Catalina Apple Music doesn't play previous iTunes content, only an Apple Music copy if it exists?

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Catalina Apple Music doesn't play previous iTunes content, only an Apple Music copy if it exists?

I understood that in Catalina the big change with iTunes is breaking up into multiple apps. But if I'm understanding how this REALLY works, there's just the implementation of the Apple Music app and all of the functionality to play your existing music content is gone...unless you want to hunt through a Finder directory to locate a song and play it in the finder or a third party app. It appears you can no longer play your music that you previously ripped from your CD collection - unless there happens to be a copy of that song in Apple Music. I have hundreds of songs that don't exist in Apple Music and now it appears they are lost unless I happen to know a particular song and go search for it. There's no way to know what songs are now missing.

Am I understanding this correctly? If so, this is horrible.

Posted on Oct 8, 2019 11:04 AM

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Answer 1

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crofford Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 9, 2019 10:07 PM in response to crofford

Here is what I discovered. Not sure if it was an install error or the normal process. These files WILL play in the new Music app and TV app. None were copied/moved from the old iTunes library during the Catalina install. And because none were in the new Music library or TV library then none of the controls for the associated data showed up in the interface. I was able to copy files over, but previous iTunes metadata was lost. The biggest problem is searching through a 20,000 song/movie directory and finding all of the non-matched or non-purchased songs, memos, dvd rips, etc. I restored a backup onto another Mac that's not upgraded to Catalina so I can more easily search via the iTunes interface instead of file directories.

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Answer 2

LifeStar

Level 1

24 points

Oct 9, 2019 8:05 PM in response to crofford

I don't have an Apple Music subscription as I allowed it to expire months ago. I'm still able to play the library music that I've ripped long ago. Maybe there is a setting to play music from library by default?

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