Import iTunes library into clean installation of Catalina

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!

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.

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!

Had the same problem, but finally resolved with Apple Tech Support.    The key was in how you open the MUSIC app.    Hold down the OPTION key while opening the MUSIC app.    You will see a dialog box.   Pick the option "Choose Library".     Now, navigate to your ITL file (not XML) for the old iTunes database you want to import and double click it.  The MUSIC app will then ask you to Save this as a new Music Library.  Give it a different name than your other library(s).    Pick a location etc.    Once that is done, you still have one final step - to change the default directory of your actual music files.  Go to MUSIC preferences, select Files directory, and change it to where your actual audio files are.    MUSIC app will then ask you to organize, click YES.   This took 2 hours to do on my iTunes database (153,263 songs, library size 8.4 TB).   I was originally on Sierra 10.12.6 using iTunes 12.8.2.3.

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"

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.

Glad it helped! Drove me nuts for a while...... Yes, 153,263 songs LOL! I've been using Mac since the Mac Plus days back in the mid 80's. So it's quite a few CD's over the years! No, I'm not really familiar with how to do the user tip thing. Feel free to share or post anything from what I posted here. Just trying to help.

Hi all,

Thanks for all the given solutions, i just upgraded to Catalina and ran into the same problems discussed here.

I will soon implement the solutions, but i also discovered another issue and i wonder if you experience this too, but maybe this wil work after implementing the solutions you given.

The "help" of Music app says you can simply drag and drop new music files into the opened windows of the music app, but when i drag a music file from my desktop to the opened music app, nothing happens, you can see the file is returning to the desktop.

So it seems that drag and drop of music files is also not working?

I'm going to watch the relies on this because it's where I was at to an almost exacting story! Sorry my response isn't helpful, as I manually downloaded every single song I had. It's all backed-up and "doubled" like yours and I'm looking forward to the community response as to a possible Vulcan Mind meld of the libraries.

Hey unusualroutine,

thanks for adding your solution.

I share your concern about divided music folders and will love to know if you find a solution for this issue. So will I do in return if I come across a solution earlier. :)

This confuses me, though.

Doesn’t it mean you doubled all your music files twice?

First by creating a new library (as described in your solution path further above under 4./5.: “… will take some time …”), second by dropping the “iTunes Media” folder onto the Music Mediathek on the app’s GUI (as shown in your picture above: “… which took quite some time …”)?

Thanks, unusualroutine.

This is expansive and well documented.

Two comments:

1) According to your screenshot at step 1 you didn’t move the complete iTunes folder to the Music Folder but NEXT TO the Music folder. It shows clearly that „iTunes“ and „Music“ appear on the same hierarchy.

All other steps afterwards seem clear to me.

2) Your process of “melting” the libraries by dragging the iTunes Media folder onto the Musik GUI “Mediathek” (not the iTunes GUI, as you’ve mistyped ;) …) is a really weird idea (did you find out yourself?) but if it works – well then, I’ll give it a try.

Since my library is almost 500 GB big (and stored externally, too, for a while but this sucks) my steps of migrating my music lib should be well-thought …

Thanks again!

Alright, alright.

Seems to work properly — except that I probably won’t be able to double my library on my SSD. I will just run out of space, I guess? At least if there’s happening a real duplication — which I can’t verify yet since there is no new media/music folder been created in “Music” (or elsewhere in the folder “Musik” above of it).

Do you remember how long it took for your 300 GB lib, this activity “Dateien hinzufügen” (adding files) after dropping the iTunes Media folder onto “Musik”s “Mediathek” in the sidebar?