Filtering Apple Music in Catalina by Genre or Album

The new Music app looks pretty, but that's all it has going for it.

Urgent To-Do List for Apple Devs

• Restore operable SEARCH functionality within playlists. This new search bar is hollow and wildly discouraging to users with large libraries who diligently sort their playlists.
• When updating my iCloud Library, I'm still prompted to click "File > Library > Turn Off Genius," despite no such button existing. Either create the button or eliminate this bug. It has afflicted many users since 2016.
• Respect DJs & power users who OWN their music. Maintain the functionality we depend on. Quit pushing streaming down our throats. Music feudalism isn't for everyone.
• Make the iTunes Store accessible. Apple Music files are protected, and thereby incompatible with DJ software. Restore the ability to PURCHASE & OWN songs.

Hope this finds its way to the right people.

Hang in there everyone.

I just spent 1 hour 55 minutes on the phone with Apple advisors, none of whom had Catalina or the new Music app on their work station. The third advisor screen-shared with me. We looked at multiple search functions that are no longer available in the new Music app, including the weak filter option discussed in this thread. The advisor agreed that, by comparison to iTunes, Music has been significantly hobbled, and suggested that I make a suggestion to Apple because, in his mind, they have to return the search and cross-referencing functions that worked so well in iTunes to Music. But the bottom line was that, according to the advisor, there is no way of getting back the kind of control/filtering we had in iTunes (yet). To be clear: the hidden Filter Field that has to be "shown" is virtually useless. I hate Music, and I hate that my ability to enjoy my music collection has been halved. The inability to use the Search function across the 5 limited categories under Library isn't just bad, it is infuriating, unnecessary, and among Apple's worst decisions.

I am not an Apple Music subscriber so I can only comment on local music library management and navigation.

The top bar is gone, and the filter is not a real replacement. You can still edit the sidebar view and check "Genre" to have all genres to peruse. What is even more annoying is the fact that it doesn't have any next and previous view buttons and your song selection is not maintained when switching between artist, album, song etc views. It's again a bare bone app after all the years of building a music collection. I assume it is more streamlined to function as an Apple Music app. It's nothing new that useful library features are removed for making all apps on all devices look and feel the same.

I do not subscribe nor plan to subscribe to Apple Music. I disabled it in the the Preferences/Restrictions in the app. I am a DJ who also hosts trivia. I rely on on specific search criteria in music and have lost most of that with this new update. There's no way to do a simple word search with the results in a "view as songs format"...and then arrange the results by time, artist, name, etc. You cannot search within a playlist. When searching for the word "itch", it will only display songs or artists with that exact word and not "switch" or "twitch". This is very frustrating and I hope Apple brings back this basic search criteria.

To AdamBritt22... great list. However, understand that Apple generally does NOT read the feedback on this or any other part of this forum. You are only talking to other frustrated Mac users. To communicate your feedback to Apple, you need to use their Product Feedback site: https://www.apple.com/feedback/

Please do so...

I'm in the same boat, I agree with all your points except one; the iTunes Store is still available in Music, go to Preferences/General and select "Show iTunes Store" and it will appear in the sidebar. Also, right click menu still shows "show in iTunes Store" which works without having the sidebar view option. Nevertheless, Music app is dumbed down to function with Apple Music subscription and little regard is placed on managing and using large local libraries. I submitted feedback to Apple already, be aware that there is no specific Music feedback selection yet (still under macOS apps/iTunes). www.apple.com/feedback

Fully agree. This Filter Field is very limited as it includes all results without a filter. Just use it in any sidebar view, like Album view, then actually select a resulting album which brings you to the single album view with a back button, once you hit that one you are not back at the filter result view but back at Album view with no selection and the Filter field disappeared. What's the point of a filter if you can't manage the results? Then try the word 'pop' which selects anything with the word pop including Genre but again you don't know WHAT was selected because as soon as you select an individual result you can't go back to your result view. Who tested this?

