Old iTunes folder to Catalina or Big Sur Music.app

iron@estaf ~ % du -hs ~/Music

 29G /Volumes/home/Users/iron/Music

iron@estaf ~ % du -hs ~/Music/iTunes 

 29G /Volumes/home/Users/iron/Music/iTunes

iron@estaf ~ % du -hs ~/Music/Music\ 1 

3.9M /Volumes/home/Users/iron/Music/Music 1

iron@estaf ~ % ls -l ~/Music      

total 0

drwxr-xr-x@ 3 iron staff  96 Nov 22 18:54 Music 1

drwx------@ 9 iron staff 288 Nov 22 18:30 iTunes

A Music 1 folder don't grow if I put in music.app a some audio file. All're copying into iTunes, as I'd watched.

I'm not sure I can make sense of the output, but it seems like the bulk of the content is within ~/Music/iTunes. Is your active Music library in ~/Music/Music or ~/Music/Music 1? What is the free space on the volume?

tt2

A content of library is on iTines one.

A library ("db" file) is on Music 1.

du -h ~/Music/Music\ 1

3.9M /Volumes/home/Users/iron/Music/Music 1/Music Library.musiclibrary

>What is the free space on the volume?

About ~500 GB.

Thank, turingtest2

Do I need to copy the contents of a ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music folder, or the folder ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music itself to ~/Music/Music/Media/?

Must be a new one as ~/Music/Music/Media/(contents)

or

~/Music/Music/Media/Music/(contents)

?

All're ok.

About "Copying 29Gb of data would be likely to take some time. I suggest seeing if you can get away with moving the folder rather than consolidating the library. With Music closed move the folder ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music inside ~/Music/Music/Media. If the folder Media doesn't exist then create it. If it already contains a folder called Music rename that as Music1 first. Launch Music and confirm that your content is still accessible. If so use Music > Preferences > Files and reset the media folder to ~/Music/Music/Media. Your Music library should now be self contained, although there could still be legacy iTunes content such as audiobooks, movies, podcasts, TV shows, etc."

Thank, turingtest2, again :)

I meant moving the folder from one location to another, so that ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music moves into ~/Music/Music/Media/ and becomes ~/Music/Music/Media/Music. Sounds like you worked it out.

tt2

Now I notice, that a lot of cyrillic names, that have my tracks was renamed to unreadable symbols. a such as a "Ïîñëåäíåå Ïîñëàíèå feat. ¨ëêà" (ex) etc. After migrate db from iTunes to Music. But "Music" is a very "narrative" one, that I can google it with any other words. All ways go to "Rome" (Apple music), that "so good service" etc. I can't never find something with that one. For example: how to rename my tracks in "music" ))

There's a strange affair. I see a normally cyrillic names in "Music" (mac/ios), but when I'm beginng to play it, that names automatically renames to hieroglyphs)) - this is case of every my tracks with cyrillic names.

I don't watch that problem after reverse renaming to normal one.

"Music" app is trying to rename it automatically from cp1251 (as I understand) to utf, but make mistakes every time. But the most interesting thing, that old iTines was normally adding files, when I'd add it.

See Repair security permissions for iTunes/Music for Mac - Apple Community. If these are mp3 files you might have some form of multiple tag issue. If not cleaning and rebuilding the tags might still help with the encoding issue.

tt2

>but iTunes and Music only work properly with single tags

With tags all're ok. iTunes (before "Music") had "understand" that tracks. Just iTunes was keeping all in cp1251(1252) codepage. But files.mp3 have unicode names and id3 one have 1251 one. In my opinion, Music can't understand it. Be show a file name, but when you play it, app is reading tag and renaming file. You see name of file.

If I didn't migrate itunes library to Music, but just copy files to Music' window, that app be rename all one at once and not when I's beginning to play every song.

Just I'd add a piece of that files to last version of iTunes and all're ok. Bur, when I'm beginning that files from iTunes database to Music' one, that I'd begin to have problems.

I'd read permissions. All're ok.

Maybe will me to watch permissions on fs of ios? ))) There're I have identically situation. when begin to play files :))

Thank you for this really helpful post!

One thing that I have noticed is that I now have two "Apple Music" folders:

• ~/Music/Music/Media/Apple Music (651 folders)
• ~/Music/Music/Media/Music/Apple Music (1261 folders)

I guess that only one of these is the correct location for "Music" and one is a throwback to iTunes? There seems to be some overlap between the folders. Looking through, taking "Adele" as an artist in both, who is near to the top of the list, there seems to be albums in both folders ("25" and "30") that aren't in my library - I probably only ever listened to them on my iPhone.

Should I keep both of these folders? Or can one be deleted?

Just came across this as facing the same issue today - iMac 2012 (High Sierra) died and I now have just got an iMac 2020 (Big Sur) so transferring iTunes to Music - and iPhoto to Photos :(

I'm sure you've found out already but for the benefit of anybody else reading this, no you can't run iTunes or iPhoto on Big Sur as they are 32 bit apps and since Catalina, Big Sur etc only runs 64 bit apps

Thanks so much! Yes ... option > start. Forgot that one from previous attempts over the years.

The one thing that did not carry over is the column choices and order while in Songs mode. Would that have something to do with a preferences file somewhere?

Cheers,

THANK YOU so much for this step by step.

I had done it to a part but not all of it. Now it's working!🥳

Worked perfectly for me. Thanks, Matti!