Moving iTunes from PC to Mac

ramsesm

Ok, I have commited to a new Mac and the iPod made me do it... :-)

I now that I have a new mac, now I find myself in the process of moving all of my stuff from my old PC to the mac... I now I can move the music I have in iTunes over, but what about the playlists/counts and raitings that I had assigned to each song?

I have tried looking for this information but I have had no luck. All the info I have found is about moving the iTunes library from mac to mac... This won't work as the location path is incompatible between both systems.

Any one has any ideas how can this be done?

Thanks.

gordguide

I have two ways; I'm pretty sure both will work but here they both are in case you need to do some troubleshooting. Depending on where you decide to place the music files on the Mac, you might need to do another step later, but basically this is it.

#1
From the Finder:
Help: Mac Help
Select: New to Mac OSX?
Select: For Windows Switchers
Select: Transferring Files from Windows to Mac
Select: More about transferring files from Windows to Mac
Select: Transferring your Music from a Windows computer

Do the stuff they say to do.

If you have music from the iTMS on your PC be sure to deauthorize the PC (from within iTunes Windows) before you try to play that music on the new Mac. It will save you grief later.

On Windows:
Pathname:
My Documents\My Music\iTunes

Find the files:
iTunes library.xml
iTunes 4 music library.itl

Be sure a copy of both is in your iTunes folder you transfer, or just copy them to the Mac if you've already copied the music over.

On the Mac, go to:
iTunes: File: Import
... and browse to the file you copied from Windows:
iTunes Music Library.xml

If the extension is different (ie .txt; sometimes it changes when transferring across platforms) just edit it to .xml before you try importing.

The .xml file should import fine; it's the same format and is named exactly the same way on both platforms (don't ask me why I have two different names in my example above; I found conflicting information; but it doesn't really matter. Use whatever you find there as is). That's where you library data (playlists, ratings, etc) resides.

#2
You could also try this (in iTunes Windows) if you've networked the PC and Mac to transfer data:

iTunes Preferences -> Advanced tab; Keep Music Folder organized ... should be enabled.

iTunes Preferences -> Advanced tab, set the library location to some folder on the new drive; preferably a new empty folder

iTunes Advanced menu -> Consolidate Library... This step copies all the files in iTunes' library to the new location.**It also maintains your ratings and playlists.

iTunes won't Move the files, only copy them to the new location.

If you see a file called iTunes 4 Music Library.itl in the old area - leave it alone (only important if you plan to continue using iTunes and that library/music on the PC).

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ramsesm

Thanks a lot - that did it.