How to stop the wrong album covers appearing on downloaded music

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Level 1

8 points

How to stop the wrong album covers appearing on downloaded music

After downloading Mp3 files with similar album cover artwork, Apple Music groups them into separate, but similar albums. When viewed in finder, the album names seem identical. How can I move them into a single album?

I have tried via the "get info" tab for each file, highlighting and deleting the artwork, and making sure the artist, album name, etc are identical, and the same for the album folder itself. But the files are still divided into separate albums. When the artwork is deleted from all the files in the album, the album art goes blank for a moment and then re-appears. I have selected "disable Apple Music" under apple music/preferences/restrictions. I have unchecked "Keep files organized" under music/preferences/files. Why does the artwork continue to re-appear and create separate albums and how can I control which album holds the files? Thank you.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.13

Posted on Apr 30, 2020 9:48 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

rma57 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 1, 2020 1:00 PM in response to rose_10

Yes, this problem was as you described. Downloaded files purchased outside of iTunes/Apple Music, and viewed in the Music App. Thanks for the link. It was somewhat helpful. I changed the names of the similar albums to distinguish them as 1 and 2, then went through the files and individually changed them to album 2 using the Get Info tab. The album 2 artwork displayed was unchanged until reaching the last file. When that last file was assigned to album 2, the displayed album 2 artwork changed (to the wrong artwork). I then reassigned all the other files back to album 1. When only the suspect file was left in album 2, I deleted the artwork from that file's Get Info tab, and was then able to assign it to album 1 without it affecting the artwork displayed for album 1. Previously, any changes to the album artwork using that album's Get Info tab were replaced automatically with the artwork from that one file, and attempts to delete the artwork using that specific file's Get Info tab were only effective for a moment, before the deleted artwork re-appeared in both the file's, and the album's cover. Apparently some prioritization occurs automatically when files have different artwork within an album. All of this occurs with the Music/Preferences/Advanced/Automatically Detect Artwork options Unchecked. But the problem appears to be fixed, so thank you for the help.

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Answer 2

rose_10

Community Specialist

May 1, 2020 12:18 PM in response to rma57

Hey there rma57,

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. It sounds like you’re having some issues with the way Music is organizing your albums and artwork.

Just to clarify, this issue is happening with MP3’s downloaded from another source than Apple Music, correct? Apple Music is a subscription service while Music is the app you play songs in on your Mac. If you don’t subscribe to Apple Music, you may need to update the artist and album info for the songs you’ve downloaded and then update the artwork after this. To do this, select all the songs that belong in one album, then choose Song > Info from the Mac menu bar. This will allow you to edit the info for multiple items ensuring all the data is correct. This link has more info:

Change song and CD information in Music on Mac

Another great way to organize your music is using playlist. Take a look at this link for more details:

Organize playlists in folders in Music on Mac

Let me know if this helps.

Regards.

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How to stop the wrong album covers appearing on downloaded music

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