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Can I move my iTunes library to a new Mac?

R

ronobre

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 19, 2005
6
0
Have had an iPod for a few months, working on an older Mac laptop. Just got a new mac, installed the iPod software, plugged it in and thought I would be able to update iTunes on the new Mac with the songs on my iPod. It doesn't seem possible, am I missing something?...or do I have to get a Firewire cable to move my iTunes library to new Mac?

Thanks,

Mike
 
ronobre said:
Have had an iPod for a few months, working on an older Mac laptop. Just got a new mac, installed the iPod software, plugged it in and thought I would be able to update iTunes on the new Mac with the songs on my iPod. It doesn't seem possible, am I missing something?...or do I have to get a Firewire cable to move my iTunes library to new Mac?

Thanks,

Mike
Click to expand...

Apple does not allow us ( the users ) to copy songs off of our ipods with iTunes or even with our Macintosh. Your best bet is to use a program like iPod2mac or an other 3rd party application to move songs off of your iPod.

A link to the program on version Tracker.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21390

Your other choice is to network the two systems together and copy your itunes library over in that way.
 
Apple does not make a way to get songs off of your iPod. They were forced to do this because of the record labels as an attempt to stem sharing.

The best thing to do would be to use the iPod in disk mode and copy they entire iTunes folder onto it and then to the new computer. Next best is there are some free-ware apps that will pull the songs off of your iPod for you. Do a search and you should find them easily.
 
Thanks for all your suggestions

This forum is always very helpful, thanks again for your help.

Mike
 
CanadaRAM said:
Welcome to MR

& for best results on your next post, please use a descriptive thread title.
This was the 953rd post entitled: have a question...
Click to expand...

Indeed, and for your viewing pleasure, I changed the title. :)

(It's tougher to care about vaguely-titled threads, isn't it?)
 
Counterfit said:
I've been wondering. Why was Apple the only company forced to do this?
Click to expand...

i think it has something to do with the fact that they're the only company that makes the media players, the software with which to use them and get music, the computers to use them on, and an operating system that combines both the computer and the media player/software.
 
ronobre said:
Have had an iPod for a few months, working on an older Mac laptop. Just got a new mac, installed the iPod software, plugged it in and thought I would be able to update iTunes on the new Mac with the songs on my iPod. It doesn't seem possible, am I missing something?...or do I have to get a Firewire cable to move my iTunes library to new Mac?
Click to expand...
You can indeed use an iPod to transfer your music or use a Firewire cable (to network the two Macs or use the old one in target mode) and move the files yourself or, even easier, use Migration Assistant to move your iTunes library along with everything else.
 
Counterfit said:
I've been wondering. Why was Apple the only company forced to do this?
Click to expand...

No so my friend. Back in my pc days (side-show bob style shudder)I used to have a Diamond Rio PM300 MP3 player long before apple entered the fray and crushed the competition with the all conquering iPod.

They too had restrictions on downloading music from the device. Music lawyers scared them into restricting the established rights of law abiding citizens (in the UK it was/is legal to make a personal backup of media) so that the device was in effect a write only device.

There was some l33t skillz from "The SnowBlind Alliance" which enabled downloading the files but as the device had a parallel interface and the device had hardware restricted download speed at 1/2 upload speed pulling the 32MB (upgradeable to 96MB via SD card) was painful to say the least.
 
I think the new Macs ship with software that can migrate your old Mac files to the new one without hassles. Did you try to look into that?
 
irock said:
I think the new Macs ship with software that can migrate your old Mac files to the new one without hassles. Did you try to look into that?
Click to expand...
it's called Migration Assistant....
 
You can just copy the Itunes music folder and replace the one on your new mac, that way all playlists etc will be copied over, remember though to de-authorize your old computer if you have an itunes music account!
 
cwedl said:
You can just copy the Itunes music folder and replace the one on your new mac, that way all playlists etc will be copied over, remember though to de-authorize your old computer if you have an itunes music account!
Click to expand...

yea, i was about to say. im looking to get a Mac Mini as just kinda my Media hub with pics and music and such and all i gotta do is copy paste my iTunes folder on a external hdd and then paste it on the Mac Mini or whatever mac correcto?
 
illegalprelude said:
yea, i was about to say. im looking to get a Mac Mini as just kinda my Media hub with pics and music and such and all i gotta do is copy paste my iTunes folder on a external hdd and then paste it on the Mac Mini or whatever mac correcto?
Click to expand...

Cool, it does work, because I've done it in the past loads of time before! everything is kept including subscriptions to podcasts etc, however this would only work if you allow iTunes to sort your music out for you.
 
cwedl said:
Cool, it does work, because I've done it in the past loads of time before! everything is kept including subscriptions to podcasts etc, however this would only work if you allow iTunes to sort your music out for you.
Click to expand...

ahh yea, I see what your saying. Thank god I let it do it. I hated it @ first but I honestly once spent a weekend and just organized my entire iTunes library so one cd wouldnt or genre or whatever wouldnt be in 10 different folders :D
 
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