[beto]

Hi, I'm planning to acquire a 24" imac and I have a 5th gen 30 gb iPod and a (sigh) a windows pc, I'm thinking to move my music from the pc to the mac but I added more data to the music' tags (composer and a more accurate genre). How can I accomplish the transfer from the iTunes library in the pc to the iTunes library of the Mac without wiping the extra data I added in my music tags. I have about 8.2 gb worth of music so I don't want to start again typing the composers and new genres for every song and even the lyrics... Can anyone give me some advice here???

[kerby74]

When I switched a few years back from Windows to Mac, I just copied the whole library over from the Windows box to the Mac over my home network and the library file itself and launched iTunes on the Mac and I think the option was "Import Library"? I am not at my Mac to look now, but I didn't lose anything when I did.
This article might have some helpful information for you to look at.

[mdawson]

Actually, it will take less effort than you might think to transfer your music files from your PC to your Mac. Any tags you added are, I believe, part of the individual music files, so you lose nothing there. The important thing is placing the right files in the right place. As you are going to a new Mac there is no need to import the library as kerby74 suggested, but the process he recommended is necessary if the computer you are transferring music files to has an existing music library that you are augmenting.
Here is what you need to do. First, copy all of your music files from the iTunes Music folder on your Wintel PC over to the new Macs iTunes Music Folder (~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music); I do not recall the directory path for Windows, as I am not on a Windows PC right now. If you had iTunes organize your music collection then you would transfer over the entire folder structure from the iTunes Music folder on the PC to the iTunes Music folder on the Mac. If all you wish to transfer the music, then you should be pretty much done, as the iTunes Music folder is the default location for music files and should not require importing. I did this when I switched computers in my lab last year and I do not recall having to import the library after transferring the files to the new machine.
If you wish to preserve your playlists and other such preferences, there are two other files you will need to transfer. On the same folder level as the iTunes Music folder on the Wintel PC there should be a data file named iTunes Library and an XML file named iTunes Music Library. Those files contain your library settings and preferences and need to be copied into the iTunes folder (~/Music/iTunes) on the Mac; just replace the default files of the same name on the Mac. If you have a well-planned out playlist structure like myself, or just do not feel like re-building what little you have, copying over those two files will save you quite a bit of work.

[albloom]

Michael, did you have any protected WMA tracks in that PC iTunes
library? If so, what happened?
If not, and if you started out with some, did you first convert them
to MP3s? I've occasion to download those critters, and I've found
that $15 for WMAConvert (under XP) is well spent. Get it here:
web page

[mdawson]

I do not download music so all of my music files are exclusively unprotected AAC. Two years ago I ripped about 2700+ songs onto my primary work computer at iTunes default settings (128 Kbps, AAC) in my lab while studying there on weekends. During December 2005 I switched over to a newer tower using the procedure I described above. At home I am still in the process of ripping songs from my CD collection, 10,763 songs at this moment, at 160 Kbps in AAC. I would not use any format that strips me of my fair use rights least of all one from a company like Microsoft.