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I recently bought a new system after selling my laptop and found myself with a major problem. After searching for quite a long time on the internet, I couldn’t figure out how to move my iTunes songs over to the new machine – and couldn’t find help on the ‘net!

After reading that you cannot re-download songs you have paid for onto the new machine, I only saw one option: Export.

All you need to do is save the iTunes folder (on my machine) located at:
C:\Documents and Settings\Tim Wheatley\My Documents\My Music\iTunes
I saved it by burning the contents to 3 DVD’s in data format.

Then, in iTunes, go to the “file” menu and “export” the library.xml file, making sure that you save that somewhere safe also (preferably on the data DVD’s).

Now, copy the iTunes folder back to the same location on your new PC:
C:\Documents and Settings\Tim Wheatley\My Documents\My Music\iTunes

Then simply go back to the “file” menu and select the library.xml file to “import.” After a lot of sorting and “checking” iTunes will be just as it was on your old computer, even your playlists, subscriptions and purchases will be available.

Obviously if you alter the path where your iTunes library is installed, you are going to need to open the XML file with Wordpad and do a find and replace on the file paths.