Import iTunes library into clean installation of Catalina

4.) After that, I held the ALT Button on the Keyboard and clicked on the Music app.

this leads to a window where you can pick a Library. sorry, no screenshots, as I am on the road, but I am sure we all know that window 🙂

5.) Pick the File you just renamed (Music Library) in the iTunes Folder and confirm. *

music.app will suggest to save a new Library called „music“. Just save this new Library and it should look like this:

You should now have all your music in your Library and all songs be playing in the app.

So what happened here is, that music.app actually changed the file paths of your music files. If you go to preferences of a song and click the file tab, it should direct exactly to the itunes Folder.

6.) make sure, that your music „home“ directory in music.app preferences is set right (your music Folder)...

now you should have the 90% solution. Everything is working and all songs are playing in the frontend, but in the backend there are still two libraries....

the itunes one from the past, and the music one from now on. So if you add a n ew Album or File (see the highlighted File in the screenshot from above „- - - - . .“ (or so...🙂) it is actually an album that was added after all those steps, and it proves that new library additions will go to the new library...

*Don‘t ask me why, but if you pick the itunes Library.itl the folder paths won‘t be adapted and you‘ll be left with dead links to your music path

It seems to have worked quite smoothly for me; I did it a couple of times because I wanted the "Media" folder to have a more accurate structure. Here's what I did.

First, I matched the OS and Music versions on both Macs: they were 10.15.7 for Catalina and 1.0.6.10 for Music. Then, I copied the "iTunes" folder to an external disk.

When upgrading to Music, it creates a new "Music" folder aside your original "iTunes" folder – in the "Music" directory. In this folder, it creates a new "Music Library" file, which you can ignore as you won't need it for the transfer.

Here's the initial look of the Music app before the procedure:

Also, I checked what the default path to the media was (as I will mention later, I did not alter it manually):

And here's what the "Media" folder initially contains:

My original iTunes folder on the external disk contains far more stuff:

I suspected that most of that was legacy, so I copied just two items: the "iTunes Media" folder and "iTunes Library.itl". I specifically moved them to the "Media" folder on the new Mac, because that's where I wanted the files to be:

The key to the whole thing – as I think I've found out to be – it is to delete the "Music Library" file before the next step (with extensions on it's "Music Library.musiclibrary") .

Next, as already described in this thread, I ran Music holding down the option key and hit "Choose Library...". I selected "iTunes Library.itl" from the "Media" folder.

Pay attention to the next step if you don't want to end up with extra folders, since this dialog doesn't feel to be working right:

Make sure you select "Music" with your cursor and type in "Media" under "Save As" – this is the way to work around this thing if you want the new library file to be saved to the root of the "Media" folder. It prompts you to overwrite "Media" as it already exists – agree to that.

If you choose to type in anything else, it will create a folder with the requested name and write the "Music Library" there – I didn't want that.

If you don't delete the original "Music Library" file – as I mentioned above, – the whole thing will not work (I assume this is what happened to the creator of this thread). It seems that the overwrite prompt is triggered by the name of the folder ("Media" in my case) and thus it doesn't get your permission to overwrite the "Music Library" file – hence the original library file remains.

Finally, I checked the path in "Preferences" once again:

I did not change this manually.

turingtest2 wrote:

For Catalina your media folder should really be ~/Music/MusicMedia, which is one level higher than shown in your last image. You could potentially tap that reset button, then turn Keep organized off and back on again to restructure the folder.

tt2

That's where I put the files following the process above – it was a conscious decision. It is okay to put it one level higher like you say. But I guess in this case you'll have to put the "iTunes Library.itl" one level higher as well before you run Music with the option key.

I did attach one screenshot wrong though (I can't edit my post any longer). This is what the content of my original "iTunes" folder was:

When you deleted the ~/Music/Music folder did you also empty the trash? If not Music may still know to look for the previous file where it is currently living in the trash, and it may also "remember" upgrading the old iTunes library so it doesn't try to do it again. I can't seem to make that happen here but offhand it is the only thing I can think of.

tt2

I also have a very similar issue...

1) Backed up iTunes folder to external drive

2) Wiped HD and installed Catalina from USB

3) Opened Music app and used import option to import all files from back up

4) Files no exist in Music/Media/Music folder

5) Turned off Sync Library option as I do not want to sync c. 200GB of music

Result is that my library just shows a few purchase from iTunes and not my library which h I can actually see on disc.

6) If I then also try to create a playlist and add a track it seems t try and re-download it to my Music library. I'm not sure why this has got so much more complex.

Regarding 4) is Copy files... enabled under Music > Preferences > Files?

Regarding 5) do you have a subscription to either Apple Music or iTunes Match?

You could potentially access the old library by holding down option as you launch Music, clicking Choose Library... and browsing to the iTunes Library.itl file in your old iTunes folder on the external drive.

tt2

4) Odd. They should have been imported unless Music > Preferences > Files has the copy files option turned off.

5) Normally you'd want your entire iCloud Music Library available unless you were testing things. In such a case you'd be better connecting to the original library rather than importing media into a new one, which requires everything to be reconciled with what is already in the cloud.

tt2

Oh my, thanks for pointing this out! I also still have music from a previous sync on my phone and will therefore probably not update for the time being... This is heavily annoying and I can’t imagine that Apple wanted / wants it to be this way. Asking myself when someone official will reply...

Wow. This worked for me.

"You could potentially access the old library by holding down option as you launch Music, clicking Choose Library... and browsing to the iTunes Library.itl file in your old iTunes folder on the external drive. "

recovered all my playlists. thanks a lot for this.

RJ

macbook 2012

Thank you for your thread so far, it has been very useful trying to help me migrate into the Music app. Unfortunately I'm still a little stuck so hope you guys can help. I can get all my old playlists but it will not drag the music files themselves along and says it can't find them.

I have an old iTunes library folder structure from a windows PC from late 2017. (Ever since then I've been using Spotify and haven't really touched my iTunes as I haven't had a personal laptop.) I recently got a an old Mac from a family member so thought id import my old iTunes library into it but stupidly updated to Catalina before doing so.

I currently have a subfolder on my SD card which has a few files including:

SD Card/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml

SD Card/iTunes/iTunes Media/(hundreds of artists)

Even from a clean Music app (including bin emptied) if I point the directory at 'iTunes Media' and then import playlists it won't drag across the music but will take a load of empty playlists with an error message saying can't find songs.

Would you mind telling me your subfolder names, maybe its a simple misnaming?

Thank you,

After a few more hours trying it turned out it was as simple as moving the entire media library into the new folder called 'Automatically Add to Music' on the main Mac Drive rather than my SD card.

Doing this alongside importing the playlists as previously solved by Orestes sorted my entire mess out.

Located: Users/(name)/Music/Music/Media/Automatically Add to Music

I thought rather than delete my comment though I'd leave it up here incase anyone gets halfway through like I did and needs that last little bit of info to get over the line.

Hey Matt , thanks for sharing! This sounds interesting!

I looked for the folder and it appears that I actually have it thrice on my macbook.

~/Music/Automatically Add to Music

~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Automatically Add to Music

~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Automatically Add to Music

This looks a bit different from your setup and I am wondering now which folder I should move my "entire media library"? And, what exactly do you mean by "entire media library"? Would this be just the music contained in ~/iTunes Media folder or the whole old iTunes folder, i.e. including the library files?

Happy to discuss!