MacOS Catalina Music missing artwork... but it appears on iOS and on the web!

Question

MacOS Catalina Music missing artwork... but it appears on iOS and on the web!

After upgrading to Catalina, none of my (several thousand) albums are showing their artwork. I've read a bunch of threads (here and elsewhere) on the problem. Manually selecting File > Library > Get Album Artwork has no effect. I don't get a message about "Downloading artwork." Right-clicking on an album (or a song) does not show any artwork. Playing a song does not show any artwork. Running the Dougscript doesn't work. Leaving Music running for days in the background hasn't accomplished any magic.

BUT.

I have a folder titled "iTunes > Album Artwork" on my hard drive containing 2.6 gigabytes of .itc files. have no idea how to reassociate those with the new Music database.

Artwork shows up correctly when accessing songs from my iOS devices.

Artwork shows up correctly when accessing songs from music.apple.com

So it's something wrong with the new "Music" app on Catalina.

I have Music 1.0.6.10 under Catalina 10.16.6 on a 2020 MacBook Pro.

Any ideas? Thanks!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Aug 19, 2020 2:08 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Aug 20, 2020 9:28 AM in response to Stephen Fleming

Hello Stephen,

We understand that your music is no longer showing any of the artwork since upgrading to macOS Catalina.

We have a couple options to restore your artwork.

First, if you highlight one of the albums and tap 'Command + I', an info window will appear. Once it opens go to the Artwork tab. If you see the artwork there, try grabbing the picture, dragging it out of the window, and then back. This can help reapply the artwork.

This will need to be done for each album, and this article can provide a bit more information on how to access the Artwork tab and information area of your albums: Add artwork to content in Music on Mac

Next, you can attempt to load new album artwork in the Info tab as well, but it will require the artwork to have been previously downloaded.

The .itc files contained metadata for items in the iTunes program and may no longer be relevant since macOS Catalina does not use the iTunes program.

Thanks or reaching out to the Apple Support Communities!

Have a great day!

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Answer 2

Aug 20, 2020 12:17 PM in response to barberlives123

Thanks, but none of those tips are relevant to my situation. (1) There is no embedded artwork visible with "Get Info," so I can't manipulate it. (2) The Artwork tab wants to be pointed to an image file on my hard disk; I don't have images, just those now-useless .itc files. And (3) I have several thousand albums, so downloading and repairing each one individually isn't an attractive option.

Frustrated because the artwork is clearly THERE in iCloud, just not showing up in the Mac app.

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Answer 3

Aug 31, 2020 8:27 PM in response to Stephen Fleming

I have left Music running for over a week. I figure any conceivable background process would have worked its way through my catalog by then. No luck... still no artwork in Catalina. Everything looks fine on iOS and on the web.

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MacOS Catalina Music missing artwork... but it appears on iOS and on the web!

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