Problem syncing / how to delete library on mac

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Problem syncing / how to delete library on mac

Hi I have various issues with Apple Music (splitting albums and randomly changing the album artist on some albums); so, yesterday I spent a few hours going through my library on my phone, deleting problem albums and re downloading them from Apple Music. This seems to fix the problem at least temporarily. I also took the opportunity to delete a load of stuff I no longer listen to.

Having got my library fixed on my iPhone, about 24 hours later I opened up my MacBook Air expecting the changes to sync. The Mac downloaded all the new stuff, but didn't delete any of the things I'd deleted. So now my Mac library has lots of duplicated albums, and a load of stuff I no longer want.

As the library on my phone is "correct" I don't want to risk doing anything to sync bad data back up to the cloud. I would like to completely wipe the library from my Mac, start again with a fresh library and then download the "correct" data from the cloud. I am unable to do this. I've tried:

turning sync off and on
signing out of Apple Music, then deleting the contents of the music folder and emptying the trash
while signed out of Apple Music, holding down option while opening music, selecting "create a new library" and "replace old library"
starting in safe mode.

None of these work. Every time I open music, the old library is still in there.

Please help me to get rid of the corrupt data on my Mac and download a good copy from the cloud. Is there some kind of cache in the library folder I can delete? I've located some files but don't know what they do. Apple Music has got to be apple's worst product. It's been terrible at syncing since the early days of iTunes Match. :(

Thank you.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Jan 28, 2022 8:01 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

David Griffiths5 Author

Level 2

169 points

Jan 28, 2022 2:35 PM in response to David Griffiths5

Ok so I managed to fix this myself. Not sure whether this worked by accident or design. It may be that none of what follows is relevant and Apple Music just coincidentally fixed itself while I was doing this:

I signed out of apple music
I quit the music app
held down the option key and re-launched the music app
this time I selected "create a new library" instead of "replace old library" (meaning I now had 2 libraries on the Mac)
quit music app
deleted both libraries (I deleted the entire contents of the folder user/myname/music)
re-started my mac
launched the music app
signed in to apple music

Bizarrely this only worked 95% as there were still a few duplicate albums, however most of the problems were solved...for now... I look forward to the next time I will have to waste 2 evenings fixing my library.

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

272,937 points

Jan 28, 2022 1:42 PM in response to David Griffiths5

One way might be to:

Turn off Sync Library. Delete all locally stored content and playlists. Turn on Sync Library.

However deleting content from an iOS device typically causes it to become remove in the iTunes/Music library. See Identify cloud status icons in your music library on your Mac or PC - Apple Support. Turn on the iCloud Status columns in the Songs view, sort on status, then select and remove anything that is marked as Removed. That should be a more efficient approach, and maintains your originals in case any might be mismatched.

tt2

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

272,937 points

Jan 28, 2022 1:19 PM in response to David Griffiths5

File > Library > Update Cloud Library should update the library on your Mac with the latest changes you made on your phone, assuming the Mac is currently signed in with Sync Library active. If not then when you sign in content may be merged.

If iTunes or Music show multiple instances of an artist or an album then what generally works is to select all related tracks and use Song Info to add say a trailing X to each of the fields that the tracks should have in common:

For an album; Album, Album Artist, and Artist (if artist is the same for all tracks) *
For an artist; Album Artist (and Artist unless there are guest/featured artists listed which should not be changed)

Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen the application between the two renaming operations. Part of a compilation should also be set consistently.

* If tracks are to be synced to a non-iOS device there should be a common Artist and/or the album should be set as a Compilation.

Use the songs view and display the fields Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, Artist and Sort Artist side by side so you see whether or not it is appropriate to edit Artist and if sort values could be causing any further problems. See Grouping tracks into albums for more help if required.

One further tip for really stubborn duplicates. At one point I had three lots of Various Artists in the artists view of my library that wouldn't respond to the usual trailing X treatment. What I found worked was to add the trailing X to start with, but then with each group that the application wanted to keep separate start typing a value and use the autocomplete from say Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.

tt2

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Answer 4

Jan 28, 2022 1:27 PM in response to turingtest2

Hi, thanks for getting back to me. The library has updated on the Mac already. The problem is that it did not update correctly. It downloaded the new stuff, but didn't delete the deleted items. I am looking for a way of wiping the library from the Mac and downloading a "good" copy from the cloud.

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Answer 5

turingtest2

Level 10

272,937 points

Jan 28, 2022 3:18 PM in response to David Griffiths5

See my earlier post on how to fix split albums.

tt2

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Problem syncing / how to delete library on mac

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