i Tunes is a popular free application from Apple which, among other things, can import, organize and play back a library of music.

All Macs come with i Tunes preinstalled and a Windows version is also available free of charge.

If you choose to consolidate your i Tunes library, i Tunes will locate all music and videos on your computer and add it automatically, making the i Tunes consolidation process much faster than manually adding music and movies into one location. Find i Tunes Advanced Preferences: Mac : "Choose i Tunes - Advanced". Locate your i Tunes folder: By default, the i Tunes folder is located in: Mac OS X: /Users/username/Music Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\ Windows Vista: \Users\username\Music\ Windows 7 or 8: \Users\username\My Music\ If the i Tunes folder is not in the default location listed above, you can find the i Tunes folder by following these steps: 4.

Check the option "Copy files to i Tunes Media folder when adding to library" and then click OK. Drag the i Tunes folder to your external hard drive. The amount of time the backup will take depends on the size of your library.

To change the encoding settings, i Tunes Setting: Custom.

But you should make sure your external hard drive has enough space for storing your entire library and keep your files organized with ratings, playcounts, and other metadata.

When you make i Tunes consolidate files in i Tunes library, you will essentially want a program to group copies of all music on your computer into one i Tunes music library folder.

It means that i Tunes will access to every song if they are stored on your computer.

It also means that i Tunes will locate all your music files on your computer and add it into one single library file for managing easily.

But if you are using an operating system like Windows, you need manually set the i Tunes library to make i Tunes consolidate files.