iTunes Consuming Space on Internal SSD?

[Rofflesaur]

I switched from Windows to Mac. Had to wipe the external thunderbolt drive to switch from NTFS to HFS+. After I opened iTunes for the first time, I configured all the preferences to my liking, and pointed the iTunes Media folder to my external 4TB drive. I'm now importing all my music again. 108 albums in I decided to look at the Storage tab in "About My Mac." It's showing that iTunes is consuming space on the external drive AND the internal SSD. I double checked and verified that the files are indeed on the external. The iTunes Media folder on the SSD is empty. What's going on here?

 

[Alrescha]

If you use the Advanced tab to tell iTunes where to put your media, then that is where the media will go. But iTunes will fetch missing cover art, keep its own database of metadata, and so on. Those files live in the iTunes Library in the Music directory.

If you want to use the external drive as much as possible, it is best to create a new library there. You can do this by holding down the Option key when you start iTunes - it will prompt you for a location.

If you do that, you can drag all your just-imported media to the new Automatically Add to iTunes folder and iTunes will sort it out.

A.

 

[Rofflesaur]

If you use the Advanced tab to tell iTunes where to put your media, then that is where the media will go. But iTunes will fetch missing cover art, keep its own database of metadata, and so on. Those files live in the iTunes Library in the Music directory.

If you want to use the external drive as much as possible, it is best to create a new library there. You can do this by holding down the Option key when you start iTunes - it will prompt you for a location.

If you do that, you can drag all your just-imported media to the new Automatically Add to iTunes folder and iTunes will sort it out.

A.

I'm okay with storing the cover data and metadata and everything on the SSD for quicker load times. The problem is, macOS is showing the SAME amount of data being used on both drives. On my old Windows PC, the misc iTunes files used less than 1GB. It's showing 21.1GB used by iTunes on the SSD, which happens to be exactly the size of the iTunes Media folder on the external. I'm about to start moving my Lightroom photos back onto this drive. I'm wondering if the same thing will happen...

 

[Alrescha]

I think you need to define what you meant by "importing". If you are pointing iTunes at files using Add to Library, it is probably copying them to the external drive (as opposed to moving them).

A.

 

[Rofflesaur]

I think you need to define what you meant by "importing". If you are pointing iTunes at files using Add to Library, it is probably copying them to the external drive (as opposed to moving them).

A.

Haha. I'm literally putting the discs into a SuperDrive and importing them through the iTunes interface... one at a time. I only had a 1TB drive to hold the contents of the 4TB drive while I reformatted it. It didn't have enough space for everything, and the music was less important than the photos and videos.

 

[Alrescha]

I think that Storage display is too clever for its own good in trying to track iTunes usage. I also keep my media on an external drive, and Storage (which I never look at) says my internal drive is 100% full of iTunes.

A.