Moving my iTunes library from old Windows laptop to my MacBook Air

My iTunes library and all the media files are stored on an external hard drive. Nearly 4TB of it.

I’ve been using iTunes on a HP Envy Windows 10 laptop, by just plugging in the external hard drive, and clicking on the iTunes icon.

My HP Envy has just died.

How do I use the external hard drive with the iTunes library & media folders on my MacBook Air? Is it not as simple as plugging it in and hey presto?

I keep seeing mentions of ‘consolidating files’ & ‘copying to music folder’. This doesn’t mean much to me, and searches online all give different answers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.