So I have a lot of my music saved on an external harddrive. I've added all this music into itunes. I want to free up some space on my external harddrive. So my question is what would happen if I were to delete all that music saved on my external? Would it effect itunes in any way even though I can play all my music in itunes just fine without it asking me to locate the original files? Would appreciate any responses as I'm just looking to free up some space.
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iPod deleting music...will there be any effect?
- Thread starter atthegates
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That all depends. How have you got your iTunes setup? Does it copy all music to the iTunes Music folder when you add music to the library?
Easiest way to work it out, in iTunes, goto Preferences, Advanced, see if 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library' is ticked. Also see what the iTuens Music folder location is set to.
If it's set to your external, then if you delete it from your external you're going to lose the music. If it's not however, and the 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding library' box is ticked, then you should be alright.
If it's not set to the external hard-drive as a location, it would normally be set to something akin to:
Macintosh HD:Users:Your user name:Music:iTunes:iTunes Music:
Hope that's of some help to you and isn't too confusing
Easiest way to work it out, in iTunes, goto Preferences, Advanced, see if 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library' is ticked. Also see what the iTuens Music folder location is set to.
If it's set to your external, then if you delete it from your external you're going to lose the music. If it's not however, and the 'Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding library' box is ticked, then you should be alright.
If it's not set to the external hard-drive as a location, it would normally be set to something akin to:
Macintosh HD:Users:Your user name:Music:iTunes:iTunes Music:
Hope that's of some help to you and isn't too confusing
It depends. When you add music to iTunes, you can set up in iTunes Preferences whether all music will be copied to the iTunes folder or not. If your music wasn't copied from the external drive to the iTunes folder, then iTunes would still now where the music is and just play it.
To be save, you can choose File -> Library -> Consolidate Library in iTunes, that will copy all missing music into the iTunes folder; and if that was successful, you can then delete the files on your external disk.