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This is a good hint. I wasn't aware there was such an Application.

I own quite a number of DVDs and over time ripped them all, resulting in several hundreds of GB's in movies and TV shows. At one point they outgrew the build in hard drive and I moved them all to an external Drobo. This was quite a hassle, I manually moved the movies from the iTunes library to the external drive. Then, I had to click on them in iTunes, which would notice the file missing, upon which I was asked to search for it manually. This works for a small number of files, but not for a big one!
Later, I just decided to delete the iTunes references, move the file and re-add it afterwards (with the iTunes manage library folder option turned off). This works for files were you don't care for metadata, like play count or rating. But, I also have a large music collection, which I heavily rated.

Thanks for the tip. I'm sure to check it out.

This is what I can't find the answer to: I want to keep the library file on my Air, and have the media on an external hard drive, as illustrated. But, I want to have the complete library, files and media on a second external hard drive, so that I can just plug and play on another Mac in a different location, say my cabin in the woods. How do I do this? Is there a shortcut to using TuneSpan for my at-home Air + external hard drive and saving the entire library to the second hard drive - not as a backup but as a library that can be played on another Mac? In other words, as I continue to add to my iTunes library, is there a way for it to be easily added to both?

I've found that Apple's own iTunes Match is great for managing iTunes music on more than one computer-especially one with a smaller SSD. That way, as long as you're connected to the internet, you have your whole music library with you, in a sense.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) they also recently extended the iTunes Match ability to TV show and movies purchased through the iTunes Store.

I'd like to know if this application will allow for the following scenario. I have a macbook pro. I'd like to put my itunes media files on an external that stays on my desk. If I disconect my macbook pro from that hardrive and open itunes.....will itunes know not to include the files on that hardrive in my music list??

dylantallison, on 18 July 2012 - 06:03 AM, said:

iTunes Match is only for music. But you can redownload movies and TV shows purchased from the iTunes Store at no charge now, regardless of whether you've paid for iTunes Match.

Isn't the easiest solution to this problem just to move your entire iTunes library to a large external drive? That's all I did when my internal HD ran out of space. No extra software required.

Just buy a large (2-3TB) external drive, copy your iTunes library to it, point iTunes to the new library location in preferences, done. Oh yeah, don't forget to work that new drive into your backup plan.

Jon Seff, on 18 July 2012 - 06:13 AM, said:

That part confused me; glad that's cleared up! Unfortunately for me, only the DVDs I have that came with Digital Copy work for me. The rest are rips I made from my collection.

zbell, on 18 July 2012 - 06:24 AM, said:

You can also have as many iTunes libraries as you want, open iTunes while holding Option key and point to the one you want to play.

zbell, on 18 July 2012 - 06:24 AM, said:

That's certainly possible. However, let's say your Mac is a laptop. You won't want to lug that external disk around with you. So you can off-load the stuff you don't need on the Mac when you're on the road, and still keep as much content as you can fit. Or in my case, my 750 GB second internal HD isn't big enough. I could certainly use an external disk- it's a Mac mini - but it makes more sense to just move enough stuff to another disk so my music library and some other content is on the main disk.

Wow - I could have used this when I moved my library to another disk manually. Unfortunately iTunes does not let you consolidate just your music library or just your video library, etc. instead one has to have a disk big enough to hold ALL of your content in order to run the consolidate command. Anyway took awhile, but I got my library moved off my laptop disk because I was changing the old 5400 RPM HDD for a OWC 3G SSD. I think I am going to pick up the app in case I need to do this again.

Thanks for the tip...

I am gonna get this software. Currently, I have multiple External drives I use as my iTunes library is over 5Tb of videos. (I work on a ship and don't have access to redownload them when I want to) I have all my movies on one 2Tb drive, half my TVShows on another, and the rest on a 3rd. Now I will finally be able to have them all where I can use them. I have been complaining for years Apple needs an internal mechanism to direct certain content to specific locations. This hopefully will take care of that until Apple figures out that some of us buy ALL our video content from them.

Hey all, I'm the developer of TuneSpan. Thank you so much to Kirk for writing this great article!

Also, if anyone has any questions about TuneSpan and want to get in touch with me personally, please don't hesitate to contact me: http://randomapplications.com/contact

Can't this be accomplished directly from iTunes? You use the check box in the preferences-advanced tab which tells itunes whether or not to add something to the intunes folder when added to the library. If you, like me, want your music and books in your iTunes folder but not your video, when you add music and books to the library, you tell iTunes to add those to the iTunes folder. But, for videos, you uncheck the box and then when you add the vids to the library they will show up, but the actual files will remain in their original location. You can verify this by checking the pathname using "Get Info" in iTunes.