How to move Music to an External Hard Drive

Question

Level 1

4 points

How to move Music to an External Hard Drive

My Apple Music library consists of my personal CDs. I want to place my music library onto an external hard drive to save space on my MacBook Pro. I am experienced and successful at putting my Lightroom photos on an external drive but it's not working the same for Music. I was able to get the CDs copied to the external and I could play them but the individual songs that I played, then disappeared. Apple support by phone usually helps me but the person I reached was not experienced with Music. Do you have any ideas about where I could get help? (An interesting disrupter is when searching people have help for when Music was called iTunes and often there are confusing directions because of this.)

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 7, 2025 08:57 AM

Reply

Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Mar 7, 2025 10:02 AM in response to Stevie1897

See Make a split library portable - Apple Community and Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for detailed background.

If the library is in the standard shape of ~/Music/Music with all media inside ~/Music/Music/Media then you can simply move ~/Music/Music to the external as say <External>/Music, then option-start-Music to select the library at <External>/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary.

If your library is using legacy folders from a previous iTunes Library then that should generally work if you follow the steps above, then reset the media folder to <External>/Music/Media via Music > Settings > Files, and then consolidate the library using File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files. You would then need to manually clean up the copies on the system drive.

tt2

Reply

Answer 2

Stevie1897 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 7, 2025 10:50 AM in response to turingtest2

I really appreciate your commenting on my question as I had used your method to copy my music library (it contains about 10 of my albums on CDs that I recently loaded--I have no legacy iTunes) to the external by going into my Finder and dragging the music icon into the external. I now have a Music icon on the external drive, but it doesn't appear to have my albums in it when I double-click it. I used the option-click on both the Music icon within the external and then on the music icon on my macbook, but I did not get a result (I might not be clear on how to do the option-click).

My goal is to load my CD collection onto an external hard drive so to relieve space on my Macbook's hard drive. I have experience and success using an external hard drive with other applications. I use an external for Adobe Lightroom and expected Music to work the same way. When I click on Lightroom on my list of apps, the computer automatically goes to the external drive where all my Lightroom photos reside, as well as the Adobe Lightroom app. I assumed Music would work the same way, but it doesn't seem to!

Thank you for helping me.

Reply

Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Mar 7, 2025 10:56 AM in response to Stevie1897

To switch Music libraries press and hold down option as you launch Music. You will be presented with a dialog asking you to choose or create a library. Click Choose Library... then browse to the .musiclibrary that you want to open. Opening the file directly in Finder doesn't work.

tt2

Reply

Answer 4

Stevie1897 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 7, 2025 12:22 PM in response to turingtest2

I held the "Option" key and then clicked on the music icon on my dock and I didn't get the dialog. I will start over and go through your directions to put the library on the external and see if that works.

Reply

Answer 5

turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Mar 7, 2025 12:39 PM in response to Stevie1897

Try pressing down the option key as you go to click the Music icon in the dock. Keep holding down the option key. You should get the create/choose library dialog. If Music opens normally, close it and try again.

tt2

Reply

Answer 6

Stevie1897 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 7, 2025 01:40 PM in response to turingtest2

Thank you TT2. I will work on it and give feedback. Thanks for taking the time to help me. (I obviously need it!)

S1897

Reply

How to move Music to an External Hard Drive

Similar questions