Transfering Your iTunes Library from OSX to Windows 8

This post is not about localization, but it is about something that I was able to do because of my experience as a localization engineer, manipulating files and editing XML.

We recently purchased a desktop with the Windows 8 operating system, in part to replace her pre-Intel iMac.

Now, there are guides to transfer your iTunes library from Mac to Mac. There are guides to transfer your library from Windows to Mac. But, as far as I can tell, there are no guides to transfer your library from Mac to Windows.

I was able to do it, without losing any information about the playlists or play count, etc.* This is how.

This guide was inspired by this guide and this guide, but mostly the first one.

Dale's Guide to Transferring your iTunes Library

Step 1: Transfer your files.
Follow parts 1 and 2 in that first link. This will get all of your music and videos, as well as the database and XML files that contain the information about your library, and put them on an external drive. I used an external hard drive that connects via USB.

Step 2: Make sure iTunes is set up on your new computer.
Download iTunes and open it. Then close it. That's it.

Step 3: Back up the XML file from your new computer.
In your iTunes folder, on your new computer, locate "iTunes Music Library.xml". Copy it somewhere, like your desktop.

Step 4: Rename your old iTunes music folder, inside the iTunes folder to match the new one.
Go to your external hard drive and change the name of your music folder, if needed. On our new computer, it's "iTunes Media". It was something like "iTunes Music Library" or something like that before.

Step 5: Get the file extensions right.
First, make sure to turn on viewing file extensions. Then, locate 3 files inside your old iTunes folder. They will be named "iTunes Library Extras.itdb", "iTunes Library Genius.itdb" and "iTunes Library.itl". On our Mac, one of them was missing the file extension. Add it if needed.

Step 6: Copy the files over.
Copy your files from your external drive to your new computer. Respond "Yes" to any prompts you may get to replace files.

Step 7: Edit the XML.
Do not get overwhelmed. That XML just contains all of the information about your library. No big deal. (Besides, if you mess it up, you have the old one backed up on your old computer and your external hard drive. You backed up your new one in Step 3).

To do this, open a text editor. Not Notepad. Anything but Notepad. Mac uses a different way to represent a new line, and Notepad will display everything in one line. Use Notepad++, or copy the text into Google Docs, or something. Compare the first several lines between your new one (that you backed up in Step 3) and your old one. There are two lines that are important to change in your old one:

<key>Application Version</key><string>x.x</string>
Change this to the version of iTunes in your new XML file. Our version is 10.7

<key>Music Folder</key><string>file://localhost/<file Location></string>
Your old one will have a Mac location. Copy the line from your new one and paste it to replace your old one.

Everything from "Major Version" to "Music Folder" should match the new, backed-up file. Don't change anything below or above that. After you're done editing, save.

Step 8: Open iTunes.
You're done!

* Full disclosure: There were 8 tracks that did not transfer, because apparently the path was too long. They were all from the same album - an audio book. We'll manually transfer them over later. Still, 8 tracks out of almost 2,000 isn't bad. Also, this guide should work for transferring from Windows to Windows as well.

Source Files

As localization professionals, we appreciate it when our clients are considerate of what we need to better serve them. One of the ways that they can show this consideration is by providing source files for whatever they want translated.

What are source files? They are files that are saved locally to our drives that can be easily edited either in their native program or in the translation memory tool that we choose to use.

Some examples of non-source files:

• Images (GIF, JPEG, PNG...)
• PDF files
• Web site URLs (or YouTube URLs for videos)

Some examples of source files:

• Source image files (Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator)
• DTP source files (Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Quark)
• Source web files (HTML, PHP)

Non-source files are meant for viewing. There's nothing wrong with them, but they are not meant to be edited or localized. Source files are meant for editing and generating the non-source files. They are what we need in order to localize content in the most effective manner possible.

Holidays

After more than 5 months of absence, I'm back with a renewed determination to share what interesting tidbits of information about localization I can with the world.

This weekend, as many of you know, is Easter weekend. In the US, it generally means Easter eggs, the Easter bunny, etc. In several other countries, however, it means at least a three-day weekend, as many predominantly Christian countries have Good Friday as a holiday. Some also have Thursday and/or Monday off.

What does that mean to the localization professional? Well, while localization is more than translation, translation is still a key component of localization. If you take translation out of the equation, you're out of luck. And if you try to find a freelance translator in a country where a holiday is widely celebrated by doing anything but working... you may be out of luck.

It's key to let your clients know, as soon as you do, when international holidays are coming up that may delay delivery time for some of their usual languages. It's also key to communicate with any international resources that you may work with, to see which major holidays they have that might affect their availability. As always, it's important to maintain reasonable expectations, and to set reasonable expectations for your clients.