Can you transfer iTunes library from PC to Mac?

[colin993rs]

Two issues:

(1) my local Mac 'specialist' tells me this is illegal (!!);

(2) assuming (1) above is tosh, is it as simple as connecting your iPod (with the full libray loaded) to the Mac and importing to iTunes (or is an iPod that has only ever been used with a PC incapable of communicating with a Mac?).

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Tripps]

It's only as illegal as your original music library was, which isn't if you have purchased the tunes or have the original copies (although that can be a dodgy argument).

You can do exactly that with and iPod, I did the same to transfer some tunes to my Mac mini. Macs can read both PC and Mac format drives so have no problems, I believe all iPods are now PC formatted for this reason - the originals were bought in either Mac or PC format.

[WBC]

Hi,

I am a computing numpty so apologise if my advice is not perfect. However, I recently switched from using a PC to a MacBook Pro and was in the same position as you with respect to transferring my iTunes library.

From memory I used a freely downloadable program called iPodRip which basically transferred all the songs from my iPod onto my Mac. Obviously if your library is larger than the capacity of your iPod you may have to transfer the files in several 'batches'.

Hopefully this is of some help.

[magic torch]

Apple stop you transferring music from iPod to PC to stop people distributing music. That could be the legal part?

Does this help?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.ht

[colin993rs]

PHers

This forum never ceases to amaze me. Thank you for all your help and advice.

I Google'd on this topic, and found nothing intelligible to a non-IT whizz - I don't know how you do it, but thanks.

[colin993rs]

Forgot to say, being an old fuddy-duddy, all the music was either imported into iTunes from CDs I own, or purchased from iTunes. This was why I was amazed that transferring music that I had entirely purchased was in any way illegal.

Particular thanks to MagicTorch for the link - just what I needed.

[PJR]

On top of what others have said.. Really all you need do is de-authorise your itunes store purchases on your PC (advanced pull down menu). Move the library over to your new mac by whatever means you prefer, and then re-authorise your new mac.
Should all be pretty painless. And certainly nothing illegal about doing it this way.
Cheers, P

[magic torch]

What you're doing isn't illegal, but if you were to transfer your music collection to another computer, that belonged to someone else, it would be. Which is why there's a few humps to jump through.

Hope it's sorted now.

[bez_uk]

get yourself a network card or two hook up for computers... press copy on one library and paste onto other computer....

Nothing stops you doing that so you can have library on both.

Or buy nertwork HD (about £120 for 200/300Gb) then have library on there. both pc and mac will read music from the network HD.