Setting up file storage for all music on my 2019 Mac.

1. With the Apple Music app closed first make sure that the location /Macintosh HD/Users/edwardmacdonald/Music/Music is free. If you have an existing Music folder inside /Macintosh HD/Users/edwardmacdonald/Music then rename that folder as say Old Music.
2. Now press and hold down option as you click the Music icon on your task bar to launch Music and keep holding until you see a prompt asking you to choose or create a library.
3. Click create, then browse to /Macintosh HD/Users/edwardmacdonald/Music, set Save as to Music and then click Save.
4. Now you can add content into the Automatically Add to Music folder that you'll find inside ~/Music/Music/Media and it should be absorbed into the library, moved to the right path in the media folder, and all things being equal not mysteriously disappear in future. That said I would still recommend regularly backing up the whole Music folder to an external drive.

tt2

Hi jandy1,

We'd like to make sure we are on the same page. After purchasing your Mac, you transferred 3000 of your own songs to the Mac in the Music app, but they unexpectedly were no longer able to be found. The same thing then happened with a subscription to Apple Music, is that correct?

If so, we'd like to ask a few more questions to help us better isolate the issue:

• Regarding the original 3000 songs that were transferred, were these songs from your own personal library? Additionally, when transferring them, how were they imported? The steps Apple recommends are here: Import music from a computer to Music on Mac
• When using Apple Music, did you have Sync Library enabled? Turn on Sync Library with Apple Music

Additionally, as to your current files, the issue is likely that they're being saved to the wrong folder. The steps to change the location of where your Music files are saved can be found here: Change where your music files are stored on Mac

Feel free to reply to this thread.

Cheers!

Hi,

I'm not certain I have the whole picture, but it would seem you've somehow got your Music library stored within an area that is covered by iCloud Drive, which it shouldn't be. iCloud Drive may offload locally stored items to free up space, while at the same time some content might be excluded from uploading to the cloud. It may be best to use the option-start-Music method to create a fresh Music library at the default path of ~/Music/Music where ~ is your user's home folder, /Macintosh HD/Users/edwardmacdonald. With this done the media folder should become ~/Music/Music/Media and content you add to your library should remain on your computer.

tt2

Hi jandy1,

Understood.

Due to the nature of the issue, we'd recommend reaching out to Apple Support using one of the methods at Get Support.

Take care.