Because there are so many comments, I have disabled them on this post. Please discuss your iTunes and iPod migration issues on the Transfer iTunes forum.
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In preparation for my departure, I wanted to transfer all of my music from the iTunes library on my work computer to the iTunes library on my home computer. This is pretty simple – just transfer my music from my work computer’s iTunes library onto my Maxtor OneTouch, take it home, and transfer the music onto my home computer – but I rely on all of my song ratings, accumulated over thousands of hours of listening to iTunes while I work, to populate my iPod Shuffle with songs from the “My Top Rated Songs” Smart Playlist. I couldn’t find any information on how to transfer my iTunes music, while still retaining my song ratings, but I finally figured it out.
Before you do this, you’ll have to first transfer the actual files to your new computer. You may choose to burn CDs, DVDs, or use a thumb drive; but using a FireWire cable is easiest for large libraries, unless you have a portable hard drive.
1. Export the source iTunes library as an XML file (File>Export Library…). This will create a file that holds information about the location, song filenames, and *song rating*!
2. Replace the file paths in your XML file with the path that the songs from the source library will be in when you import them. This path may point to your FireWire Drive, a DVD you have burned, or a temporary folder on your hard drive that you have copied your music to. Just to be sure of the new path, copy one of the files from this location to your library, export your destination library, and look at the file path to that song in the resulting XML file. To actually replace the file paths, I did a Find/Change in TextWrangler.
3. Set the preferences in iTunes in your source library to “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library.” This is under “Advanced.”
4. Import your library (File>Import).
5. Delete redundant files. If you’re like me, you have some duplicate songs in your multiple libraries. This is a tedious task, but I plan to do it over time.