Help Meeee!(Think The Fly) iTunes Migration Specifically

BigD-Bluez

Good news/bad news I guess. Good I have a new iMac. Bad - the transfer doesn't seem to be going too smoothly regarding iTunes especially and I'm not finding the Apple support page too helpful (or maybe it's just too late). I'm going to sleep on it but does anyone know in a nutshell if 1. I'm going to be able to transfer my playlists, and 2. Is every track going to wind up with today's date as the date added since that's when it came to this machine? That is going to majorly fuck with how I have kept track of my digital music for the last 5 years on the old Mac. Appreciate any words of wisdom. Thanks.

Doofy

I know nothing about Macs, and Katrina will be along shortly with the correct answer, but the key is your ".itl" file in iTunes. That's where all the data is, including play counts, add dates, etc. At least on a PC, transfer the .itl file, point it to the location where your songs are, and all should be as it was. I should add that even on a PC, I transfer files manually, rather than letting any sort of auto-transfer program do the job.

elwoodicious

Are you coming from another Mac? I typically prep a new machine by using my time machine backups but barring that you should be able to wholesale copy your iTunes directory over to the new machine and be back in business.

BigD-Bluez

Coming from a 2006 vintage Intel Mac running Tiger. I don't have the proper adapter for Firewire between the two - hopefully will get that today in the city. Thus far only have a migration from my bootable backup hard drive and it's all locked up in permissions that need to be changed. No Time Machine. My eyes burn.

Katrina

I THOUGHT I hit post last night, but apparently not...

OK, you still have the old Mac? elwoodicious is correct, you just need to copy over your entire itunes directory. It will include the database file with your all playlists, play count, Date Added, rating, and other metadata. The default setup for Mac itunes is it being stored here:
/Users/username/Music/iTunes/
The database file is called iTunes Library, no file extension or anything. (The ITL file extension only shows up on Windows PCs.) The XML file is another database, but it will lose your Date Added metadata if you rebuild your library from it.

Do you have a home wireless network? If so, you could use that for the transfer, instead of getting some firewire adapter. Does the old Mac have a USB port, or just the firewire?

Here is a really long-winded iLounge article, but it does go into detail that has helped lots of folks understand the difference between itunes library content vs itunes library database.

Katrina

THe permissions problems probably need to get sorted, first, though. Not sure what issues you're having there.

BigD-Bluez

Thank you - having the necessary 400-800 Firewire cable (had to get at the Apple store) was the first hurdle (could only communicate with the backup HD bootable copy by 800 over the weekend - got the data but everything was locked up and had to change permissions manually - aargh). Copying the iTunes Library file brought the playlists and all. And thank the Lord, and Katrina, the Date Added is intact.

I guess the only drag with this system, if I'm correct, is that the material that over the years I've banished to the hard drive for lack of space in the iTunes folder (can you say free at Amie, for instance) will all come in with the current date - once it's deleted from iTunes it's doomed to wander like a masterless ronin until brought back, yes? I want to bring it all onto this new computer - way more room - because I have a new hard drive to back this baby up to after all is said and done. Is there a download date buried in the data somewhere? At any rate I am happy this morning, thank you again.

Katrina

Woo hoo! That's good news.
Let's back up and tell me about the banished material. If it's in iTunes, you should still be able to connect whatever drive it was on, and have it show up with its original Date Added.

With a standard itunes install, that /Users/username/Music/iTunes/ would normally get you everything. Sounds like you modified your setup, though, and had part of your content on an external hard drive? And other content on the internal Tiger Mac? And everything is still listed in itunes? But the exHD tracks are giving a "cannot find" message when you try to play them in iTunes?

If I am on the right track, let me know. It could be as simple as closing iTunes, connecting the exHD to your new Mac, giving it the EXACT same name as it had on the Tiger Mac, and then re-opening iTunes.

edit - also, I don't get what is happening with your bootable drive. Are you still trying to boot into Tiger on the new iMac for some reason, instead of using Leopard?
edit 2 - to hopefully make my questions more clear

