Free Itunes backup program?

[newglockster]

Does anyone know of a free Itunes backup program that is reliable/reputable? Or do you have to pay for a good one?

Basically, I just want a simple program to be able to extract my songs from Itunes so that I can save on an external drive or whatever.

Any ideas are appreciated!

Thanks!

UPDATE at post #10

[hcbr]

If you're going that route, why not invest on the kingston wifi drive.

[StratORcaster]

Why not just back up to a HD? That's what I did. Google it.

[Boristheblade]

You have Mac or PC?

[newglockster]

I have a PC

[newglockster]

please excuse my slow brain...

I found the Itunes folder in "My Documents". And it is showing several GB's of data, so it IS holding the songs. Therefore, I can just copy that over to a HD and that is awesome!

Another questions however, it looks like that is ONLY for restoring Itunes and not transfering songs to another device, lets say. Is there a way to actually extract all the songs from Itunes to be able to copy to another device that is non-Apple?

[orangeglo]

http://www.apple.com/itunes/inside-itunes/2011/02/how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-another-hard-drive.html

[Nose Nuggets]

Okay, lets go about this from a different angle. As an IT provider, i hate it when my clients who themselves proclaim almost proudly "i dont know anything about computers" come at me with questions like "so i am moving my windows directory to the d:\ drive and need to resolve the errors its popping up".

What are you trying to accomplish? I will do my best to provide you the most sensible path to that goal.


a couple of points:
1) i tunes just houses your music in their raw file form. music isn't 'hidden' in the iTunes application or file structure.

2) taking your itunes or my music directory and moving it some place else with a drag and drop will likely cause more problems then you are willing to contend with

3) if your sole objective is to "back up" your music in the event you lose it. THEN you can copy the entire contents of your my music directory to another volume.

[freonr22]

can you put it in the icloud?

[newglockster]

Thanks for the replies!

To summarize: I was needing to know how to "backup" my itunes music so I wouldn't lose them if my computer crashed or what ever. Thanks to everyone's answers, I know how to do that now.

An additional question I have: Is there a way to transfer or extract music from itunes to a USB drive, or whatever, as MP3 files so that I can play them in a mp3 player, windows media player, email them, or save individually?
For example, since my car does not have an audio jack, I have a fm transmitter to play music through the radio. I put music files on a USB drive, plug it into my fm transmitter, and the songs are played through in my car speakers. That is one reason I would like to "extract" songs from Itunes; so I can load to a USB flash drive to play in my car.

Thanks!

[chaunbot]

If all the songs were purchased from itunes you can re download them from apple. Upgrade iTunes and look for previous purchases on the right side.

[newglockster]

If all the songs were purchased from itunes you can re download them from apple. Upgrade iTunes and look for previous purchases on the right side.

Almost all were not purchased from itunes

[hcbr]

Thanks for the replies!

To summarize: I was needing to know how to "backup" my itunes music so I wouldn't lose them if my computer crashed or what ever. Thanks to everyone's answers, I know how to do that now.

An additional question I have: Is there a way to transfer or extract music from itunes to a USB drive, or whatever, as MP3 files so that I can play them in a mp3 player, windows media player, email them, or save individually?
For example, since my car does not have an audio jack, I have a fm transmitter to play music through the radio. I put music files on a USB drive, plug it into my fm transmitter, and the songs are played through in my car speakers. That is one reason I would like to "extract" songs from Itunes; so I can load to a USB flash drive to play in my car.

Thanks!

Like i said, kingston wifi drive, trust me on this, it'll be easier for you to carry around and play your files wherever you go.

[Nose Nuggets]

An additional question I have: Is there a way to transfer or extract music from itunes to a USB drive, or whatever, as MP3 files so that I can play them in a mp3 player, windows media player, email them, or save individually?
For example, since my car does not have an audio jack, I have a fm transmitter to play music through the radio. I put music files on a USB drive, plug it into my fm transmitter, and the songs are played through in my car speakers. That is one reason I would like to "extract" songs from Itunes; so I can load to a USB flash drive to play in my car.

Thanks!

Like i said before, nothing is "in" iTunes. iTunes is to music as Word is to word processing documents - its a program you use to open the file. so similarly to how your documents aren't in MS word so much as you use word to view them.

that being said, if the music you want to put on a USB drive is music you 'added' to iTunes as an MP3 then that MP3 file is just sitting on your computer, and you can do anything you want with it.

The easiest way to get to the file you want to copy is to open iTune, find the song you want to copy to your USB drive, right click it, and click Show in Windows Explorer. It will open an explorer window with the song selected.

[newglockster]

^^^ That helps - thanks!