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Moving iTunes from Vista to OS X? How to?

C

Compman55

Golden Member
I was able to consolidate the library and copy the entire itunes folder from vista to windows 7 and every setting copied over. My itunes looks and feels the same.

However on OS X, only my music did, my "purchased" does not appear, play counts, stats, etc.....

So how do I copy it from vista to OS X and have it look identical?
 
Here is what I do on OS X. The steps should be similar.

Copy the entirety of the iTunes folder off to a backup drive.
(do whatever I do now that leads me to a blank iTunes)
Update iTunes.
Launch iTunes, make sure everything loads, make sure that it is set to use whatever folder I want (~/home/music/itunes) as its folder.
Quit iTunes.
Copy the previous iTunes folder back, overwriting whatever it has put in place.

That restores everything for me, playcounts, playlists, everything.
 
I think the Library XML file that iTunes (Windows) uses is different than the one that iTunes (OS X) uses.

Maybe try to export the Library in the File menu under Windows and then import in OS X?
 
Kmax82 said:
I think the Library XML file that iTunes (Windows) uses is different than the one that iTunes (OS X) uses.

Maybe try to export the Library in the File menu under Windows and then import in OS X?
Click to expand...

I think you may be right. I tried as listed above just the copy method and although the music plays, it is in the wrong order, and my "purchased" is not there.
 
I've always moved my music by copying the files over to the folder I want it in. Then doing a import on the to level folder and let itunes build a new library file.
 
sourceninja said:
I've always moved my music by copying the files over to the folder I want it in. Then doing a import on the to level folder and let itunes build a new library file.
Click to expand...

Sound interesting, how would I do this on the apple. Basically I should just delete and start over. How do I know what to delete and start over?
 
just delete the itunes folder in your directory (I think it's /Users/username/music/iTunes

(make sure you have another copy of all your music somewhere)

Then if you don't mind itunes organizing your music and copying it. just go file->import and choose the folder with your music in it. If you want to organize it yourself, then put it where you want it, go into itunes prefs and tell it not to organize your music then import it.
 
I did this from square one and yes all my music is fine, its just out of order and does not display under "purchased" menu. It also does not have stats.

Sounds dumb, but I kinda memorized the order of my purchased songs.
 
I've never been able to get the purchased playlist to be portable and for that reason alone, I'd worry about ever relying on it. I've had the Windows shut down process corrupt my .itl file before, and when iTunes recreates the library from its XML backup, that playlist is lost.
 
I dont understand why it worked perfect when I swapped from vista to 7 on my mini, but now I can't under OS X. Confused.
 
As someone else pointed out, it might have to do with the iTunes library file itself being different somehow.

I am going to go ahead and assume that you have googled for this information. You cannot possibly be the first person to want to do this.
 
If you look at the .XML file on OS X, the path is this.

file://localhost/Users/USERNAME/Music/0/2%20Pac/All%20Eyez%20On%20Me/2Pac%20-%20All%20Eyez%20On%20Me%20-%20CD1%20-%2002%20-%20All%20Bout%20U.mp3

I'm sure this looks different on Windows, probably C:\PATH_TO_iTUNES_MUSIC.MP3
 
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If that is the case, then one could easily edit all of them to the correct data.

So, if on Windows it is
C: \Users\Bob\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\...

and on OS X it is
file://localhost/Users/Bob/Music/iTunes Media

Then you can open the XML file in a text editor, and tell it to find "C: \Users\Bob\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Music" and replace it with file://localhost/Users/Bob/Music

I would highly recommend backing up the original XML file.

(I am not currently in a position to test this theory, my PowerBook, for obvious reasons, does not have Windows on it.

Conversely, do this

Copy across your library file – Now find the ‘iTunes Library.itl’ file on your Windows PC (it should be in the ‘My Documents – My Music – iTunes’ folder). Copy this across to your Mac’s ‘iTunes’ folder (note: this is not the ‘iTunes Music’ folder but is usually one folder back from that – you have the correct folder if it has the ‘iTunes Library’ and ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’ files in it). Now, delete the ‘iTunes Library’ file on your Mac, and then rename your newly copied across ‘iTunes Library.itl’ file to ‘iTunes Library’ (i.e. remove the .itl from the end). This has given your Mac’s iTunes a new library file pre-populated with all the extras you wanted to keep from your old library.
 
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TheStu said:
If that is the case, then one could easily edit all of them to the correct data.

So, if on Windows it is
C: \Users\Bob\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\...

and on OS X it is
file://localhost/Users/Bob/Music/iTunes Media

Then you can open the XML file in a text editor, and tell it to find "C: \Users\Bob\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Music" and replace it with file://localhost/Users/Bob/Music

I would highly recommend backing up the original XML file.

(I am not currently in a position to test this theory, my PowerBook, for obvious reasons, does not have Windows on it.

Conversely, do this

Copy across your library file – Now find the ‘iTunes Library.itl’ file on your Windows PC (it should be in the ‘My Documents – My Music – iTunes’ folder). Copy this across to your Mac’s ‘iTunes’ folder (note: this is not the ‘iTunes Music’ folder but is usually one folder back from that – you have the correct folder if it has the ‘iTunes Library’ and ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’ files in it). Now, delete the ‘iTunes Library’ file on your Mac, and then rename your newly copied across ‘iTunes Library.itl’ file to ‘iTunes Library’ (i.e. remove the .itl from the end). This has given your Mac’s iTunes a new library file pre-populated with all the extras you wanted to keep from your old library.
Click to expand...

When I had some playlists I wanted to use on my netbook that I had built on my netbook when DJing a party, I did something similar. All the mp3s were on my external hdd that was connected via USB.

I exported the iTunes playlists, opened them up, changed the paths, imported to iTunes the OS X netbook and that was that. I'm pretty sure doing this kept the # of times it was played and such, but not entirely positive.
 
I think I am just going to give up and not worry anymore. Hogwash that apple can;t make an import/export feature that makes it a 100% crossover. I mean real people have PC's and buy apple's at some point.
 
Compman55 said:
I think I am just going to give up and not worry anymore. Hogwash that apple can;t make an import/export feature that makes it a 100% crossover. I mean real people have PC's and buy apple's at some point.
Click to expand...

Did you try that second thing that I posted? About renaming the iTunes Library file?
 
Some of the stuff coming up on google are incomplete as in unanswered. Apples own support forums are pretty bad as well, I asked over there and got very few responses.
 
Compman55 said:
Yes, but there was already no extension on it. Itunes must have dropped the extension.
Click to expand...

There is an "itunes Library.itl" (i think for windows) and "itunes library" for mac and "itunes music library.xml" for both. I recently switched my 300gb plus itunes collection from w7 to os x. You've already consolidated and checked itunes to keep your stuff organized now take a good text editor, I used TextWrangler, and find and replace all the directory listings in the xml (I did the .itl file also). Now apple+click itunes and choose the itl. itunes took 12+ hours to rebuild the library but EVERYTHING was in tact.
 
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