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Moving music library to Catalina

I want to move my entire music library to a new MacBook running Catalina from another MacBook running an older version of iOS

In Catalina the files within the users music folder are different. In previous versions the structure was as follows:

Users > X > Music > iTunes > etc.....

(where X is a specific user)

In Catalina:

Users > X > Music > Music > etc....

What I did was copy the entire iTunes folder on my old Mac onto an external drive then move it and add it to Users > X > Music.

I then deleted the original Music folder originally in Music.

If I then open the Music app I still can’t see any of my music. I also notice that the deleted Music folder is created.

Can anyone help, please?

MacBook Pro 13″, 10.11

Posted on Oct 4, 2020 7:40 AM

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turingtest2

Level 10

278,257 points

Posted on Oct 11, 2020 8:05 AM

The option-start Music or iTunes method is used to switch between libraries. When you ask Music to open an iTunes library it converts the iTunes (iTunes Library.itl) library to a new Music (Music Library.musiclibrary) library, it doesn't make any changes to the old iTunes library after that. Once you've used the change library method you'll carry on using the newly selected library each time until you option-start Music once more.

The active library database will be the Music Library(.musiclibrary) file shown in the screenshot, and the Music folder above that forms the entire library. You can copy this folder to a new computer or drive and use the option-start-Music method to connect to it and all of the content should work.

If you have video content then you can repeat the same reset and consolidate steps with the TV app to get everything organized into ~/Movies/TV.

I've possibly alluded to it earlier, but Podcasts and Books in Catalina make themselves hidden private libraries that are harder to move around, but should no longer be reliant on the old iTunes folder. As far I know the only clean up action that remains is to delete the iTunes folder that should no longer be needed.

tt2

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turingtest2

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Oct 7, 2020 2:53 PM in response to JA_Kenya

Click Yes and any content already inside ~/Music/Music/Media might be renamed, if needed, to fall into the standard ../Music/<Artist>/<Album> layout, say No and it stays where it is. Click Yes.

Usually when people talk about putting their library in iCloud they are talking about iCloud Music Library as a means to free up local storage. You might conceivably use iCloud Drive as a temporary storage location to transfer a library from one machine to the other using the cloud, but you might not have enough capacity in the cloud and sharing over your own local network, or using an external drive, will be faster and easier.

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turingtest2

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Oct 11, 2020 2:45 AM in response to JA_Kenya

JA_Kenya wrote:

Where are the actual music files located?

Eek! Probably in the trash. Before deleting the old iTunes folder you should have used File > Library > Organize Library... > Consolidate Files. That's why I asked if you had room to make copies, at least temporarily. Restore the folder from the trash first before you consolidate, in case duplicating the files leads to memory pressure and your Mac decides to free up space by culling items in the trash.

If you don't have room I may be able to suggest a workaround. In fact given the Mac's forgiving nature when you move content around on the same volume you could probably put the old iTunes Media folder inside Music/Music/Media and it should be able to reorganize things without generating the duplicates. That said, I haven't tested that, and wouldn't do so without a full backup of the library on another volume in case it went wrong.

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JA_Kenya Author

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Oct 11, 2020 5:53 AM in response to turingtest2

I did as you suggest, see below:

/Users/x/.Trash/iTunes/iTunes Music/Unknown Artist/Action Volume One_ Mixed by Rob Sykes/01 Track 01.m4a

It does seem that it still looking at the actual music files even though they are in trash.

I have now restored the iTunes folder from trash back into the Users > X > Music folder.

So, kind back a few steps here. I still have a legacy iTunes folder that i want gone and it in the new Music file structure?

As an aside, unfortunately I can't actually do this because my old mac it too old to run Catalina and Music. If however, I was just updating my old mac running a previous iOS and iTunes and could updat it to Catalina and Music presumably! in the upgrade this would all be taken care of and I'm only having to try find a solution to this problem because I'm actually moving to a new Mac entirely, right?

turingtest2

Level 10

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Oct 11, 2020 11:01 AM in response to JA_Kenya

JA_Kenya wrote:

As I asked early am I have all this bother because I am trying to get it to a new laptop? What would happen if i was just updating to Catalina would all this have been taken care of.

Sort of. When you upgrade from say Mojave to Catalina the iTunes library gets updated automatically the first time you run Music, but the media is still left in the old location, and Apple don't have anything that puts the library into the same shape it would be if you had started out on Catalina.

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turingtest2

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Oct 11, 2020 5:58 AM in response to JA_Kenya

How big is the iTunes folder? How much free space does the drive have?

tt2

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Moving music library to Catalina