Relocating music to a different location

You can relocate all at once, select file, display all missing files, select all of them, find the first one it asks for and it will auto relocate the rest

There is an option now to move the library to an external so it can be used n multiple computers I believe. It's in the settings. Haven't tested it but I know it's there.

Thanks for your response. However, I did do what you suggested and it didn't work for me. I displayed all missing tracks, selected all, pointed to the first track it asked for, all it did was remove that first track from the list and all the rest of the tracks were deselected. I think this is due to the fact that all of my music resides in thousands of folders within one main music folder. I can't tell rekordbox to scan that folder and all folders within for all missing tracks. 

Traktor does this, it takes time but you can walk away and later come back to zero missing tracks.

I am on 3.2 by the way. 

Ill experiment more with opening my Rekordbox on another computer. However, I am not using any external. My collection is on my laptop but I can connect my laptop to my desktop as if it was an external drive by booting the laptop in target disk mode. Then I'd like to launch rekordbox installed on my desktop but have it read only the collection on my laptop (which my desktop would see as an external),

Thanks

see if you can video whats going on and post, if the folder structure is the same but just moved to another drive, RB should have no issues relocating. Maybe its a bug you should give more info on here, the more the engineers have to look at the quicker they can fix "if" its a bug and not user error (not saying yours is)

If you're using iTunes to manage your music, why aren't you also using the iTunes sync feature for rekordbox?

I had been using iTunes sync feature before. Everything I am doing now is in an attempt to not have to reanalyze all tracks and not to lose the cue points I have set in my collection. 

Here are the steps I have taken to migrate my Rekordbox collection and my music files onto my new laptop. 

1 - Copied my iTunes music folder which used to be on an external hard drive when used with my old MacBook Pro to the internal drive on my new MacBook Pro. 

2 - Launched iTunes while holding option, navigate to my iTunes library, open iTunes, open iTunes preferences, set iTunes media folder to the new location on the new drive. All is working with iTunes.

3 - Backed up my Rekordbox library from my old laptop via File/Library/Backup

4 - Installed Rekordbox on my new laptop.

5 - Restored the backup Rekordbox library on my new laptop vie File/Library/Restore

6 - Went into Rekordbox preferences/Bridge and pointed Rekordbox to my iTunes library file on my new laptop internal drive.

7 - Rekordbox displays my Rekordbox track collection, but any track I select in the collection gets a yellow (!)  

8 - Rekordbox displays my iTunes, but using the iTunes sync feature now, is re-importing the tracks again, re-analyzing the tracks, and giving me duplicates in my collection of which the ones I have set cue points for are still missing. 

9 - Display missing tracks presents me a list of all missing tracks. If I select all using command+A, select 'relocate', rekordbox asks to point to the first track in the list. At this point, in Traktor I can point to my music folder and it will search the entire folder and all folders within for the tracks. However, in rekordbox, if I select a folder, the OK button is disabled until I select an actual music file. When I navigate to the file and select OK, rekordbox returns me to the list of missing tracks with only the track I just pointed to removed. All other tracks still missing. 

I think I am just going to have to start fresh with my Rekordbox collection and try to use Rekordbuddy to sync my cue points from Traktor to Rekordbox.

Did you point rekordbox to the updated iTunes Library XML location on the Bridge page within the preferences?

Yes I did, I mentioned that above in step 6.

Sorry, missed that!

Both the engineers and I believe the system is seeing the drive as having an appended "-1" or "1" after the drive name, thus causing issues. If you were to give the drive a completely new name and attempt relocation based on that, I wonder if it would work properly. The other thing I'm unsure of is what iTunes might have done with your setting of "Allow iTunes to keep my files organized" -- it may have moved the files around. Could you verify a few test files, checking the path within iTunes against the path within rekordbox?

Hi and thanks for helping out here. 

The iTunes feature of keeping the music organized essentially makes a folder for each artist, then makes a folder for each album by that artist, within the artist folder, then the songs are within those album folders. The only time these change is if I update the artist or album name within iTunes, then it will change the folders accordingly and I easily relocate those files within Traktor or Rekordbox. iTunes/Music/Artist/Album/Song is the structure. 

