Category: Geeks r Us
I've been trying to figure out how to do this for quite some time. Namely after my laptop crashed in June of 2010 and I lost all my music. Tis meant, unfortunately, that whenI synced my IPod Touch with the computer after getting it back from the Geek Squad I lost all the music on that as well. Then it required several days to rip all the CD's I'd had on my computer backinto it, not to mention the time redownloading the eighty-six books from Audible that my IPod currently contains. So a few weeks ago I bought a Toshiba external hard drive (the same brand as my computer), and so now I've been trying to figure out how to actually go about backing up all that stuff in the event either of another crash or me getting a new computer. It'd be nice just to transfer the stuff from the hard drive back to the computer. Any help would be appreciated.
Okay. I'll explain how to back up from iTunes back to the computer in my next post, but I'd like to start here.
First when putting music from other sources in to iTunes, put it there from your music folder. If you back the computer up to an external drive everything is not saved in iTunes, but borrowed. That goes for any service that doesn't backup to a cloud or the companies storage.
Now things purchased from iTunes should be placed in your music folder. That way you can put them anyplace you want, and if the computer crashes you can restore them from the cloud or your external drive.
I'll say in the next post, because I'd like to write it out in stepshow to let iTunes borrow music, and how to send music purchased from iTunes to your storage places.
This method works, but the way I do it is my opinion. Also remember iTunes has a cloud service called iCloud. You can set it to backup to this service, but storage cost. That way you can access it from any computer or iDevice source.
Backing up iTunes.
You can escort the library to a file. In iTunes press the alt key. Arrow down to library. Right arrow than go down to escort.
Moving one item? Go the item you want to copy, example a track. Press the applications key, or with Jaws if your keyboard doesn’t have this shift F10. Arrow up to copy hit enters. Go to the music folder or place you want it and control V paste it there. You now have copied the item. Soon as you hit inter on copy, the item is on your clipboard.
You can set preferences Control +Comma and shift Tab over to advanced tab. Tab down and check the box that says copy files to iTunes media folder. That folder is like any other and can be copied and put anyplace you wish.
Remember that Alt H takes you to the help section and you can learn keyboard short cuts, or read the tutorial anytime to learn how to do things.
This method is mine and there might be others, but this is what I do.
Hmmm. All I know for sure is I'd like to avoid having to rerip all my CD's and things if either scenario occurs.
The way I've always done this is by going to the user/music folder and backing up the entire iTunes folder, and then keeping this in dropbox, or an external drive. Then if you ever need to reload all your music, apps, movies ETC, you can install itunes on the system and then replace the folder with the backed up folder.
SO, I would go to my C drive, and then to users, and then to your user name, and then to my music in there you should see the itunes folder, you can copy this entire folder somewhere. Thusly, if you ever crash you could reinstall iTunes and then navigate back to this location and paste it replacing the iTunes folder that is created when iTunes was installed. I've done this and been quite successful with moving libraries between operating systems and my pc and mac.
that sounds like a vary helpful tip. i will keep this in mind.
That's pretty much what I figure I'll do.