Need to periodically consolidate music to external drive
I'm guessing this issue has come up, but I'm not sure how to search for it, so I'll just ask it here.
I have a Mac Book Air. All my music won't fit on it, so I have an external drive. The Library files are on the MBA and the music folder on the MBA is set as the default location for music, but most of my music is on the external drive.
Tunespan is great when I want to make sure all the music from a playlist is on the MBA so I can listen without having the external drive connected. But, as I add more and more music it is filling up the MBA internal SSD so I would like to periodically move that music to the external drive and delete it from the SSD.
It seems that if I just "span" the music from the SSD to the external drive, Tunespan will see those files as belonging on the SSD and only temporarily on the external.
It occured to me that I could change the default location of the music file to the external and then tell iTunes to consolidate the files and that would move them, and then I could change it back to having the default the SSD, but I dont' want to screw things up and I also want to keep all my meta-data intact?
Advice?
The same question
Thanks for getting in touch. But, I'm sorry that I don't quite understand what you mean by "It seems that if I just span the music from the SSD to the external drive, Tunespan will see those files as belonging on the SSD and only temporarily on the external."
What behavior are you seeing that makes spanning seem temporary?
When TuneSpan relocates (spans) files, it is not a temporary process. TuneSpan copies the files and updates the locations in iTunes, and then after verifying that iTunes knows the new location, the original files are trashed. So, iTunes knows the new location, at that point, you could trash TuneSpan and iTunes will still know the "spanned" location.
The only situation that could easily revert the span from within iTunes is if you use iTunes Match and attempt to play a spanned track while the external drive is not available. In that case, iTunes will automatically re-download the file into the default iTunes Media folder, essentially undoing the span. This is out of TuneSpan's control and is daily easy to avoid if you use iTunes Match. Is that what you are seeing, or is it something else?
Thanks for getting in touch. But, I'm sorry that I don't quite understand what you mean by "It seems that if I just span the music from the SSD to the external drive, Tunespan will see those files as belonging on the SSD and only temporarily on the external."
What behavior are you seeing that makes spanning seem temporary?
When TuneSpan relocates (spans) files, it is not a temporary process. TuneSpan copies the files and updates the locations in iTunes, and then after verifying that iTunes knows the new location, the original files are trashed. So, iTunes knows the new location, at that point, you could trash TuneSpan and iTunes will still know the "spanned" location.
The only situation that could easily revert the span from within iTunes is if you use iTunes Match and attempt to play a spanned track while the external drive is not available. In that case, iTunes will automatically re-download the file into the default iTunes Media folder, essentially undoing the span. This is out of TuneSpan's control and is daily easy to avoid if you use iTunes Match. Is that what you are seeing, or is it something else?
Thanks for the prompt reply. So right now if I span some music from the external drive to the Spanned Music folder and then listen to it, I will "Restore" it and it will go back to the external drive, where it was before. I guess I was thinking that once you've "spanned" music to a Spanned Music folder the proper way to move it back is to restore.
I guess I thought that once it was in the Spanned Music folder on the external drive that I could not Span it to the Spanned Music on the SSD, that once "spanned" it had to be "restored".
Thanks for the prompt reply. So right now if I span some music from the external drive to the Spanned Music folder and then listen to it, I will "Restore" it and it will go back to the external drive, where it was before. I guess I was thinking that once you've "spanned" music to a Spanned Music folder the proper way to move it back is to restore.
I guess I thought that once it was in the Spanned Music folder on the external drive that I could not Span it to the Spanned Music on the SSD, that once "spanned" it had to be "restored".
So I'm still a bit confused about your setup.
You're spanning to a "Spanned Music" folder on your internal SSD as well as a separate "Spanned Music" folder on your external drive?
But, I'm still not quite sure about this issue. Are you saying that locations are getting reset in iTunes without using TuneSpan, or you're just moving files back and forth with TuneSpan and it's not totally intuitive?
Or is it just the language of "spanned" and "restored" that was confusing? Once a file is "spanned" there is definitely no need or requirement to "restore" it at any time unless you want it back in the original location.
So I'm still a bit confused about your setup.
You're spanning to a "Spanned Music" folder on your internal SSD as well as a separate "Spanned Music" folder on your external drive?
But, I'm still not quite sure about this issue. Are you saying that locations are getting reset in iTunes without using TuneSpan, or you're just moving files back and forth with TuneSpan and it's not totally intuitive?
Or is it just the language of "spanned" and "restored" that was confusing? Once a file is "spanned" there is definitely no need or requirement to "restore" it at any time unless you want it back in the original location.
I think your last paragraph deals with it. I was just confused and thought that if you "spanned" a file then you would need to "restore" it to the original location later.
Everything has been working fine, but, as I mentioned in the original post, all new music goes into the "Music" folder in my User folder which I do so that I don't need to have the external attached all the time. But, the SSD is filling up (I rip everything in Apple Lossless and I'm doing my entire CD library). So, I want to move the music from the SSD over to the External.
So, I just need to pick all the music that is in the Music folder on the SSD that I want to move and have TuneSpan move it to the external, and that's it. Right?
I think your last paragraph deals with it. I was just confused and thought that if you "spanned" a file then you would need to "restore" it to the original location later.
Everything has been working fine, but, as I mentioned in the original post, all new music goes into the "Music" folder in my User folder which I do so that I don't need to have the external attached all the time. But, the SSD is filling up (I rip everything in Apple Lossless and I'm doing my entire CD library). So, I want to move the music from the SSD over to the External.
So, I just need to pick all the music that is in the Music folder on the SSD that I want to move and have TuneSpan move it to the external, and that's it. Right?
So, I just need to pick all the music that is in the Music folder on the SSD that I want to move and have TuneSpan move it to the external, and that's it. Right?
Yep. You got it :-)
So, I just need to pick all the music that is in the Music folder on the SSD that I want to move and have TuneSpan move it to the external, and that's it. Right?
Yep. You got it :-)
Thanks. I was overanalyzing it I think.
Great product.
Thanks. I was overanalyzing it I think.
Great product.
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