When I worked on my old laptop and all my music was on an external drive... My entire iTunes collection was also on that external drive. I was able to boot this iTunes collection on any computer my drive was connected to.

The folder hierarchy was ExtHD/iTunes/Music/Artist/Album/Song .. The XML collection file in the "iTunes" folder.

Now on my new computer, I moved this "iTunes" folder and everything within it exactly in tact as it was before. 

The folders hierarchy is now MacHD/Users/MattPlay/Music/iTunes/Music/Artist/Album/Song with the XML collection file still in the "iTunes" folder and all songs still in the same music/artist/album folders exactly as before within that iTunes folder.

I updated the iTunes preference "media folder location" to MacHD/Users/MattPlay/Music/iTunes .. All is working.

In Traktor I set the same folder in preference "iTunes directory" and "Music Folders" so Traktor knows where my XML file is, but it also knows where my music folder is and I can do what is called a "consistency check" it then scans the music folder and finds all songs are missing because the music folder was moved. I can choose relocate and point Traktor to the music folder and it finds every song within the artist/album folders and after some time, automatically 0 missing tracks.

Ive successfully pointed rekordbox to my XML and it reads my iTunes library, but I can not tell rekordbox that my music folder is in a new location all in one go. Display missing tracks requires me to point directly to each music file, rather than merely directly to the folder for all tracks. 

Is rekordbox supposed to do this, but it just is not for me? Or does rekordbox currently not work this way?

I can run the test you mentioned, but I feel that since everything is working fine everywhere else that I already know the answer. I felt that rekordbox is not currently able to scan a single music folder and all artist/album folders within, to relocate all missing collection tracks at once. 

If rekordbox is currently supposed to do this, and for some reason it just is not for me, please let me know, then I will run these tests. However, my feeling when starting this thread was that this was an improvement request that rekordbox needed in a future update, rather than something that is going on within my setup. 

Thanks again.

I'm aware of how the iTunes "keep organized" feature works ... which is exactly why I don't suggest ANYONE use it! ;) 

Sorry, I was actually reading an email from another thread when mentioning the drive-naming; that shouldn't apply to your situation.

If you could test the file path locations for a similar file within rekordbox and iTunes, that would help diagnose where the problem of relocation is coming from. Typically, the relocate missing files feature works properly, as advertised, but for whatever reason, it's not wanting to do that.

I'm having this exact same issue right now, I used the rekordbox backup and backed up all music files, then copied the backed up folders to my new computer expecting it would make for a seamless transition, unfortunately it doesn't work this simply though.

I manage to load the database file but when I try to play a song it can't find any of them. Then using the missing files tool to identify a location I have to go right into the artist/album subfolder. It prompts to scan the folder to find any other files but as we are deep in the folder system it only identifies songs in the same album.

"I'm aware of how the iTunes "keep organized" feature works ... which is exactly why I don't suggest ANYONE use it! ;) "

Very funny that you say this because when you create a rekordbox backup and backup all music files it safes them using the exact same Artist/Album/Song hierarchy.

Pretty piss-poor effort really, every other music program I work allows me to select the main music folder and then will scan all subfolders. Only rekordbox is not able to identify music in its own backup system.

Hopefully theres a solution for this by now but from looking around I can't see anything...

Any News on this?

I just ran into the same problem after I moved my Music from internal to external drive.

@Michael > Hopefully you followed the procedures shown here.

yes, but they seem to work only with flat music folders, not with former iTunes Library

Are there any news on this? I have the exact same problem. Moved my iTunes Library to an external drive. As iTunes organizes everything in artist/album folders, Rekordbox seems unable to relocate all missing files at once. (no chance to relocate +2000 tracks by navigating through these folder structure)

If you allowed iTunes to manage your music (which you should NOT), moving to a new drive still moves it all to a new parent folder; all sub-content is moved by the same scope. Simply select all files, use the relocate tool, find the first file, then it will prompt you to relocate all others using the same location, click YES and it will find them for you.