunes.
This may sound obvious to some Mac and Windows PC users, but after visiting with someone recently I learned they were convinced their iTunes Music Library had been deleted or vanished. This will switch iTunes to the iTunes Library view rather than the iTunes Store.Look near the top of the iTunes window and click on the ‘Library’ button (sometimes this is labeled as “My Music”).How to Access iTunes Music Library in iTunes on a Computer
This is not aiming to access iTunes music files which is discussed here if that’s what your objective is.
You don't need to do anything like moving your library or creating two libraries or anything bizarre like that.Note this tip is for accessing and seeing the full iTunes library within iTunes itself. This only applies to files that are copied to your library, so the stuff on your external disk you'll have to organise yourself, but the local things you can let iTunes do it. iTunes library stays in ~/Music (or wherever you have it), but creates transparent references to files on external disk.ĮDIT: Just to avoid confusion, you CAN leave "keep iTunes media folder organised". TL DR: uncheck "Copy files to media folder when adding to library" checked in iTunes advanced preferences. I keep movies on an external disk and my music on my macbook drive. In fact, you can use a hybrid approach: Check the box before importing some music and leave it unchecked for others - you can keep your most frequently played songs on your computer and leave the rest on your disk, for example. Other than that, it should work flawlessly. You just can't play the music when the drive isn't plugged in (obviously), as iTunes will complain about not being able to locate the file. It will continue to work even after you rename the files (but not consistently I've found).Īs long as the disk remains the same, it will work. What happens is that iTunes will somehow magically create references to those files on the external disk, without copying anything. ITunes -> Preferences -> Advanced -> "Copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library" (Disclaimer: this is anecdotal advice, but it has obviously been proven to work) I have no idea why people are overcomplicating this issue, and in fact upvoting misinformed responses that are only somewhat-satisfactory workarounds.