[ditti80]

Situation: Sister is buying an iBook. Currently owns a dell desktop with itunes.
What are the steps she should follow in moving her itunes collection to the pc to mac?
Thanks.

[tybowen]

She can use a program like Senuti to rip her playlists and songs off her iPod directly. Or you can just make data CD/DVD (Depending on size of collection) of her music and then add them to the library on her mac (This should be fairly simple, and iTunes will put them in folders for you if you slick to have it keep your music organized). Make sure you make data CD's not audio CD's the former will keep your music in the same quality and the later requires to conversions which can lower the quality. You could also use a USB flash drive if you have a large enough one/or a small enough collection

[moose_n_squirrel]

It doesn't have to be that difficult. The iTunes folder structure is the same on Windows and Mac. If you network the two machines, or burn a DVD or two, all you have to do is move the entire iTunes music folder to the music folder in the home folder of the other machine. Inside is the folder organization of the music and the iTunes library files, and you want to keep those intact. After it is transferred, make sure the Mac's iTunes is pointed to that folder in Preferences, and if iTunes still doesn't see them, drag the folder on top of the iTunes dock icon. At that point it should all be working. What you do not want to do is re-import all the songs, or you'll lose the playlists.

[gabriel1425]

I just did this recently as well. Moose hit it on the nail. Just take your iTunes folder from your PC move it to the iBook, whatever method you use. Once I had replaced the iTunes Folder on my mac with the PC one, I had to change one thing. I had drop .xml from one of the files. I think it was the the iTunes Library one.
One way to make sure you're changing the right files. Compare with the old iTunes folder on your Mac and make sure everything in your PC one just like it. What happens is that files on the PC need the ending to recognize the file, while on the Mac you don't need them.

[ftaok]

As was said above, moose has it completely right.
I just wanted to add this nugget. If you sister has an iTMS account and is planning on scrapping the PC, make sure she de-authorizes the account on the PC. That way, she won't lose one of the five authorizations.
ft