Move un-consolidated files in Apple Music library to external drive without Consolidating them.

Hi,

Here is my first attempt at this: Updating references in Music after copying files to a new location - Apple Community.

Works for me when testing with a small quantity of files but I might have made assumptions that don't hold for you. Please give it a try and start with a small selection. If you're happy it works as you need select more of the files that need to be updated and run it again. Let me know if you get any errors and I'll try to refine it. I can update the script in the user tip with any corrections.

tt2

I suspect you will need to use AppleScript or something similar to move the files where you want them and update the library after each track has been moved. Is your structure something that builds obviously from the file properties? I have a script that moves my files to my preferred layout, building all of the necessary folders on the way before moving the files and then removing empty folders, however another approach might be to simply copy and paste your folder structure from the current location to the new one, then create a more simple script that only has to replace part of the current path with the new location and tell Music to use that. Once done you would then manually delete the original copies that are no longer associated with the library.

tt2

Hello again.

I've just had a quick look at my Mac script and it isn't quite as developed as I thought it was. Currently it only renames files within a folder. My Windows version does all the other housekeeping of making any new folders that might be required, moving the files from one folder to the other, and then cleaning up any folders that become empty. I've sure I can add this into my AppleScript version. (FWIW most of the files on my Mac are close to how I want them, and manually editing folder names on a Mac doesn't break iTunes/Music so I've never got around to the extra effort.) I generally use a similar layout to the one iTunes/Music uses. I.e. <Media Folder>/<Album Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<Ext>, but the script encodes some additional rules I have with track/disc numbers and adding the artist after track name when the artist is different from the album artist. The Windows version goes further, organizing particular genres such as classical, comedy, and soundtracks into their own subfolders of the media folder.

Do you have specific thoughts about the layout that you want, or is it simply a matter of changing <some root path>/<rest of the path> to <some other root path>/<rest of the path> in a reliable manner? E.g.

/Macintosh HD/Users/Bob/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/The Beatles/Abbey Road/01 Come Together.mp3 becomes

/External HD/Music/Media/The Beatles/Abbey Road/01 Come Together.mp3

Where the bold bits are the source and destination folders.

tt2