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How to transfer your iTunes library & playlists to a new computer

If you use an iPod, iTouch, or iPhone and plan on getting a new computer, you will want to read this article! OR, if you use any of these devices and want to make sure your library stays safe, you will want to read this article!

Yesterday, I helped a customer setup a new Windows 7 computer and transfer email, favorites, and other data from his old Windows XP computer. Turns out that he also needed to move his iTunes library of more than 8,000 songs and almost 150 playlists!

There isn’t too much I panic about when I arrive at a customer’s home or office, but moving large, customized iTunes libraries is something that does get me a little nervous. In the past, I have had to open an iTunes XML file in a word processor and then use find and replace to enter the path to the storage location on the new computer. It was extremely difficult and tedious.

I am happy to report that I successfully transferred the entire 36 gigabyte library and playlists using the following technique:

  1. On the old computer, open iTunes
  2. Click Edit –> Preferences from the menus
  3. Click the Advanced tab
  4. Click the check box next to Keep iTunes Media folder organized (if it isn’t already)
  5. Click OK
  6. Click File –> Library –> Organize Library (if the box wasn’t checked, be prepared to wait for a few a minutes as iTunes organizes your library).
  7. Now close iTunes and copy your entire My Music folder to an external hard drive, or you can do as I did and pull the hard drive from the old computer and use an USB hard drive adaptor to connect it to the new computer.
  8. DON’T COPY THE MUSIC TO THE NEW COMPUTER YET.
  9. Instead, download and install iTunes on the new computer
  10. Start iTunes and repeat steps 2-5 (above)
  11. Close iTunes
  12. Open the Music folder on the new computer
  13. You should see an iTunes folder, double-click it
  14. Now you will see either an iTunes Music or iTunes Media folder (doesn’t matter what name it has)
  15. Click one time on the folder and delete it
  16. Connect your backup hard drive to the new computer and navigate to the My Music folder and open it
  17. Push Ctrl+A on your keyboard to select all contents in the My Music folder
  18. Drag the files to the Music folder on the new computer
  19. Click yes when asked if you want to overwrite any existing files with the same name
  20. Close open Windows
  21. Start iTunes and your libary, including playlists, should be there.

Good luck!

For those of you with a DVD burner on your system (most systems built after 2006 include a DVD burner), you can backup your iTunes library and info via DVD using these steps:

  1. Make sure you have 5-20 blank DVDs (DVD-R or DVD+R) on hand for the backup
  2. Start iTunes
  3. Click File –> Library –> Backup to Disk from menus
  4. Click Back Up button
  5. Follow on-screen instructions.

To restore the backup:

  1. Start iTunes
  2. Insert the first DVD in the backup set
  3. Follow on-screen instructions
Links to Apple’s official instructions on this process:

126 thoughts on “How to transfer your iTunes library & playlists to a new computer”

  1. Nice Step by Step instructions Rick.

    iTunes/iPhone really made file management (photos, images, movies, etc) really difficult to manage. One of the few bad things I can really say about the iPhone.

    Thanks for giving us hope if we ever need to take the plunge… even if the rest of us only have a few gigs to manage.

  2. Looks like a great walkthrough! I’m passing this one along, for sure.

    Thanks for answering my question. I feel like Harrison Ford in “Clear and Present Danger” where he’s watching the president on TV and says “I said that! I told him to say that!”

      1. Thanks I’ll give it a try. My laptops backlight went out and I can’t add songs through my desktop iTunes or upgrade the OS. It wants to wipe all data on my phone 🙁

  3. I’ve tried this.
    2 things
    #1 When I’ve installed itunes on my new win 7 PC there is no iTunes Music or iTunes Media folder within the iTunes folder?
    #2 Due to new folder paths on win 7 (i’m transfering from xp) how does this method keep all the playlists playcounts stored in the old iTunes database?

  4. Your instructions worked perfectly! You just saved me SO much time and effort getting my playlists back and duplicated music cleared out. Thank you so much!

  5. I have been trying to do this for days, and every other method either failed or didn’t transfer my playlists. THANK YOU! This worked perfectly!

  6. I couldn’t get this to work. I can get the music to transfer, but not the playlists….I’m moving from PC to Mac, so maybe that is why….

