User profile for user: NYC2LA
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iTunes (High Sierra) from old Mac to Apple Music (Catalina) onto new Mac

Hi All,


I just bought a 2020 iMac, running Catalina which ditched iTunes for Apple Music. All my music is in iTunes, on my laptop running High Sierra. I'm trying to get all the music and playlists from my High Sierra laptop to my Catalina iMac. I followed the advice of online instructions. I "consolidated" my iTunes on High Sierra Mac. I dragged iTune Library.itl file from High Sierra Mac to flash drive. I dragged the iTunes Media file folder (actually called iTunes Music in High Sierra) to the same flash drive. I held option key on Catalina iMac while opening Apple Music. I imported the iTunes Library.itl file. All my playlists appeared in Apple Music (fantastic!). All my music seemed to be there too. When I click on a song, it plays! BUT...turns out if I eject the flash drive, I get the "cannot locate the original file" error message. I put the flash drive back in. I choose "import" from file menu while in Apple Music. I see "processing xxxx song" etc and it runs though a lot of them. I jest the flash drive and get the same "can't locate song" error message. I put back in the flash drive and this time drag the iTunes Music folder straight onto Apple Music icon in the dock. I get the same "processing..." and lots of songs whiz by. I eject the flash drive again. I choose a song. Same error message. So 1) it seems that I've somehow imported thousands of songs TWICE into my iMac and yet 2) the sons will only play if the flash drive containing the folder is inserted. Also, when I choose "About this Mac" and check "Storage" there's a long gray bar that reads "other" and it's 300+ GB (which might be the songs because the iTune Music folder on the flash drive is 109 GB bug. Can anyone help me get my music from that flash drive to wherever it's supposed to go in Apple Music? And it would be a bonus if you can help me sort out where I seem to have copied 109 GB (twice!) to my iMac so I can delete the extras copies. Thanks for your help.


JC

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jan 30, 2021 8:24 PM

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User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
278,263 points

Posted on Jan 31, 2021 9:31 AM

It should be done like this:


  1. Clear away ~/Music/Music
  2. On the old computer copy the entire iTunes folder to an external drive
  3. Connect the external drive to the new computer
  4. Press and hold down option while launching Music, choose the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive, save the converted library as ~/Music/Music
  5. Once the library has been converted use Music > Preferences > Files to reset the media folder to ~/Music/Music/Media
  6. Use File > Library > Organize Library... > Consolidate Files to consolidate the library
  7. Disconnect the external drive, it is no longer needed for content to play


tt2

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User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
278,263 points

Jan 31, 2021 9:31 AM in response to NYC2LA

It should be done like this:


  1. Clear away ~/Music/Music
  2. On the old computer copy the entire iTunes folder to an external drive
  3. Connect the external drive to the new computer
  4. Press and hold down option while launching Music, choose the iTunes Library.itl file on the external drive, save the converted library as ~/Music/Music
  5. Once the library has been converted use Music > Preferences > Files to reset the media folder to ~/Music/Music/Media
  6. Use File > Library > Organize Library... > Consolidate Files to consolidate the library
  7. Disconnect the external drive, it is no longer needed for content to play


tt2

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User profile for user: NYC2LA
NYC2LA Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jan 31, 2021 9:21 AM in response to turingtest2

Well, I did it...sort of...maybe. I held down option and opened the APPLE MUSIC. I created a new library (titled "Music (iMac 2020 Jan 31" for today's work). Then I physically dragged the songs (again? who knows?) into the MEDIA folder within that file. The .itl file was indeed converted to a .musiclibrary file. I then went to MUSIC>Preferences>File and in "Music Media folder location", clicked "change" and pointed it to the "Music/Music (iMac 2020 Jan 31" folder. I closed APPLE MUSIC and re-opened holding OPTION. When prompted, I chose the library within the newly created library. All my playlists are now there and all the content plays. The only oddly-behaving issue is there are some songs that I wrote (maybe 30 or so) that when I click on the title I get the "cannot locate original file" error. I have about 100 other created songs and those are able to be played. I have no idea why these 30 or so, with no identifiable pattern or trend, can't be found. The physical songs do appear in the Media file within the music folder but for some reason, weren't linked up properly when I did this. But that's hug progress, so thanks for talking me through the biggest issue. Is there anyway to "batch" locate songs or does it have to be done for each song file that gets the error message?

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User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
278,263 points

Jan 31, 2021 8:24 AM in response to NYC2LA

Your old playlists are in the iTunes Library.itl file. If you import the music into an empty library these won't come back so you need to use the option-start-Music method do connect to old .itl file and convert it. Music Library.musiclibrary is the replacement for the .itl file. Music should be able to convert a .itl library provided the library is in a portable layout, iTunes folder containing iTunes Media. If the layout is different you may get the first problem you had when you could see the playlists but the tracks wouldn't play. When you convert the library Music will be connected to the media in its original location. There is an option under Music > Preferences > Files that controls what happens when you add media. You probably want Copy files enabled so that the library doesn't end up dependent on content on an external drive. This is why I suggest consolidating the library to ~/Music/Music/Media after you've imported the .itl file.


tt2

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User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
278,263 points

Jan 31, 2021 9:33 AM in response to NYC2LA

.. but if it is easier to try to repair broken links you can try this.



The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2

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User profile for user: NYC2LA
NYC2LA Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jan 31, 2021 8:02 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks. Here's what I have: I went to my home folder (FINDER MENU>GO>HOME) and opened it. Inside are the usual folders (Desktop/Documents/Downloads/Dropbox/Movies/Music/Pictures/Public). I clicked on MUSIC. In there are two (2) folders with that contain the word MUSIC. One (1) is called "MUSIC" (which I'm assuming is the default one you referred to and one (1) is named "2020 iMac Music" (which is what I named it when stating this import thing because I was told to give the import library a different name). Inside the one called "MUSIC" (the default library?) are two (2) items: a folder called "MEDIA" and a file called "Music Library". The "Music Library" file is 154.2 MB in size. Inside the MEDIA folder are three (3) folders: "Automatically Add to Music" (nothing inside the folder), "Downloads-Music" (nothing inside the folder) and "Unknown Artist", which contains a folder inside it called " Unknown Album", which has 1 .mov file, which is a movie trailer I created. Now, inside the 2020 iMac Music folder is only one (1) file called "Music Library" and it's 7.1 MB in size. That's all I have. Does that makes sense so far?

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iTunes (High Sierra) from old Mac to Apple Music (Catalina) onto new Mac

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