Import iTunes library into clean installation of Catalina

MattB89 wrote:

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.

The issue here is that the XML likely refers to the tracks being on some old path, e.g. /Users/<User>/Music/iTunes/.... whereas the files are currently at /SDCard/iTunes/... and thus not where the XML says they should be. You can potentially perform a search and replace operation with the XML file so that its file references match the current paths to the files you want to import.

tt2

oh my I deleted this old xml file because I had my 'library' on my Synology-NAS. That had an app called ITunes server and all songs were in iTunes on my computer.

Because of this, and the fact that the file was very old I deleted it some time ago. Why can't I just simply import the whole bunch?

Well it seems a good time to say goodbye to the Apple music app.

So I copied my Itunes media folder in its entirety and pasted into the music folder in Catalina. Clicked option upon opening the music app and selected the file called "iTunes Library.itl". All playlists work.

Many thanks! This worked! I struggled in so many, many ways to get my playlists to load, trying a lot of other suggestions off the web. And this finally worked!

One little detail that may help others, and that wasn't immediately clear to me from the above: First you have to go into your old iTunes (in my case, on another laptop), and go to File > Library > Export Library. I put that on my iCloud, and then went in to Music and followed the instructions above. (The file that iTunes exported was simply called Library.xml in my case.)

This saved me so much work. Thanks again!

Hi,

i tested Catalina on my test Mac Book Pro and have the same issue, my Library dont migrate to the new music app.. Only purchased sources i will see.. The old Library not migrated to the new Music App. With my iTunes (antoher Mac) will running my library without any errors.

I take the same solution (Import Playlost from XML File..)

I Think Apple not interested any solution for this issue.. My used Running IMAC still standing on older OSX 1.14. for al long time,propably...

...

Wow, me too!

I upgraded to Catalina and signed up for Apple Music then my music that was on an external drive just "disappeared".

Only part of the songs that are in my "Music" play.. the other songs pop up a notice to find the location for the song and it is nowhere to be found.. its like they were wiped from my system.

I just finished ripping 200 CD's from my collection into my iMac and donated them before I move.. now I only have 700 of 1800 songs in my library..

I'll be watching this thread.

hey, and thank you turingtest2.

the tracks that were playable I did find migrated into the default folder.

I just finished clicking and downloading each song manually and now I am awaiting with the hope that they'll be in there.

Thank you Snowdog212 for sharing what worked for you. VERY glad you saved your music! I'm not super pleased with Apple Music changing my file types but I too did they fix you did and managed to get a lot of my music. The rest (about 1900) I manually re-downloaded as quite a few were songs I've recorded in Logic that had disappeared. Wow what a strange experience!

~Oldfiz

"backup, backup, save save"

I, too, have this issue. I've tried everything I could think of to to avail. Tonight I finally broke down and called Apple technical support.

The representative I spoke with initially suggested changing the "Music Media folder location" under Preferences > Files to be the iTunes Media folder from my old iTunes folder structure, which I copied to my Mac after installing Catalina. On the first attempt I got an error along the lines of "required file not found". I did a reboot, tried again, and was able to select the folder. Sadly, upon closing Preferences and restarting the Music app, still none of my music was showing up in the app.

I also tried the Option+Click method when opening the Music app and pointing to my old iTunes Library file. Like Orestes Chouchoulas above, I received an endless loop of the dialog box opening again after selecting the file.

Eventually, the representative suggested I go to File > Import and select the folder that contained my music files from the old iTunes folder structure. For me, that was iTunes > iTunes Media > Music. In doing so, the Music app did import all the songs from my iTunes library, and indeed this may be enough for some. This solution did not, however, import Playlists or carry over any library metadata like the original Date Added, Rating, etc. At this dead end, it would seem Orestes Chouchoulas' solution above – (In the Music app, go to File → Library → Import Playlist… then navigate to your old iTunes folder and select the iTunes Music Library.xml file) – would be better.

The most interesting thing I gleaned from my call was that migration of iTunes libraries to the Music app happens seamlessly and automatically when upgrading from previous versions of macOS to macOS Catalina. Unfortunately, it seems those of us who prefer to do a clean install were not considered. I asked the representative if there are plans to release a migration tool for those of us who did a clean install and, unsurprisingly, he said no.

