anyone know?

I did this in the past, and as long as the drive always maps as the same letter then yes it worked. My music was also on the portable drive – not sure if this made a difference or not though…

trying it now 🙂

From Apple iTunes help (on a Mac; should be the same on a PC):

Using multiple iTunes libraries
You can have more than one iTunes library. You might want multiple libraries so that you could, for example, have a library of holiday music that wouldn’t appear in your Party Shuffle mix the rest of the year. Or you could use separate libraries to keep your music on your computer and your movies on an external hard disk.

To create or use a different iTunes library:

If iTunes is open, quit it.

Hold down the Option key while you open iTunes.

In the dialog that appears, do one of the following:

?
To create a new library, click Create Library.

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To choose a different library, click Choose Library.

You can name your iTunes library (the folder containing all of your iTunes content and the iTunes Library file) whatever you like and store it anywhere.

ah arse, im just in the middle of a very lengthy music swap from files to an external drive, justtried it and no joy, hence im now putting it back onto my c drive which is pretty much full already..!!!

where is the option key?

I used to run my library from an external drive – the only problem is that my laptop kept changing the drive between E,F,G (partly my fault because I use other external drives for work files and software demos)

slight hijack though – anyone know best way to swap my library between laptops/PC’s? I’m changing jobs and I had been using my work laptop for itunes.

thats my “problem” too – need to move to another laptop. I have copied the folder accross to a portable hd and plan to run it from there (inc. i tunes)

ralph – I’d be interested if you keep your 1) album covers 2) ipod applications bought on itunes too.

I know I’ve got my music, video in windows explorer – its the other bits

not bought any applications and album art is in the folder on the hard drive

On windows it should be the alt key.

I can’t remember the details but I’m sure I tried to install iTunes somewhere else other than c/program files but I couldn’t do it(I think it was something to do with QuickTime).

However, you can still have the music files in a different folder/different drive. Not sure whether this is what you’re actually trying to do though…

portable drive? yes – i do this now..

Its easier if you have a ‘music’ – then ‘itunes music’ folder to work with..

Go into itunes – edit – preferences…advanced. tick the two boxes, ‘copy music automatically’ & ‘keep music folder organized’

Choose the new location of your music – this is the ‘itunes music’. It will take 20 secs or so. Then you must go file – library – consolidate library. This basically takes all the files and puts them where you want them. Depending on the size of library this can take so time..

At the end of that, you must find the “Album Artwork” folder, as well as the iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Library.xml files and copy them to the ‘music folder’.

now itunes will be able to play the tunes and all your music is on the external drive.

does that help?

does this not duplicate them locally

no – ive tried to email you now..