iTunes + Dropbox = Totally kickass

Posted by matt on Dec 5, 2010 in Blog | 3 comments

 

I need to put my music in the cloud using Dropbox, this is how to do it.

In a previous post I pointed out that I wanted to stop being reliant on local hard drives and try to push some of my files to the cloud. With new fangled tools like Dropbox it is becoming easier and easier. In this post I will show you how to make iTunes store it’s files in the cloud, rather than local storage. This article will have a Mac skew to it, but can be applied to PC’s too.

Sign up for Dropbox

First things first, you will need a Dropbox account to do this. The first 2gig is free, and you can get more storage if you refer friends. If you sign up with this link we both get a extra 250 mb. It’s real quick, and only asks for the most basic of info.

Install the Dropbox app

You will need to do this first thing. It sets up the folder on your computer to allow you to drop files to the folder that you wish to be synced.

Back it up girl

We are going to be mucking around with your iTunes in a pretty major way. If you are scared of losing anything, just read along, I won’t take responsibility for you losing your ratings or data.

Change the path of your iTunes library

Make a note of the existing location of your iTunes directory. Now change it to your new Dropbox folder, and add one called music.

Wipe out your existing music

I am reckless and just selected all my music and pressed delete. I did not delete the files themselves, just the data in iTunes.

Test with one or two albums

Drag and drop music from your old iTunes directory into the iTunes window. Make sure you have copy files to iTunes library enabled.

Now any song you drag into the itunes window will be copied up to the Dropbox location.

That’s it. Now marvel at your brilliance

Now all your music is stored in the cloud on Dropbox, and not a local drive.

Holy shit this uploads and downloads fast

Dropbox some some sort of fancy trickery in the background. If you upload a mp3, it looks on it’s servers for the exact same file, and mirrors it for you in your account. This means you can technically upload your entire Brittany Spears collection in a few SECONDS, not hours. This is just absolutely amazing. I have dropped a variety of weird things and they all uploaded abnormally fast.
Playback is equally fast. Music starts instantly and there is no discernible lag at all, even though the files are not local. Being an IT guy, this all blows my mind.

Anything else?

Have a computer at work or some other location? Do the same thing and voila, you have access to all your music from anyplace you can install iTunes. Super dope.

Sweet, I’m going to give this a try

Good deal. Use this link so you get an extra 250mb in storage space.

Keep in mind I did this in a rather destructive fashion as I wanted to clean out my music library.  If your ratings and import dates are important to you, this is certainly not the best way to do it.

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