I want to transfer my iTunes library from my home PC to my laptop. Can I just move all the music files by putting them on a portable hard drive and then moving them onto the laptop?

Will I be able to access the songs I bought from the iTunes store?

yes. do a search at ipodlounge.com. lots of questions and answers...

I think you can have downloaded content on up to 3 computers.

If you want the same exact copy of your iTunes Library (playlist, ratings, songs, etc.) on both computers, copy the whole iTunes Library from one computer to the other. No need to go into individual song files. If you have protected files, i.e. purchased from iTunes Store, then you need to authorize the other computer. IIRC, limit is 5 not 3.

If your desktop and laptop are Macs, rather than using a portable drive, you can use the "target disk" mode to copy the iTunes Music folder from one computer to another.

Caveat: All my comments above pertain to Macs where all the relevant files as far as iTunes is concerned are contained in one folder. I don't know that this is true in Windows, given the complexities of dealing with DLLs and stuff.

limit is five, so definitly de-authorized anything you won't be using it on.

FYI: The standard way to de-authorize is from the computer to be de-authorized. If you don't have it, you can't do that. However, the Apple support people can - and will, with no hassle. (Found that out the hard way after pouring coffee into my laptop. Wish the rest of the recovery process was as smooth.)

Thanks all. Both computers are authorized for the account. I'm going to finish ripping my CDs and then transfer them en masse.

The only "trick" is to make sure you have the setting that puts all the music in the itunes library. There are two settings, one which just links to any music on your computer and the other to move/copy all of it into your library. I think it's "Keep itunes music folder organized" or something like that. With that setting your itunes purchases and any other music content on your computer that you added to itunes (directly or by itunes just finding it) will be copied into the library. If you are using itunes to do the ripping, there's no problem, but if you are ripping with something else and putting the files where you want them, you can end up with two copies of the files. Not a big deal if you have enough space, but you should be aware of that. (I rip to a lossless format and then use dbpoweramp to convert to mp3, then import the mp3s to itunes. You can do something similar with itunes.)

There's a FAQ for this on the apple support web site. Here's the one for windows. There's a link in the article to the FAQ for macs.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93366

Basically, once you have made sure you have the "Keep itunes music folder organized" set, you just copy the library to the external hard drive and then you can import it into itunes on the other computer. Or if you don't have itunes on the other computer yet, you can just drop it into the right place, then download itunes, and it should just find it and use it once you authorize the new computer.

You can use your ipod as the external hard drive if there's enough free space on it.

-David

For what it's worth, I make sure I rip CDs in a non-proprietary, non-copy-protected format. In my case I used 192 kbps MP3, which will play on just about anything with no copy restrictions. You can set this in Prefereces, Advanced in iTunes.

Just got a new computer and my challenge is to transfer i-tunes library to the new one. Backing-up everything on new CD's/DVD's does not appeal to me. I desperately need assistance. I do have an external hard-drive if that may help. Thanks.

Is there some specific problem you are having? Apple describes this as relatively easy to do:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1329

Are you WinXP or Mac OS - if latter pm for help.
FWIW, i would strongly suggest you back up your music on either external HD and/or DVD.

You can go to Preferences->Advanced and change the location of your library, then check off Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized and Copy files. It will then copy all of your MP3s into a folder which you can copy other places.

If you have a Mac, I would recommend going to the Apple Store and having the Geniuses do this for you. I'm sure you could do it rather quickly with their help.

You can copy all your songs on an external harddrive and copy it on a new computer. Just copy the whole music folder on your external harddrive. Than connect it to your new computer and move the folder if you wish on the harddrive of your new computer (on a Windows machine move it to "My Music" folder on Mac OS X to "Music" folder). After that launch Itunes and import the whole folder you just copied. Done. If you play a song you bought in the Itunes store Itunes will ask you if you want to authorize your new PC to play bought songs. Just enter your Itunes login and password and that's it.

You can play your bought songs on up to five PCs. You can reset the counter for the five PCs once per year. It will de-authorize all your authorized PCs. The next time you play bought music on Itunes it will ask if you want to authorize your PC and the counter starts again.