Level 6

19,700 points

Old iTunes folder to Catalina or Big Sur Music.app

FYI. I have tested how to best import an old iTunes folder to the Music.app on a cleanly installed Big Sur (Catalina was the same but I skipped it). My current "iTunes" folder in Mojave was created 2006 (15 GB folder containing 1800 songs).

With my setup the Music.app could successfully parse the old “iTunes Library.itl” and convert it to the new “Music Library.musiclibrary”.

In that process the Music.app wanted to create a new mainly empty “Music” folder. I want all stuff in the same folder so I manually organised the old iTunes folder to the new Music.app layout:

~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary

~/Music/Music/Media/Music/[imported and downloaded artists/albums]

~/Music/Music/Media/Automatically Add to Music/ <- created automatically

~/Music/Music/Media/Downloads-Music/ <- created after authorisation (Catalina)

Convert old iTunes folder to the new folder structure:

0. In the old macOS iTunes.app check the song count (View > Show Status Bar) so you can compare it in the new Music.app.

1. Copy the old "iTunes" folder to macOS 11.0 Big Sur ~/Music/ folder and rename it "Music".

2. Option-start macOS 11.0 Big Sur Music.app and choose the old ~/Music/Music/iTunes Library.itl as a library. Music.app prompts to create a new “Music 1” folder. Save it on the Desktop (or where ever because this folder is deleted at step #5).

3. Wait a while for the old library to load (check the song count via View > Show Status Bar).

4. Quit Music.app. Open “Music 1” folder created in step #2 and move "Music Library.musiclibrary" from it to the ~/Music/Music/ folder you renamed in step #1. Delete the temporary “Music 1” folder from the Desktop.

5. Inside ~/Music/Music/ folder create a new "Media" folder, rename the old "iTunes Music" folder to "Music" and move it to "Media" folder you just created.

6. Option-start macOS 11.0 Big Sur Music.app and choose the newly created and moved ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary as a library.

7. Open Music.app > Preferences... > Files, click "Reset", "OK" and "Yes" to the alert "Would you like to move and rename the files in your new Media folder to match the "Keep Media folder organized" preference?".

8. Quit Music.app. Inside ~/Music/Music/Media/Music/ folder delete the "Automatically Add to iTunes" and "Automatically Add to Music" folders after verifying they are empty (a new "Automatically Add to Music" was created in step #7 in the upper folder).

9. Now you should have all imported songs available in the new Music.app with the new folder structure.

There are the following old iTunes files that AFAIK serve no purpose anymore and might be deleted. I am not yet sure whether the "Album Artwork" is still needed because the album art is still there even if it is trashed.

iTunes Library Extras.itdb

iTunes Library Genius.itdb

iTunes Library.itl

iTunes Library.xml

iTunes Music Library.xml

Posted on Dec 9, 2020 12:01 PM

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri Author

Level 6

19,700 points

Posted on Feb 17, 2021 7:14 AM

> Does this recreate exactly how iTunes looked? It's easy enough to get the content and folders from iTunes to Music

It just converts the old iTunes.app folder structure to the new Music.app default. I later fine-tuned the Music.app column view but have not checked how it differs from my old iTunes layout (I still have the old iTunes folder as a backup and plan to trash it after several months).

View in context

104 replies

turingtest2

Level 10

278,061 points

Dec 22, 2021 1:01 PM in response to EsTaF

Track titles have to be done one at a time. Common properties like album or artist names can be done in bulk.

tt2

turingtest2

Level 10

278,061 points

Dec 22, 2021 1:31 PM in response to EsTaF

Fixing damaged tags is a laborious task. Shazam might help.

tt2

EsTaF

Level 1

8 points

Dec 22, 2021 10:40 PM in response to turingtest2

gee..

Thank you anyway.

EsTaF

Level 1

8 points

Dec 22, 2021 11:39 PM in response to turingtest2

MusicBrainz-Picard

turingtest2

Level 10

278,061 points

Dec 23, 2021 5:03 AM in response to EsTaF

Yes, I've used that too. Forgot to see if there was a Mac version.

tt2

EsTaF

Level 1

8 points

Dec 23, 2021 5:05 AM in response to turingtest2

American folk app ))

EsTaF

Level 1

8 points

Dec 23, 2021 11:29 PM in response to EsTaF

There's a not worst one, who is from Russia : https://github.com/Ceesaxp/as-convert-russian/

A script, that encode id3 cp1251 one to unicode.

turingtest2

Level 10

278,061 points

Feb 26, 2022 6:53 PM in response to Sapote

See Move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Community.

tt2

debow

Level 1

14 points

Dec 19, 2020 7:59 AM in response to Matti Haveri

This didn't work for me. I must have done something wrong. I put the old iTunes folder in the new music folder which already had one folder in it named "Music" and within in that two folders names "Media" and "Music Library".

Anyway, I put the iTunes in the Music folder which put it in the 2nd Music folder and I renamed it also "Music" . I then option opened the Music App and when it asked me to choose a library and I tried to select any of those Music folders the "choose" button was not highlighted to select.😖

Matti Haveri Author

Level 6

19,700 points

Apr 15, 2021 10:24 PM in response to John_the_Swede

> I never get asked to choose a library

Hejsan! When you Option-start macOS 11 Big Sur Music.app (i.e. press the Option-key while clicking Music.app in the Dock, for example) you should be prompted to navigate to and choose a library file i.e. either the old "iTunes Library.itl" or then the new converted "Music Library.musiclibrary" that should then carry on the info about the library. After that it is up to you if you want to modify the old folder structure to imitate the new Music.app folder defaults.

Matti Haveri Author

Level 6

19,700 points

Jun 21, 2021 1:03 AM in response to enamic5

> Anything I might be doing wrong?

YMMV, my cookbook works with my macMini 2018 and also my son's MBP previous quite simple non-iCloud Mojave local files. Maybe try to log out from Music.app etc before trying to convert the previous iTunes local folder to Music.app folder structure.

If all else fails, you could re-import the songs to the new Big Sur Music.app although you then might lose some metadata like Rating, Plays, Last Played etc.

But please post if you find some fine-tuning to the cookbook.

Marfos27

Level 1

13 points

Oct 28, 2021 7:28 AM in response to turingtest2

Could it really be that simple tt2?

So, if I understand correctly, I press and hold down option as I start Music and click the Choose Library option, select the iTunes Library.itl file inside the iTunes folder on my Time Machine backup, right?

Which location would be best to save this database?

Does that mean that this library is readily available as a/the Music library or is it a separate library I have to choose when I want to play my old music on Music (such a well chosen name for this app...)?

Sweejak

Level 2

457 points

Oct 29, 2021 10:19 AM in response to turingtest2

Well well, option opening iTunes and selecting the old .itl resulted in iTunes with all my media. So, all this time iTunes was using the 2nd internal .itl but taking the Media from the 2021 on my main drive which is where iTunes is directed to save things. No wonder I've been confused. To fix this should I just replace the media file in the 2019 (Drag and Drop) or just direct iTunes to save to that old 2019 media file on the 2nd Internal?

EsTaF

Level 1

8 points

Dec 22, 2021 1:05 PM in response to turingtest2

will bulk rename tracks, that have tags of different artists?

there are a lot of different artists and it is difficult to understand by hieroglyphs.

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Old iTunes folder to Catalina or Big Sur Music.app