There are several reasons why you would want your media files on an external hard drive….to mention a few you have an SSD (or MacBook Air) with limited storage capacities, you have few hard drives installed and you want to have all the media in one alone or simply you want to have a back up…just in case.

Let’s look at how to do it:

1. Quit iTunes.
2. Locate your external hard drive.
   Mac: On the desktop or Finder sidebar.
   Windows: In My Computer
3. Locate your iTunes folder:
   By default, the iTunes folder is located in:
   Mac OS X: /Users/username/Music
   Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\
   Windows Vista or Windows 7: \Users\username\My Music\
4. If the iTunes folder is not in the default location listed above then you can find where the iTunes folder is located by following these instructions:
   1. Open your iTunes Preferences:
      Mac: Choose iTunes > Preferences.
      Windows: Choose Edit > Preferences.
   2. Click Advanced.
   3. The location of your iTunes folder will be listed in iTunes Media folder location box, as pictured below.

 

5.  Drag the iTunes folder to your external hard drive. This can take a while if you have a lot of items.

6.  Now launch iTunes holding the Option Key and click Choose Library…. Point it to the newly moved library on the external hard drive.

That’s it. Done. Now every time you’ll launch iTunes, it will automatically look into the external HD.