I have a new MacBook Pro, and I’d like to transfer files from my old computer. I’ve rebooted my G4 in ‘external drive’ mode (hold down T while starting), and have connected the computers with a FireWire. I don’t want to copy my entire drive. Right now I only want to copy about 3,500 songs from iTunes. If I search on a band, I can see all of the songs from that band. But I can’t find the folder that all of the songs are in so that I can transfer everything at once instead of remembering who I have on iTunes and copying them one at a time.
How do I do this?
Just drag your entire Music folder from your home directory of your old machine into your new machine, replacing your current Music folder. This assumes you had iTunes set to import your songs into iTunes. If not, you need to find and move the songs manually.
I don’t know where my Music folder is.
I’ve started the G4 in external drive mode. I double-click on the icon, and it opens Macintosh HD. This is under ‘Devices’. So I should be able to just find the folder that has my music (and subfolders) in it, drag it, and drop it, right? Except I can’t find the songs.
Now, if I enter ‘pogues’ in the search box ‘Johnny’s MacBook Pro’ is highlighted and all of my Pogues songs show up. But it doesn’t tell me where they are, so that I can find out where all of my music is.
Your Music folder should be here:
Computer->Macintosh HD->Users->You->Music
(assuming your hard drive is named "Macintosh HD, and your login name is “You”)
OK, I’m attempting it. Looks like ‘about 19 minutes’.
FWIW, I tried to use the Migration Assistant. There were four boxes to check, and I only checked the one for ‘applications’ (which I think includes documents). When I opened iTunes there were no songs in it. I’ll see what happens after this transfer.
OK, the files were transferred, but not into the same place as the previous Music folder. So I opened the Music folder from the old computer (now on the new computer) and highlighted everything and dragged them into the new computer’s Music folder. I replaced the original iTunes with the one from the old computer, but when I look at About, it says it’s version 10.6.3, which is the current version.
So it looks like I’m good to go with that.
Thanks for the help.