Moving my iTunes library

[protege]

As much as I like being able to have my music collection on my laptop (and taking it on vacation), I'd also like to have it on my desktop PC as well. Better sound system Anyway, the only way it appears I can do this, is by Home Sharing inside the iTunes software. I don't plan on buying additional music through the Store. Any ideas on how to share things without providing my credit card info?

[sstabeler]

did you originallly purchase your music from the iTunes store? if so, then you can redownload.

Home Sharing is a bad idea, though, since I'm 99% sure you need to have both devices turned on for it to work. ( it's designed to allow you to share your library with your family...

Dropbox MIGHT work, since it shares the files themselves.

[dendawg]

If you have a large enough flash drive, you can literally just copy your entire iTunes folder from your My Music folder virtually verbatim.

[fma_fanatic]

This because I had to do it when DaDairyDruid's old PC died, but the hard drive was still good. Luckily it was a SATA drive so the transfer was relatively painless. Bit of a task, but he didn't lose anything.

There is also the option of backing up your iTunes library by burning it on CD. I did this once and was able to recover my music when I had to reformat my hard drive a few times before my PC finally decided it was done too.

There are also a number of programs that will let you do the same thing, but most want money when you can do it yourself for free.

[protege]

I *finally* copied my tunes over the weekend. It actually went much easier than I thought. Unlike the last time I moved things around--and lost most of my playlists--I didn't lose a thing. Still, setting up the homegroup was a pain. That took multiple times to get right. I have no idea why my network thought that each computer was on its own domain! They were both in the same homegroup, no idea why they couldn't see each other. With that done, moving the actual data over took about an hour, including all of the old settings and folders.