Spanning from external HD to a new Mac
Hi Pico,
TuneSpan looks great. Before I purchase from the App Store, I wanted to run something past you please.
I have moved my entire iTunes library to an external HD and have purchased a new Mac. The new Mac does not have enough space on it for the entire library, so TuneSpan appears to be the ideal solution as I would like to be able to have some albums on my Mac locally, but also have the option to connect my external HD for the rest of my content.
My question is whether I can open iTunes on the Mac and point it to the library on the external HD, and then span a few albums across to my Mac. I'd then like to be able to open iTunes on my Mac, without having the external HD connected, and play the albums that are stored locally, whilst still being able to browse my library (albeit without the ability to play tracks that are stored on the external HD).
Is it possible to span this way around? I'm worried that if the files have to exist on the Mac first, and then get spanned to the external HD, that I won't have enough space on my Mac for the library before it gets spanned.
Hope that makes sense!
Thank you,
Sam
The same question
I had a similar issue with my new laptop. I could not figure out how to simply point to the files on my external hard drive via Tunespan. I have gathered that it's a procedural thing, where the file has to be seen by iTunes, then Tunespan copies the file and reconfigures iTunes to look at the new location. Tunespan does leave the original in your local iTunes folder which I assumed you can simply delete once it is spanned to your external hard drive.
I too have too much media to store locally on the laptop in order to then span it back to the hard drive where it already exists. However my work around was to copy chunks of the media as space allowed. Span it. Then delete it. Then copy more media span it, then delete it. Luckily I only had to do two bulk transfers, but they took 3 hours each.
It would be nice if Tunespan can simply repoint iTunes to the new location rather than doing all this transferring. And it might. I just was not able to figure it out.
I had a similar issue with my new laptop. I could not figure out how to simply point to the files on my external hard drive via Tunespan. I have gathered that it's a procedural thing, where the file has to be seen by iTunes, then Tunespan copies the file and reconfigures iTunes to look at the new location. Tunespan does leave the original in your local iTunes folder which I assumed you can simply delete once it is spanned to your external hard drive.
I too have too much media to store locally on the laptop in order to then span it back to the hard drive where it already exists. However my work around was to copy chunks of the media as space allowed. Span it. Then delete it. Then copy more media span it, then delete it. Luckily I only had to do two bulk transfers, but they took 3 hours each.
It would be nice if Tunespan can simply repoint iTunes to the new location rather than doing all this transferring. And it might. I just was not able to figure it out.
Hi Richard,
Thank you very much for your comment. That makes total sense and I will definitely adopt your work around. Having looked around at some similar topics it appears that there isn't any other way around it.
Really appreciate you taking the time to comment - you have definitely helped me out there.
Thank you.
Sam
Hi Richard,
Thank you very much for your comment. That makes total sense and I will definitely adopt your work around. Having looked around at some similar topics it appears that there isn't any other way around it.
Really appreciate you taking the time to comment - you have definitely helped me out there.
Thank you.
Sam
Thanks for getting in touch Sam, and thanks so much for replying Richard :-)
Sorry I didn't get back sooner, things have been busy.
This is actually an area that TuneSpan does not cover because it can be done quite easily though iTunes itself. So simplicity, TuneSpan only works with files that are already in your iTunes Library. If you are trying to add media to your iTunes Library (whether it's internal or external), I've left that work up to iTunes.
If your media is already on an external and you want it added to your iTunes Library (and therefore available to span in TuneSpan) without having it copied back to your internal drive, you simply need to turn off a checkbox in the Advanced iTunes Preference.
In the Advanced section of the iTunes Preferences, you'll see a "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" checkbox. You'll want to UNCHECK that and then click OK to save the setting in iTunes.
Now, when you import media into iTunes (ie. dragging it from Finder into the iTunes window), iTunes will add the tracks to library as it normally would, but it will reference the files from exactly where they are, the files themselves will be untouched.
After your importing it done, you'll probably want to turn that "Copy files..." checkbox back on for normal usage.
But, I've also got a pro-tip for you ;-) If you hold to OPTION key while dragging stuff into iTunes to import it, that "Copy files…" setting will be INVERTED for that specific import. So, if the checkbox is on, holding Option will turn it off and vise versa.
So, that takes care of things in the iTunes side of things. Once the files are imported, they will show up in TuneSpan as well. But, there's one little catch...
In TuneSpan, these tracks will not be considered "spanned" even though they are on an external drive. This is because that the first place that TuneSpan is seeing them from, therefore thats their original location. But, that may not be ideal if you want to see them as spanned in TuneSpan and to be able to use Restore Mode to move them back to your iTunes Media folder.
Now, that's not hard to fix, but it's a bit hidden in TuneSpan. TuneSpan has a "Force Span" feature that will mark any selection of tracks as spanned in TuneSpan without changing anything in iTunes and without touching the files, it just affects TuneSpans own database.
