iTunes has a (deservedly) bad reputation for taking total control of your music and videos, including where they live on your computer. It wasn't always easy to move your library in past versions of the software, but happily iTunes 7 makes relocating an existing media library pretty painless - that is, with a little know-how. Here's how to get it done.

WARNING! Before you do this, back up your iTunes library files. This method isn't the official one published by Apple - theirs still keeps iTunes' internal database files in the default location - so make sure you've got a full backup before you begin in order to avert possible iTunes disaster. Thank you.

Change your settings. First, in iTunes' Preferences panel, in the Advanced section, make sure "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" is checked, as well as "Keep iTunes Music folder organized." Then, in the "iTunes Music folder location" area, click on the Change... button, and enter the folder on your external drive you want to move your library to.

Hint: Store your music in a subdirectory of the destination. Like, if your new spot is D:\iTunes\Gina\, set your music folder to D:\iTunes\Gina\Library\.

Move your music. Now that you've set the music location to the destination folder, it's time to relocate the actual media files. iTunes can do it for you. From the Advanced menu in iTunes, choose "Consolidate Library." You'll get a prompt that looks like this:

That is exactly what you want, so hit the Consolidate button. Depending on how large your library is, this process may take some time to complete.

Move the internal iTunes files. Now that your music is moved to the new location, you're almost there. While the actual media files themselves are now in the destination, a few other internal iTunes database files and album artwork images have been left behind. This move you must make manually. So, quit iTunes, and browse to your original library location. Select the "Album Artwork" folder, as well as the iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Library.xml files and copy them to clipboard. Browse to your new library location and drop 'em in.

Hint: here's where that music sub-directory you created comes in handy. If your music lives in D:\iTunes\Gina\Library\, drop these files and folder into D:\iTunes\Gina\.

Point iTunes to the new library database file. Now you've got two copies of your library, one in the source (internal drive) and one in the destination (external drive). To point iTunes to the new location, hold down the Shift key (Option on the Mac) when you launch iTunes. When it asks what library to use, click the "Choose Library..." button and browse to the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive.

From there, iTunes will use the new library location and you can delete your old library folder and free up all that space on your hard drive it hogged up.

Bonus: It's portable! Using this method, you can plug in your external hard drive to another computer (PC if you've got iTunes on Windows, or another Mac if on the Mac) and as long as it gets assigned the same drive letter, you can access your full library, with play counts, playlists and other metadata intact from anywhere. Booyah