play music from external hard drive with catalina

Question

Level 1

17 points

play music from external hard drive with catalina

Has anyone got Catalina to play music from an external hard drive WITHOUT downloading all the music to the Mac?

We have too much music and not enough RAM to download to the Mac. Old Mac mini used to play from external hard drive now Catalina says it’s “mounted” but will only play if it gets downloaded directly to Mac..... and this isn’t an option. Contacted apple but they couldn’t help other then to say to do the update (from 10.15.4 to 10. 15.5). Just got he Mac mini earlier this week so it’s brand new.... and seemingly useless thanks to Catalina.

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Jun 7, 2020 1:25 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

turingtest2

Level 10

274,564 points

Jun 10, 2020 1:16 AM in response to Sush25

See Switch libraries with the Music app or Apple TV app in macOS Catalina - Apple Support for more on switching libraries. with Music. You should be able to open an iTunes library and choose where to stored the converted Music library, or create a new Music library from scratch on the external drive and then import the media that is there. With a new library you should expect to see your unhidden purchase history listed in the library ready to stream or download until you've imported any locally stored media with File > Add to Library. Pointing the media folder preferences at the folder where your content is stored doesn't make Music catalog what is there.

tt2

Reply

Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

274,564 points

Jun 7, 2020 1:32 PM in response to Sush25

Yes, Music in Catalina can work with media on an external drive. You can change the media folder that will be used for downloads and future additions using the menu Music > Preferences > Files. A possible solution if you're having trouble making things work is to press and hold down option as you launch Music and create a new music library on the external drive to which you can then add your music knowing it will always be stored on that drive.

tt2

Reply

Answer 3

Jun 7, 2020 2:25 PM in response to Sush25

I find it invidious that computers can be programmed to say "Sorry, I can't do that", which results in lost time in searching for "Why?", whereas the answer (as here in Sush25's response - supposing it works) seems to be fairly straightforward. Can the computer not offer such solutions straight up?

Reply

Answer 4

Sush25 Author

Level 1

17 points

Jun 9, 2020 5:56 PM in response to turingtest2

This is a brand new computer..... talked to apple. Had us do a bunch of things, including what you said. Still doesn’t work. It will download to computer but there isn’t enough RAM to hold all our music, and it would waste way too much time to select a few albums to transfer to computer and not have access to other albums.

Reply

Answer 5

turingtest2

Level 10

274,564 points

Jun 9, 2020 6:09 PM in response to Sush25

Press and hold down option as you launch Music. You should get an option to choose or create a library. Click create, then browse to your external drive and create a new library there in as /Volumes/<External>/Music. Any music you rip or download into this library stays on your external drive.

By the way, RAM is the working memory of your computer. Your internal and any external storage volumes are where data is stored.

tt2

Reply