Help! Tryin to automate organizing of music files but keep getting ~/Music/Music/Music ??

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Level 1

23 points

Help! Tryin to automate organizing of music files but keep getting ~/Music/Music/Music ??

Ok, this is driving me crazy. On a MacBook Pro and have the latest Catalina OS

MY GOAL >> Get my music files organized in one place that Music app prefers by default.

MY CHALLENGE >> My music files for some reason have been split into two locations and now somehow I've ended up a third location. Anytime I play a song, the file and its accompanying album and artist folder automatically re-generate and migrate into user/Music/Music/Music I'm pretty sure THREE music folders is not right.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?? >> Why in the world did they name the app "Music". It's confusing to see that in the directory and it makes it hard to follow directions when troubleshooting.

Below is a list of items, actions, settings that I am trying to understand so that I can properly follow directions and do so in the right order of operations. But it's so difficult to understand references to "music folder" vs "music media" folder vs "media" folder because those terms are now over-utilized within this eco-system.

THINGS THAT IM WORKING WITH

File> Organize Library

Consolidate files
Reorganize files in folder "Music"

Preference > Files

Music Media folder location: Currently set to ~/Music/Music (that's what online research tells me to do)
☐ Keep Music Media folder organized
☐ Copy files to Music Media folder.

File locations -

Music Library.musiclibrary file is within ~Music/Music/Media/
Artist folders (containing album folders contenting song tracks) are currently in ~Music/Music but when I play them, they move to ~Music/Music/Music
Note: I also have another folder of music files on my desktop that I want to consolidate but I'm not even going to attempt that until I fix the mess that is above.

Can anyone help?? and/or can someone just tell me how the directory should be?!?

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on May 16, 2020 1:37 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

turingtest2

Level 10

274,392 points

May 17, 2020 7:13 AM in response to thatmattdude

The default location for the Music media folder in Catalina is ~/Music/Music/Media. Typically you might also have a setting that results in music going to a further subfolder inside called Music with this being a legacy from iTunes where the media folder held different types of media. You've set the media folder too high and should reset it to ~/Music/Music/Media, consolidate the library (File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files) then remove the redundant copies of files in ~/Music/Music/Music.

tt2

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Answer 2

Teddy_B

Community Specialist

May 17, 2020 6:05 AM in response to thatmattdude

Hello thatmattdude and welcome to Apple Support Communities.

I see you are having some difficulty organizing music files.

When it comes to the "right" place for the media folder, there really is no right answer. As you likely noticed when working in Music > Preferences > Files, you can set that folder location to be anything you want it to be.

But in a case like this with music scattered in multiple locations, you may be better off turning off all of the organization options in Music > Preferences > Files and start by manually getting everything into a single folder. Then set that folder as the location that the app looks to first for music files.

Once you've done that, Relaunch Music whilst holding the Option key and you'll get an option to create or open a new Music library. Create a new one which will be empty. Then use the File > Import command to bring everything into the new library.

If you opt for this messages, there is a chance that not everything—notably, album artwork, play counts, etc.—will make the trip. To guard against that, make a backup copy of the .musiclibrary file before doing anything else.

Cheers.

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