Luckily I run Catalina off a USB stick to be able to test drive it. And at this point Music App is no replacement for iTunes if you have a large music library and you enjoy perusing your music library, creating playlists and search for themes. I am a radio DJ at a tiny local station and rely on being able to navigate and filter my library easily which is simply not possible in the current version of Music app.

Please leave feedback at www.apple.com/feedback. There is no designated Music App feedback form yet, so I use iTunes feedback and clearly state it is for Music app in Catalina.

Please go to www.apple.com/feedback and repost your feedback. I fully agree that this Music App was not designed to manage and peruse large music libraries. What’s even worse is the new podcast app which simply is a standalone player and viewer. At least keep music and podcast management together as I like to use combined playlists and the ability to create podcasts within iTunes. That’s gone.

I tried on my mac as I use the filter criteria quite extensively as well. It worked for me (atleast for Genre), not sure why it didn't work for you? There are still couple of other bugs though.

1. I try filtering on basis of year. As soon as I type 19, I get only handful of songs in the list though there are many-many songs. In Itunes, it showed the entire list of songs related to year 19xx (xx = 00 till 99).
2. The filter disappears once you move from option "Songs" in Library to "Artists" in Library or to any other option. This is really bad. Why the software removes filter when you toggle around and specially when it is (hard) set by the user? It wasn't the case in Itunes.

I am surprised how Apple could miss testing these basic things in the OS even before releasing Catalina to the users !

Here is the answer, as simple as hovering over LIBRARY in left sidebar, clicking edit and selecting GENRE

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250727095

Happy with separating TV, PodCast and Music. But other than that, the new music app is very hard to use:

• We need the browse function back
• Library

- Song list view is horrible, like using Bloomberg terminal with dark mode. Please being back the Always show Album option.

- Album artist choice added would be good

• Devices: feel free to remove it, if all it is showing list of songs but if you can't do anything with it

The new "Music" is still itunes-ish... but the search (amongst other things) is a MESS and NOT GOOD :

1. You scroll down your list of playlists and the search stays up there... common man, a search bar should AWAYS be visible !
2. Unable to see search results via song/browser list anymore... you only get a "gallery" of songs and you can't change/select the columns (so, I can't see my star reviews that help me find what I'm looking for so quickly) --- EDIT --- just saw about the Filter Field (CMD+SHIFT+F) in the View Menu, you can use that but will have to TRIGGER it every time... oh boy :(
3. You can't select multiple tracks in that search (which comes up as a Album view as soon as you select the right track), and drag and drop... which makes organising via search basically impossible... Jesus !!!! :(
4. You used to be able to start playing a playlist by double clicking on it... that's gone too...

APPLE : Please... Stop FORCING people to have a Apple-Music-Purchased library that looks the way you want it to. Music is freedom, and some of us have been sorting / compiling our music librairies for YEARS... We love and need our music, we need to have the freedom to organise/manage it properly... It's like when you removed the ratings on the iPhone "music" app : what the **** ?!?

Solution: (1) In left sidebar choose: 'Songs' from Library.

(2) Next, navigate to the top bar and choose 'View' then 'Show Filter Thread'.

(3) A filter field appears on right side. You'll now be able to search via Genre as previously in iTunes app.



To underline your observations, which are correct and infuriating, I've also discovered that the "new" Search results window (which is designed to mirror Apple Music results on an iOS device) produces totally incorrect and inaccurate results. I did a search for a band name; the Search results ostensibly show all the places that band appears. Yet it failed to list all the albums; it showed only one playlist (the band appears in many playlists); it produced exactly one music video, despite the fact that my library contains around 40 music videos, some of which were purchased on iTunes and others which were downloaded from Apple Music. So in addition to producing poor results in an unwelcome and unnecessary format, the Search results are wrong. It's a disaster that forces me to filter & or scroll through every song in my entire collection using the Songs view. Poor, poor work, Apple.