BigD-Bluez

Well, I already manually added all the music folders from the transferred HD library to the new iTunes so if I had to re-do I don't know if I could hack it. If fortune had favored the ill prepared mind I would have known I needed that 400 to 800 cable from the get-go and added the tracks that had been banished from the hard drive after I had done a migration of the desktop library to the new iMac. The old desktop was continually topped out at about 125GB of iTunes for about 2 years because the entire computer was only 160GB, so as I neared the limit I would delete files - to Trash and goodbye - that had been backed up to the HD and I didn't feel a great need for (Amie, countless samplers, freebies, and considerable real music too). They always played fine but they would have to be re-added to iTunes, which was not a problem when using the HD in bootable fashion - the iTunes app would show up looking like the latest desktop iteration, the banished tracks were in folders within the iTunes Music folder.
I'll hook it up again and see if I can retrieve the dates at some point when my eyes unglaze. I'm just happy to have all the playlists like Amazon All, eMusic, eMusic 1,2,3,etc. intact and ordered by Date Added, not to mention my painstakingly chronologically ordered playlists for bands I have a ton of digital DLs of. I feel like I'm rambling.....

Katrina

They always played fine but they would have to be re-added to iTunes, which was not a problem when using the HD in bootable fashion - the iTunes app would show up looking like the latest desktop iteration, the banished tracks were in folders within the iTunes Music folder.
This is the part I don't understand. Did the iTunes app show them with the original Date Added?

If so, and you can still re-create this, you should be able to get your new iMac to do it.

BigD-Bluez

Here's what I think the deal is - over the years as I would delete items that had been saved to the hard drive from the desktop iTunes, when I booted up the hard drive separately the iTunes would always look like the last version from the desktop in terms of it's listed quantity - always around that magic 120-125 GB where I was running out of desktop hard drive space - which reflected the items in the current desktop iTunes. All the rest (the previously banished to hard drive) was still there as folders within the hard drive iTunes Music folder as displayed in Finder - info would reflect the GB weight of that folder(the 125 or so plus whatever else), even though the opened iTunes would display around 125GB. So it was like they were there, but not displayed - when I wanted something from the hard drive, like the holiday collections, I would drag them back into the desktop iTunes, or if I played them using the booted HD they would come up listed on that iTunes at that time. I don't recall what Date Added they displayed - maybe I can find a remnant that will answer that - but I believe it was as if they were just Added that day, as happened to the 100+ GB transferred in to the new desktop from the hard drive. I tried a couple of iTunes Library switcheroos last night to see if I could redress the situation but it didn't fix it - I do now have about 75 GB of duplicates in the new desktop for my troubles, which oddly are reflected in the displayed size of the open iTunes but not in the amount of available space for the desktop (I'm guessing because there is only one actual copy of those songs in the computer. So I'm giving it up and settling for how it is - I have the most important things, and I'll be deleting the 6/7/11 duplicates for a while. At least I've got the Magic Mouse to do it with - love that sucker. Thanks again, K.

BigD-Bluez

Final chapter -

And everything is still listed in itunes? But the exHD tracks are giving a "cannot find" message when you try to play them in iTunes?

I actually found I had the obverse, which is why the iTunes when opened thought it contained more GB weight than the actual GB content of the iTunes Music folder. I finally figured this out Friday night when I first encountered a "cannot find" and then there were oh so many of them - it was because the individual music folders in the iTunes Music folder got transferred in from the HD first, and the old desktop iTunes Library imposed on it. Dumped the entire iTunes content from the new mac, and reinstalled the entire thing from the HD (old desktop is wiped and now at the job, thank the lord for the HD - that's why they are essential). After a couple of hours I had the last ITunes from the desktop with Date Added and all recreated, but all the other re-added content (that had been banished to the HD) still has a current Date Added. I can live with that. The individual folders within the iTunes Music folder have the original creation dates so if there was anything I really wanted to know the info is there.
I suppose that since my backups to the HD would only add new items or replace those which had been changed that is the rub r.e. old Date Added data. Whatever.

BigD-Bluez

Holy Smokes - the Smart Playlist function is a godsend when it comes to re-categorizing a big steaming pile of GB's of MP3s! You can zero in on an album (like 100 Essential....), or even a bunch with the Starts With function( such as Stax...), and Select All, Get Info and magically they're all R&B/Soul instead of the recurring Hip Hop from eMu. It's also great at consolidating the genre column to get rid of the dozens of ridiculous blah/blah blah categories - mostly remnants from Amie I think- that have like 2 songs in them and are just cluttering up the column. Then goodbye playlist when it's all reduced to single Blah. Very cool and useful.