Transfer iTunes Library to External Hard Drive for Backup

If you have a large number of iTunes movie purchases and rentals saved in your iTunes library on a computer, the best way to free up some space on the hard disk is to back up the iTunes library to an external hard drive. Here you will be guided on how to move the whole iTunes library to external drive step by step.

1. Consolidate your iTunes library into one folder

Firstly, please make sure that all of the items including movies, TV shows, music, etc in your iTunes library are in one place. Otherwise, you need to follow the instructions below to consolidate the files by putting copies of all media files used by iTunes in the iTunes Media folder while leaving the original files in their current locations.

Step 1. Open iTunes Preferences > Advanced and select the option to "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library", click OK;

Step 2. Choose File > Library > Organize Library to select "Consolidate files” and click OK to finish.

2. Move iTunes library to external drive

Method (1) Directly copy iTunes Media folder to external hard drive

Step 1. Shut down iTunes and locate your external hard drive on your computer;

Step 2. Find and locate your iTunes Media folder which is saved in different paths due to different OS:

Mac: Finder > username > Music
Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\
Windows Vista: \Users\username\My Music\
Windows 7 or 8: \Users\username\Music\

Step 3. Drag and drop your iTunes folder to external drive directly. The transferring time depends on the number of the files saved in your iTunes folder.

Wait for a while and your iTunes library will be automatically copied to your external drive once the transfer completes.

If you’ve got a lot of movies and TV shows than other media files saved in your iTunes library, you are recommended to use the second method to transfer your iTunes library to external drive.

Method (2) Convert iTunes movies before transferring to external drive

As movies and TV shows purchased from iTunes Store are DRM protected, we are not allowed to copy the files to whatever devices or platforms as we like. In this case, if you are hoping to save iTunes movie files anywhere you want, you can use a smart tool, that is TunesKit, to convert iTunes movies to DRM-free format before moving iTunes library to external drive.

Step 1. Add iTunes movie files to TunesKit. After downloading and installing the program, launch it by double-clicking the icon. Then click “Add Files” button to import movies from iTunes folder to the application. You can also directly drag the videos from the iTunes library folder to the program.

Step 2. Convert DRM’d iTunes movies. Once selected the external hard drive as output folder for the iTunes movies, click “Convert” button to begin converting iTunes movies and TV shows to DRM-free files.

Step 3. Open your external hard drive and you will find the whole iTunes library has been successfully transferred to your external hard drive without any DRM restriction on the movies.