Import iTunes library into clean installation of Catalina

I always open iTunes, go to settings and set the iTunes media folder in my external drive as the location of my iTunes library, and then import a folder, select the entire external folder and watch it go.

When it's finally done with that operation, I have all my iTunes stuff in my new install.

Thanks for documenting your process so well. I am going through the same headache.

I would have imagined that, since I actually pay for iTunes Match, the library would have just "appeared", like it does when you get a new iPhone and it syncs automatically. Obviously that's not the case.

Here's my twist on the problem: I added a PCIe SSD disk, onto which I installed a fresh Catalina. I left the other disk in, I'm copying all the parts I want to keep; that had Catalina as well. In its Music folder, there are both the iTunes library, and the Music library. The Music library copy did nothing at all. Trying to import it didn't work (error).

With your process, I tried not copying all the music files, but just one.

Music had identified my Purchases, so those were already present; I only copied ONE song, hoping to see the Ratings get copied. So I get a message saying "Some songs ween't imported cuz they couldn't be found" which makes sense.

I'm also getting all the Podcasts copied. All my playlists seem to be there. But no info for that song =-(

So I tried again. All the Podcasts are there again, my playlists are there twice!, but again no ratings for that song, or any of my Purchases for that matter.

Something's not working. Starting over. Deleted everything in the new Music. When I launch Music, everything is still there =O so it actually stores the info somewhere else. I'm going to have to try some things involving reboots.

Thanks for the help

Nothing. Weird.

So I try importing the entire OLD library. Now I get the Import bar. Perhaps I mixed up the formatting? No matter, when it ends, there are no additional files.

I notice another oddity. Between OLD Music and NEW Music, there's a difference of about 150 songs, for a total of 13 GB. That's too much memory. ...could these be all podcasts? No, because my old Music folder is 53.44 GB (it only includes the downloaded stuff), while Music thinks the library is only 50.05 GB.

I suppose I could copy all my files in the NEW correct locations, then import the files, and then handle the 7000+ dupes I'll end up with.

Not sure what else to try.

I copied my old iTunes folder to my new Mac, opened Music, Import, selected the iTunes folder itself (not a file or folder within it). Apple says that it will get everything in a folder, so I let it. Shortly, all my playlists and music were available in Music. This was from High Sierra to Catalina.

I've read through all of the responses and could have missed this (I apologize), but here's my situation:

iTunes Library (.itl and typical pre-Catalina file structure) created on Mac Mini 2018 in November 2018 on an external drive. Library and all files stored on external drive.

Mac Mini upgraded to Catalina in October 2019. New library is created in ~/Users/name/Music/Music/musiclibrary.musiclibrary (without my knowledge, just found this file after reading this thread). This holds 1.5 years worth of ratings and organizing my 1.28TB music library (mostly apple lossless files of CD Rips and albums downloaded from bandcamp and iTunes Store).

Get new 16" MacBook Pro in June 2020. Plug in external drive to new MBP and chaos ensues.

On new 16" MBP I've tried opening the .itl file (hold option, open Library from external drive), but this opens my iTunes library from just before upgrading to Catalina in October 2019. FYI, all of my iTunes purchased music from iTunes shows up in my Library as available to download.

Then, I find out about the new library file that my Mac Mini 2018 made and put that file on my external drive and transfered musiclibrary.musiclibrary to my new 16" MBP into the ~/Users/name/Music/Music/ folder. Upon opening it (option open Music), all of my ratings and playlists are syncing, with files in the correct location, but none of my artwork in showing up. If I Get Info on a single file, the artwork shows in the file properties, but no artwork shows when I play a song or view albums (like in Recently Added).

I'm fine with completely rebuilding my TV and Podcast Libraries, but I can't start over on Music. I've done it too many times and put in a lot of work rating songs and making playlists....but I also want my artwork to show up. Being able to just keep my music in a single folder on the external drive and my Library file either on the local drive or external drive, would be awesome.

I wrote this reply because most posts on this thread mentioned updating from a non-Catalina machine to a Catalina machine. My situation is a machine that converted itself to Catalina and then transferred to a machine that's known nothing besides Catalina.

Thank you for any responses!

I've also tried keeping my external drive with all of my music files plugged into the Mac Mini 2018 and accessing the music through a network Shared Library. This works pretty well, but I still have no artwork and I can't rate the songs when playing a network shared library, which is what I really want to do, rate and organize.

Just wanted to say THANK YOU! I've moved it from pc's to macs over the years by just copying the directory, but with this latest Macbook Pro 16 on Catalina it wouldn't work. But you just saved a 15 year old iTunes library but most importantly all my playlists :)

The solution posted above by Snowdog212 is the correct solution and better than the one marked as the solution in this thread. For anyone in the future who experiences this problem, you may encounter an error when trying to open the "iTunes Library.itl" file. If it says something about connected devices, turn off home sharing and media sharing in system preferences, then reboot your computer. After that, the directions posted by Snowdog212 solved the problem.

I have a large iTunes folder on my external drive. So it there now a simple way to migrate it into Catalina on my new MacBookPro, and keep all the playlists etc.?

Surely there must be a straightforward solution to this. Please?

Here is what I did, and it required some manual intervention. I have my iTune Library on it's own "iTunes Drive." Apple Music went ahead and created its Folders, and I halted the process early. Then I manually shifted all of my iTunes Artist / Compilation folders into the folder iTunes--the one normally found in HD/USER]/Music. I did not organize all of the files that directly, and many were bootlegs. Amazingly, I then told the new Music app to import simply the iTunes Folder on the iTunes Drive. Boy did that work. After about 1/2 hour, all the files were converted, they were better organized than I had them, and I am good to go! It was that simple. I lost absolutely nothing, and absolutely nothing was left out other than select Playlists that I created, which of course were made up of existing tunes. Essentially I could easily remake them.

To recap:

Place all of your music Folders, generally arranged by musician if not Compilations, into one Folder. Then have the new Music app Import that one Folder. And you are done. No XML files, no itl files, just raw data. Most of my music is ALAC or FLAC, and it worked flawlessly -- and the best part is that I had a TON of loose Beatles music and the new App even knew how to organize it -- i.e. by what album. It was that simple.

I've read your post fast but I hope I'm not off-topic: in my case the user name was not the same (and thus the path) so I just cmd+f the .xml open in Textedit and replaced all "//myusername/" occurrences with "//my.user.name" (in my case the new user name had dots compared to before). Cheers

Music could not find songs? -> Replace path in .xlm

I've read your post fast so I hope I'm not off-topic: in my case the account username (~/) was not the same, and thus the song paths in the .xml were different.

I just cmd+f the .xml (open in Textedit) and replaced all "//myusername/" occurrences with "//my.user.name" (in my case the new account username had dots compared to my previous one).

Note: it helps to place the whole iTunes Music folder beside the Music one so that you don't have to type all path, just the account username :). In case you do need to change the whole path, you can drag'n'drop your iTunes Music folder in Terminal to get the path.

Hope this helps others.

Cheers

Hey! This is amazing! Thank you. I’m stuck however. Could you please tell me what you mean by “where your actual audio files are”?

right now I have everything from my old library and it looks like my new downloaded stuff in the new folder. The only thing that is missing is newly created playlists.

thanks so much for your help and answer!! I was on the phone with Apple for a while, she couldn’t figure it out and then we were disconnected. So frustrating!

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

Found my answer here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250763617

I just copied my Artwork folder from inside APMArtwork, gave my machine and reboot, and there was all my art work :)