iPod Putting just movies and tv shows on an external drive.

[Markleshark]

So I want to put all my Movies and TV Shows on an external drive, but still keep them in iTunes as if they we're all together on my internal drive.

Is there any way I can do this? The problem I have is that I want to keep it organised and still have it copy the files to the separate locations.

 

[gnasher729]

So I want to put all my Movies and TV Shows on an external drive, but still keep them in iTunes as if they we're all together on my internal drive.

Is there any way I can do this? The problem I have is that I want to keep it organised and still have it copy the files to the separate locations.

There is a very simple method that works but is not completely satisfactory: Make two iTunes libraries. One containing only music directly on your Mac, one containing only the movies on your external hard drive. To create another library, start iTunes with the Option (alt) key pressed. You will be shown a dialog where you can either choose a library or create a new one, and you go from there. The problem is that if you watched a movie and then want to listen to music, you have to quit iTunes, start again with option key pressed, choose the other library, and same thing again when you want to watch a movie after listening to music. (You can of course have _a few_ movies on your Mac, for example if you travel, you just don't have the complete selection).

There is a more complex method, but it didn't work completely. What you do: Copy the two folders containing movies and TV shows on your hard drive, rename the two original folders on your Mac (to keep them safe), and then create symbolic links to the external drive. The one thing that didn't work was changing the type of a movie from "Movie" to "TV Show" in iTunes. This is supposed to move the files from the "Movie" folder to the "TV Show" folder, but it doesn't. You rarely need to do it, usually only when you import a TV show from a DVD using Handbrake (for example, if you import 22 episodes of "Heroes", they will come up as 22 movies). If you need instructions how to create symbolic links, post a reply.

 

[Markleshark]

Yeah, I figured creating 2 Libraries was the best way of doing it. Shame you have to quit iTunes, it really should handle that better. If you didn't have to quit iTunes to swap the Libraries over, I'd be doing that.

I think I've decided on moving the entire Library onto a external drive, just hope it doesn't slow me down too much. As my external is only a 5400RPM 2.5" drive at the moment and my NAS machine isn't always on.

Thanks for the reply gnasher729

 

[peeaanuut]

I have found a little bit of manual management on my end was better than 2 libraries. I think its a personal preference but I have had some bad luck with multiple libraries in the past. I keep my TV shows on a separate drive and just use the option-drag method to add them to iTunes. Works great and the appleTV has no problems with it either.

 

[SthrnCmfrtr]

Yeah, I've been bitching to Apple about this for quite a while. Please go to http://www.apple.com/feedback/ and bitch with me