Just figured I'd vent here a bit. Over the weekend I wiped out all my iTunes purchases on my Mac because apparently, if you move a folder with 1 name to a location with another folder of that same name, unlike in Windows (where it simply adds the contents of the incoming folder to the existing folder, and only overwrites in the event of a naming conflict), Mac OS completely wipes out the existing folder. So I ended up overwriting my current iTunes folder with an incoming iTunes folder that only had a couple songs in it .

Luckily after I asked nicely iTunes allowed me to redownload my purchases. I had a backup from July '07 anyways so all wouldn't have been lost, but I still bought a LOT of stuff between then and now .

I know not to do that again, but that does leave me with a bit of a question: how *DO* you go about combining the contents of two folders without overwriting everything? For a big nest of folders going into every one individually and dragging them out seems like it would be INCREDIBLY painful. I might just resort to using cp at the command line as the Unix commands don't behave that way (at least not on Linux - I'm at work and can't try it on a Mac right now ).

PS Other pet peeve - why is there no option to synchronize two computer's iTunes libraries? You can sync an iPod. You can sync an AppleTV. But syncing my two Macs or my PC's so that I have all my data stored in more than one place? Blashpemy!

just select all the contents of the folder and drag it inside the the other itunes folder. you might have a problem with the xml files though. the best way to share two iTunes libraries is to use Library sharing, in preferences.
BTW- you don't need to drag the icons individually, just use "Select All" or, on a PC control click to select multiple, on a Mac command click to select multiple.