How To Migrate Apple iTunes From One Computer To Another

As innovative Apple is, they are also control freaks. From limiting Flash support in the iPhone and iPod touch, to approving each and every app in iTunes, Apple takes micro management to a whole new level. Nothing gets done in Apple Land without their approval. Unfortunately, they also have a very bad habit of hiding everything behind the veil of user-friendliness.

There is no doubt that Apple excels in developing very user-friendly interfaces. You don't have to worry about all the nitty gritty details that users of other operating systems have to fuss over. Apple takes care of all that for you, but only as long as you follow exactly what Apple wants you to do. The moment you step off the reservation, you are on your own.

This "my way or the highway" attitude makes it especially difficult for those who want to migrate your iTunes account :

• from one computer to another, or
• after upgrading to a new hard disk drive, or
• after formatting your hard disk drive and installing a new operating system.

You can always install iTunes in your new computer (or hard disk drive) and authorize it. However, you will need to remember all the app and music purchases you made and redownload them from the iTunes Store. If you already have a massive collection of several thousand apps and songs, you can imagine how daunting the task would be.

Apple offers just two solutions :

• transfer purchases from your iPod or iPhone, or
• back up the entire library to CD or DVD.

Transferring purchases using the iPod or iPhone is the easiest method, provided you have a small library of apps and songs that can be synced entirely into the iPod or iPhone. However, if your library contains more apps and songs that your iPod or iPhone can store, you are out of luck.

Your other option would be to back up your iTunes library into CDs or DVDs. That may have been the state-of-the-art option in the early 2000s, but in this age of portable hard disk drives and flash drives, who uses DVDs anymore? They are slow to write and you will need several DVDs to store all your iTunes Store purchases.

Fortunately, we found a simpler and faster way of migrating your iTunes account and files. Using our method, you can migrate your entire iTunes library to a new computer or a new hard disk drive, and have it work as if nothing has changed. Best of all, you can do it in less time than it takes for you to back up your iTunes library to DVDs!

What Do You Require?

The only thing you really need to prepare is a suitable transfer medium. Forget about CDs and DVDs. You want to do it quick and easy, get a portable USB hard disk drive or a large USB flash drive. How much storage space you need depends on the number of apps and songs you have in your iTunes library.

Take for example, my collection of just over 500 apps. They take up about 8 GB of storage space. That averages out to 16 MB per app, although this is a massive simplification as some apps are over 100 MB in size while others are less than 1 MB in size. Still, you can use this as a rough yardstick to figure out how much storage space you will need for the move.

If you purchased music from the iTunes Store, allocate about 8 MB per song. If you have 400 songs, you will need about 3 GB. Don't forget to also allocate space for your video clips too! To be safe, you should prepare at least 10-20 GB of storage space. A portable USB hard disk drive would be the best option.

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