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Running Music from external HD

I'm running my Music library from an external hard drive. I was doing this on iTunes and had no problems, but with Music I can't find a way to easily add new albums without having to go looking for them and delete them individually so they don't end up stored on my Mac HD as well as on the external HD. If I add a new album to Music from my Downloads folder, Music will always attempt to look there for the album. I can locate the file and tell Music to look elsewhere once if fails to find it, but that is inane.


How do I add new albums to Music while storing all of my music on an external Hard Drive only without a lot of extra steps?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Sep 28, 2020 12:42 PM

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Posted on Sep 29, 2020 11:22 AM

but the next option, "Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library" unchecked. I'm assuming that the latter would copy the files into a folder on my Mac HD, which is what I want to avoid.

Hello Yarrow,

Actually the "Copy..." preference means copy the files into the Media folder you have in Preferences, which in your case is on the external. So, "Copy..." should be checked. I think this will restore the behavior you are used to.

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Question marked as Best reply

Sep 29, 2020 11:22 AM in response to YarrowYeti

but the next option, "Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library" unchecked. I'm assuming that the latter would copy the files into a folder on my Mac HD, which is what I want to avoid.

Hello Yarrow,

Actually the "Copy..." preference means copy the files into the Media folder you have in Preferences, which in your case is on the external. So, "Copy..." should be checked. I think this will restore the behavior you are used to.

Sep 29, 2020 11:17 AM in response to ed2345

When I was using iTunes, it was possible to simply drag and drop folders (albums of mp3s and cover art) into iTunes from my download folder. They went onto the hard drive, because I had designated it as the source location of my iTunes library, sorted automatically into the correct location (by artist name) and then I could delete them from the downloads folder en masse.


With Music, if I do the same thing then try to play the album in Music, Music will look for the file in the downloads folder, since that is where the file came from. If I delete the file, it appears in Music but doesn't exist on the computer anymore. I found that I was able to open the external HD, drag the folders to the location where all my other music files are stored, and drop them in. Music sorts them automatically, but doesn't add them to the Music library, so then I have to go locate each folder individually and drag it to the Music icon.


In Music Preferences under Files I have the Music library location set to: /Macintosh HD/Users/fogyeti/Music/Music/Media

This is a remnant of the iTunes organization system, on the same external hard drive. I have the "Keep Music Media organized" box checked, but the next option, "Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library" unchecked. I'm assuming that the latter would copy the files into a folder on my Mac HD, which is what I want to avoid. My goal is to have all the music files on the external HD without having to take multiple steps to add new albums.


Thanks,

Yarrow

Running Music from external HD

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