Can I change the location of a song in Catalina Music?

Is it possible to tell my songs in Catalina's Music app the correct location if it has a wrong location? I have some songs copied to wrong directories. The original songs are where they belong, but the Music App sees some songs in a folder it created weirdly elsewhere.


Also, I have some songs that point to the a copied song instead of the original. I'd like to get rid of song1.m4a, but the music app is pointing there instead of the song.m4a in the same folder.



iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on May 17, 2020 6:46 PM

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Posted on May 27, 2020 12:39 AM

How big is the library? How much free space do you have? If possible you would reset the media folder to /Users/HBrazee/Music/Music/Media, use File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files to copy in everything, then delete all of the artist folders that are within /Users/HBrazee/Music/ but not in /Users/HBrazee/Music/Music/Media.


In a vanilla Catalina install ~/Music contains a single folder called Music, which in turn contains the only the package Music Library.musiclibrary and a folder called Media. All music connected to the library is inside Media.


tt2

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54 replies

May 26, 2020 8:10 AM in response to turingtest2

I got this:

File not found at:

/Users/HBrazee/Music/A-M Classical/Unknown Album/Moonlight Sonata, movement 1.mp3

File not found at:

/Users/HBrazee/Music/Jerome Kern/Show Boat/02 Cap'n Andy's Calliope.m4a

File not found at:

/Users/HBrazee/Music/Jerome Kern/Show Boat/05 Cap'n Andy's Ballyhoo.m4a


Then I hit [Cancel]


(!) Moonlight Sonata points to file:///Users/HBrazee/Music/Music/A-M Classical/Unknown Album/Moonlight Sonata, movement 1 1.mp3


Searching, I see that my hard drive does not have a file containing "Moonlight Sonata, movement 1" in its name. I may have lost that song altogether. I don't know how many songs I have lost.


So I ran the script again, selecting the 539 of 13,440 items with Artists starting with "A". I pressed "OK" 7 times before getting a script error that is too big to fit here. The script error starts with this:

Can’t make «class pLoc» of item 119 of {«class cFlT» id 65225 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63 of application "Music", «class cFlT» id 65226 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63 of application "Music", «class cFlT» id 65227 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63 of application "Music", «class cFlT» id 65228 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63 of application "Music", «class cFlT» id 65229 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63 of application "Music", «class

and ends with:

«class cSrc» id 63, «class cFlT» id 65559 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63, «class cFlT» id 72458 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63, «class cFlT» id 65560 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63, «class cFlT» id 72459 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63, «class cFlT» id 65561 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63, «class cFlT» id 72460 of «class cUsP» id 65222 of «class cSrc» id 63} to text


May 26, 2020 9:53 AM in response to howardfromlafayette

Sorry, I meant the cloud download icon that means the library is referencing a track that is stored only in the cloud rather than locally but with some cloud status issue. You can use View > Only Downloaded Music to exclude anything in the cloud. I've checked and that indeed causes the error. I should be able to trap the error if I can't find a way to avoid it.


Have you any thoughts on where the Show Boat album might be? In fact, now that I examine the screenshots what are the other details of that album? I'm expecting Album Artist to trump Artist. Your image suggests the script considers the artist to be Jerome Kern but the background suggests that perhaps it should be searching under Adolph Deutsch.


tt2

May 26, 2020 11:00 AM in response to turingtest2

I didn't find that folder in my Time Machine, but that's OK. It may have been deleted before I dropped my old Time Machine drive on the floor and had to replace it.


I was wondering why you had me select my music. Could you put the URL of FixLinks in a comment in the code (and in your reply)?


My wife wants me to go shopping right now. I cancelled the script after pressing OK 50 times for not found. I'll try again when I get back (or maybe try your newest version). (I saw that many of the rejections were in /music/compilations). Then I should run it again selecting /music/music?

May 26, 2020 3:19 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks. I ran the script:

13304 items were processed,

4630 items were updated,

375 items were not located,

8299 items needed no action.


I wish I had timed it. & I'm glad I told it not to tell me about each "not located". All I know is that it would have taken me weeks to do it. Maybe I should have compiled it. I had some trouble saving the script, but I think it saved now.


I then organized the library. The first two (!) songs were songs that EasyFind could not find. The next one is here:

The first is in the trash, the next two point to the same file. One of those has cloud status of "Uploaded" and one as "Duplicate". Interesting that they both have play counts.


After viewing "All Music", I see near the top of the alphabet:


What should my next steps do?

May 26, 2020 6:31 PM in response to turingtest2

I do see some duplicate songs pointing to the same file. So far, those that I have seen don't have a cloud status.


It should be quick and easy to select all of the songs with clouds and delete them from library. I saw a bunch of songs that had the download cloud icon and just downloaded.


I wish there was a way to keep my Christmas/Holiday music off of my Apple Music so that they didn't come up when I just tell my HomePod to play. But I may have to wait until Apple makes that system & Siri much smarter.


Right now my /music/music/ folder is much larger than my /music/ folder. I can tell because the scroll cursor is half as big.

What is the difference between these folders? They seem to be mostly different, but looked at an artist that was duplicated and saw the same album, but in /music/, that album had only one song, while in /music/music/, it had the rest of songs for that library.


Is there any way to consolidate those stories and albums?

May 27, 2020 5:52 AM in response to turingtest2

When I select "Songs", I see 13,440 items, 99.3 GB. But when I look at "music" with Finder, I see 75,142,020,709 bytes (75.28 GB on disk) for 16,782 items.

Music/music has 40,567,682,426 bytes (40.66 GB on disk) for 7,549 items.

My Music Media folder is set to /Macintosh HD/Users/HBrazee/Music

Disk Utility shows 714.72 GB free.

If I select File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files, then Reorganize the files in folder "Music" is greyed out.

When I run that, I don't see any change.

I looked in /music/ at some songs. When I go to the Music app, it shows the songs as belonging in /music/music/ but it plays anyway and it finds the music in /music/. Odd.


But when I played the music, it moved to /music/music/. In one case, the name of the album was spelled slightly differently (2001 A Space Odyssey vs 2001_ A Space Odyssey)


I'm guessing I should be able to copy/merge the albums from /music/ to /music/music/ and all of the songs should work that way.




May 28, 2020 5:42 AM in response to turingtest2

I just checked. I have in Music > Preferences > Files, the following:

Music Media folder location: /Macintosh HD/Users/HBrazee/Music/Media

(checked) Keep Music Media folder organized

(checked) Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library


This explains what happened last night.

After I deleted the singer folders in ~/Music, I ran "Organize File" with "Consolidate files" and "Reorganize the files in the folder "media"" checked. (I don't know why that sometimes greyed out). I expected this to be quick, but it took time as it copied a bunch of music files. When I got done all of the music was in both ~/Music/Music/ and in ~/Music/Media/


I'm guessing that I should delete ~/Music/Music/


Then I found some missing songs that I had on a SSD that I use to run Mojave. I copied them to where I thought they belonged on my Catalina disk and told Music to play them. As I played them, they were moved to ~/Music/Media/Music/Compilations/.

That certainly doesn't seem right.


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Can I change the location of a song in Catalina Music?

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