To "Force Span" your external tracks, the easiest way is to first go to the "All" media type (in the center filter bar just below the toolbar in TuneSpan), and then select your external drive in the Media Locations list on the right side of the TuneSpan window. Now, all your external tracks are listed in the central track list. You'll need to highlight all of them, so click any one and then use Command+A to select all. With the whole track list highlighted, right click the selection and you'll see a "Force Span or Restore" submenu in the context menu that will appear. Go into that submenu and select "Force Span…". You'll confirm the action and then TuneSpan will reload, it should be pretty quick but TuneSpan may appear frozen for a moment if your Force Spanning a lot of tracks. If TuneSpan appears frozen, don't worry, it's working just fine, just give it a bit and TuneSpan will reload. No results are displayed or anything, but you should see your external tracks as marked as spanned (with the blue dots in the track list) and you'll be all set!
Now that may sound like a lot, but it'll actually go quite quickly and will be much much faster and easier than copying files back and forth from your external to internal to external.
Hope that all helps, sorry again about my delayed response. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any further questions or run into any issues.
Thanks for getting in touch Sam, and thanks so much for replying Richard :-)
Sorry I didn't get back sooner, things have been busy.
This is actually an area that TuneSpan does not cover because it can be done quite easily though iTunes itself. So simplicity, TuneSpan only works with files that are already in your iTunes Library. If you are trying to add media to your iTunes Library (whether it's internal or external), I've left that work up to iTunes.
If your media is already on an external and you want it added to your iTunes Library (and therefore available to span in TuneSpan) without having it copied back to your internal drive, you simply need to turn off a checkbox in the Advanced iTunes Preference.
In the Advanced section of the iTunes Preferences, you'll see a "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" checkbox. You'll want to UNCHECK that and then click OK to save the setting in iTunes.
Now, when you import media into iTunes (ie. dragging it from Finder into the iTunes window), iTunes will add the tracks to library as it normally would, but it will reference the files from exactly where they are, the files themselves will be untouched.
After your importing it done, you'll probably want to turn that "Copy files..." checkbox back on for normal usage.
But, I've also got a pro-tip for you ;-) If you hold to OPTION key while dragging stuff into iTunes to import it, that "Copy files…" setting will be INVERTED for that specific import. So, if the checkbox is on, holding Option will turn it off and vise versa.
So, that takes care of things in the iTunes side of things. Once the files are imported, they will show up in TuneSpan as well. But, there's one little catch...
In TuneSpan, these tracks will not be considered "spanned" even though they are on an external drive. This is because that the first place that TuneSpan is seeing them from, therefore thats their original location. But, that may not be ideal if you want to see them as spanned in TuneSpan and to be able to use Restore Mode to move them back to your iTunes Media folder.
Now, that's not hard to fix, but it's a bit hidden in TuneSpan. TuneSpan has a "Force Span" feature that will mark any selection of tracks as spanned in TuneSpan without changing anything in iTunes and without touching the files, it just affects TuneSpans own database.
To "Force Span" your external tracks, the easiest way is to first go to the "All" media type (in the center filter bar just below the toolbar in TuneSpan), and then select your external drive in the Media Locations list on the right side of the TuneSpan window. Now, all your external tracks are listed in the central track list. You'll need to highlight all of them, so click any one and then use Command+A to select all. With the whole track list highlighted, right click the selection and you'll see a "Force Span or Restore" submenu in the context menu that will appear. Go into that submenu and select "Force Span…". You'll confirm the action and then TuneSpan will reload, it should be pretty quick but TuneSpan may appear frozen for a moment if your Force Spanning a lot of tracks. If TuneSpan appears frozen, don't worry, it's working just fine, just give it a bit and TuneSpan will reload. No results are displayed or anything, but you should see your external tracks as marked as spanned (with the blue dots in the track list) and you'll be all set!
Now that may sound like a lot, but it'll actually go quite quickly and will be much much faster and easier than copying files back and forth from your external to internal to external.
Hope that all helps, sorry again about my delayed response. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any further questions or run into any issues.
As a clarification all my media is already in my iTunes library which was on the external hard drive.
I bought a new laptop and just copied over my library from the external hard drive, leaving only the movies, so my music would be portable with the laptop. But was unable to copy over all of the movie files due to space restrictions.
I didn't want to re add the movies to the new internal library and face duplicates.
As a clarification all my media is already in my iTunes library which was on the external hard drive.
I bought a new laptop and just copied over my library from the external hard drive, leaving only the movies, so my music would be portable with the laptop. But was unable to copy over all of the movie files due to space restrictions.
I didn't want to re add the movies to the new internal library and face duplicates.
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