  7. Rick. Just found your article. Best I’ve read yet. Cant wait to get home to try this. pulling my hair out reading numerous tutorials. Quick question..The ‘MyMusic’ folder on my XP is 43gig, iPod music ‘size’ is only 19gb (7300 songs). My gut says iTunes folder size s/b same as iPod size?? By copying the entire MyMusic folder to my new Win7 pc, am also then copying over junk into the iTunes folder? or are some form of duplicate files maintained?

  8. What about a windows 7 to windows 7 – New machine. XP’s file structure is different than 7’s and and iTunes creates additional folders in the roaming directory.

    Thanks in advance!

    1. Darn it…I noticed this too just this week. Turns out that what worked was to follow all the above steps, and if they don’t work in Windows 7, then click File –>Add Folder from the menus in iTunes and get it to make the proper connections. Not sure why this isn’t a LOT easier…well I know (DRM/Music Industry), but it doesn’t make it any easier.

  9. @naomi @Tobias, @Rick, @nat, @…

    I had the same problem. I wanted to transfer from XP to Win 7 and when I tried to do it manually – I ended up with a whole bunch of exclamation marks etc. in the new library. I then tried a software promising to transfer the entire iTunes library flawlessly. It kept its promise and it’s really worth a try. Found it on ilounge, but the soft can be found in here: http://www.copytrans.net/copytranstuneswift.php

  10. I just wanted to say that I have been going crazy for hours trying to figure out how to transfer all of my itunes playlists to my new netbook and this is the only method that worked for me! It was so fast and easy it was laughable. Thanks for posting this!!!

  11. Oh, how about this one? Any help please? I just bought a new CD on Amazon and imported it into my iTunes account. iTunes did not recognize the new CD so just loaded it in my libary as track 1-6. I created a new playlist but can’t drop and drag it from the library to the new playlist. How do I get it the tracks in the new playlist I created? any help?

  12. Good info BUT…. My PC crashed. I bought a new PC and logged into my ITUNES account. To my surprize all of my songs were gone and my library empty except those songs I purchased through ITUNES. How can I download the music and pictures in my IPOD back into ITUNES so I can SYNC my ipod again. I’m afraid to SYNC in that I might erace my entire IPOD.

  13. Rick-
    PLEASE HELP!I downloaded Itunes and transfered all my music already into the library before i found your article, so what do i do? I have 15 playlists all of which are no where to be found in my library and i dont know how to transfer them over or anything.Everything like my apps, music, and videos have transfered, just not my playlist… Can you help me please, im desperate!

    1. If you still have the computer with the original iTunes info, go through all the steps again and try one more time. It should works just fine. The mistake I see most commonly made is not starting iTunes on the new computer so all the folders are built BEFORE copying over new information. Good luck.

  14. How do i save my playlists from i tunes library to an external zip drive so i can play it in my car radio. What file extensions should the playlist be saved as to work on the car radio?

  15. Can’t THANK YOU enough for your easy to follow tutorial! I spent so much time trying to figure out how to do this and once I stumbled upon your site, it was simple enough that I did it! 🙂

  16. I got my music transferred from XP to Windows 7 but cannot get the playlists. I’ve tried this at least 3 times. What am I doing wrong? Does it matter that my old computer had an older version of iTunes? I am baffled.

  17. I hired a company to transfer my computer files (including a large Itunes library) from my old Windows XP computer to a new Windows 7 computer. The tech alerted me that my iTunes wouldn’t find my music but that it was easy to find instructions. Not so. How do I modify your instructions to find my music AFTER a transfer has taken place?

  18. My old computer had to be whiped clean of everything, which includes my itunes. so i redownloaded itunes but i want the music from my ipod to be on the new computer, every answer i found to my question required my old itunes of which i dont have. so, my question is how do i add my music from my ipod to itunes with out the old computer?

  19. Ed, Vancouver - Canada

    After being frustrated moving from Vista to 7, I simply opened a playlist in the old itunes, cut and paste it to a folder in my external HD, then cut and paste it to the new itunes playlist on the 7.
    Some album art did not transfer, but that is easy to fix – just to go google images and copy.

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