So, my next course of action is to copy my iTunes library to a Mac running a previous version of macOS and then do any upgrade to Catalina. With any luck, after install I'll have a copy of my iTunes music migrated to the new Music app folder structure. From there, I can copy the files to my own Mac. Cumbersome, no doubt, but as of now I see it as the only potential way to do a true migration of my library.

Yes, my library did the same. One thing I did notice was by leaving Apple Music/iTunes open overnight it did sync quite a bit of music. But my main problem arose from having my music in an external hard drive.

I do recommend looking at the activity window in "Music" as it does seem to keep you informed of what it's doing behind the scenes.

I do wish you luck on your music library recovery/rediscovery!

`Oldfiz

I just recently purchased a new 16' MacBook Pro and was having the exact same issue (with exact same results from troubleshooting) as Orestes on the original post. I finally got 95% of my desired end result by doing the following:

Consolidation

In iTunes on my original machine (MacBook Air), I consolidated files being sourced from outside my iTunes folder (if any) by clicking File > Library > Organize Library... > Consolidate Files > OK

File Transfer from Old MacBook Air (iTunes) to New MacBook Pro (Apple Music)

I copied my entire iTunes folder from the original machine to a flash drive (iTunes folder was located in Users > MyName > Music > Media > iTunes) which took about 20 minutes to copy for ~32gb worth of music.

I inserted the flash drive into the new machine and copy/pasted the entire iTunes folder into my new Media folder (Users > MyName > Music > Music > Media).

Automatically Add to Music Folder

The iTunes data I brought over contained a folder called "Automatically Add to Music" - I took all the other content in the folder and put it into this folder so my new file path is: /Macintosh HD/Users/MyName/Music/Music/Media/Automatically Add to Music - this was per a suggestion earlier in this thread. I made sure it was linked to this path by clicking Music > Preferences > Files > Change... and selected the "Automatically Add to Music" folder from the finder window.

Doing this brought over all my songs (with some duplicates, but nothing major) into the Apple Music search/song/artists libraries. However, my playlists were still not showing.

Import Playlist

Per Orestes' suggestion, I took the File > Library > Import Playlist approach and selected the iTunes Music Library.xml file as well within my iTunes folder on my FLASH DRIVE - this is important because for some reason after I added these files from the transfer above into the "Automatically Add to Music" folder, the xml file as well as the iTunes Library.itl file disappeared; I was able to just use the xml from my flash drive and it worked fine. That said, I believe this xml file was created after the consolidation (?) - please correct me if that is not the case. Regardless, I now had that file and was able to click it to import the playlist.

All of a sudden all my playlists came over with about 98% accuracy - for some reason 2-5 songs from each playlist were missing but I went through one by one and added them, as they had made it through the migration. All my metadata though was now showing "01/20/20" (today) as the date added. The music which was bought from the iTunes Store would show all the correct metadata regarding original song release date, etc. but the information from my MacBook Air would essentially be overwritten by this migration.

Hopefully this was helpful - I didn't exactly document as I was going since I was working on this for about 4 hours today trying various tactics, but what I did above worked for me! Good luck folks; hopefully they properly patch this at some point.

Prety sure you have moved on since, but i found a solution to move my library correctly.

-Use Retroactive App (https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive) to install and run iTunes on Catalina.

-Duplicate your old iTunes folder juste in case you screw up.

-Open your freshly installed iTunes holding the option key and chose the library from the iTunes folder you just copied.

-Go to File>Library>Organize Library...

-Clic on Reorganize files in the folder "iTunes Music"

Once iTunes have done processing you should be able to import your library in the new Music app

Ironically, I ended up migrating my iTunes library to my Windows desktop. I’m curious about your method, though. I’ll probably attempt to duplicate in the near future. If I do, I’ll report back! Cheers.

@Snowdog212,

You are my hero because (1) you solved the problem and (2) you have 153,263 songs.

By the way, I was using Mojave 10.14.6 and iTunes 12.8.2.3

Have you considered posting your solution as a User Tip? I've seen many questions that were be answered by your advice.