Any way to backup iTunes library?

[DavidLeblond]

So here is my dilemma. I just bought a brand new Macbook Air, upgrading from a 2014 Mac Mini that was sort of a mess... anyway that Mac had a 1 terabyte hard drive on it. The Macbook Air, not so much. But technically I don't NEED to store my photos on my Mac, I have iCloud Photos. And I don't NEED to store my music on my Mac, I have iTunes Match. But I'd LIKE to have a copy of them.

For Photos, I actually found a $5 piece of software that exports photos and puts them wherever you like. I stick them on an external hard drive that is connected to a makeshift NAS. That way a copy is stored off the cloud, but not on my Mac. I haven't found an equivalent for iTunes however.

I thought about rolling my own, but I can't figure out how to get a physical file from an ITLibMediaItem so if someone knows how to do that, that'll work as well!

 

[chrfr]

So here is my dilemma. I just bought a brand new Macbook Air, upgrading from a 2014 Mac Mini that was sort of a mess... anyway that Mac had a 1 terabyte hard drive on it. The Macbook Air, not so much. But technically I don't NEED to store my photos on my Mac, I have iCloud Photos. And I don't NEED to store my music on my Mac, I have iTunes Match. But I'd LIKE to have a copy of them.

For Photos, I actually found a $5 piece of software that exports photos and puts them wherever you like. I stick them on an external hard drive that is connected to a makeshift NAS. That way a copy is stored off the cloud, but not on my Mac. I haven't found an equivalent for iTunes however.

I thought about rolling my own, but I can't figure out how to get a physical file from an ITLibMediaItem so if someone knows how to do that, that'll work as well!

Have you looked at Apple's documentation on this topic?

 

[pmiles]

You could always make a playlist of your music and then burn it to an audio CD.

 

[DavidLeblond]

Have you looked at Apple's documentation on this topic?

I'd like to keep the library where it's at (with the Mac Mini I learned that, while you CAN change the location of Music and Photos, it breaks stuff) but just have it sort of exported to an external drive for backup purposes...

 

[posguy99]

But technically I don't NEED to store my photos on my Mac, I have iCloud Photos.

What are you planning on doing to back up your photos?

 

[chrfr]

I'd like to keep the library where it's at (with the Mac Mini I learned that, while you CAN change the location of Music and Photos, it breaks stuff) but just have it sort of exported to an external drive for backup purposes...

I've run for years with both my Photos Library and Music Library on external disks. Nothing breaks when you do that, as long as you don't start up those apps without the disk attached. If you do that, you'll probably have to reset the external library as your location, but that's it.
You could just manually copy your library to an external disk, or allow Time Machine to back it up. Either way works just fine for backup purposes.

 

[DavidLeblond]

What are you planning on doing to back up your photos?

I'm using a random piece of software I found on the Mac App Store.

 

[DavidLeblond]

I've run for years with both my Photos Library and Music Library on external disks. Nothing breaks when you do that, as long as you don't start up those apps without the disk attached. If you do that, you'll probably have to reset the external library as your location, but that's it.
You could just manually copy your library to an external disk, or allow Time Machine to back it up. Either way works just fine for backup purposes.

Another issue is my external is a networked drive running off of a Raspberry Pi. So, it's great for backing up (I have Time Machine running off of it as well) but it's a bit slow to actually use. That's why I was hoping to just run everything off the cloud, but have something to ferret my stuff away to the external drive for safe keeping.

 

[posguy99]

If you do that, you'll probably have to reset the external library as your location, but that's it.

Just set the local library locations as locked, the software will try to change the library location but won't be able to. It will then allow you to point it to the real library.