Where are Music playlists stored?

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Where are Music playlists stored?

I'm setting up a new computer manually. Because I had Finder problems that have been going on for years through many OSs, I'm rebuilding from scratch from a clone of my previous system, which was running the current OS, as is the new system. I copied the enter contents of the Music folder from the clone into the Music folder on the new system. Music opened without any music in it. The music is all in the folder, but the Music library doesn't copy properly. The original Music library is something like 91 MB, the new library is 4.7 MB. I can just drag all the track folders into the Music interface and it populates correctly. What I can't find is how to retrieve the playlists I had. The .itl and other iTunes files were copied, but I guess they're not being used.

If anyone has any ideas on how to retrieve the playlists I would really appreciate some help.

Quite surprised that Music was the problem in the rebuild. I thought it would be Mail, but that's been moved over with all the settings perfectly. (Except for Google Mail, which doesn't surprise; all the Google software is such garbage. Don't get me started on Chrome; it's not good for my blood pressure.)

Thanks very much.

Posted on Mar 29, 2022 9:48 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

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Mar 29, 2022 10:37 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

See Move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Community. If moving pre- to post-Catalina you will need to press and hold down option when launching Music to open and convert your old iTunes Library(.itl) file. This is replaced by Music Library(.musiclibrary). Playlists are stored within the .musiclibrary database.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

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Mar 29, 2022 11:11 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Checking the original post I see you were using Music both before and after the rebuild, so it should have been option-launch and select the .musiclibrary file. Using the .itl file will have restored a pre-Catalina version of your database. There seems to be some caching of the .musiclibrary database that occurs, so it may not be enough to simply copy the .musiclibrary database to the correct path. Option-starting-Music and explicitly selecting the database that you have restored should update the cache.

tt2

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Answer 3

Tom Wolsky Author

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Mar 29, 2022 11:01 AM in response to turingtest2

Thank you very much. The Option-launch and selecting the .itl file did the trick.

I was surprised because I didn't have this problem when I tested the process on the original system to an external SSD.

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Answer 4

Tom Wolsky Author

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Mar 29, 2022 11:27 AM in response to turingtest2

Both the previous system and the new system are on the same OS, 12.3. The .itl file seems to do it for me, probably because I'd already manually loaded the content into the interface. I'd dragged the folders that had been copied over into the Music interface, which took a little time, but the content populated correctly.

Thank you again. The article is really great.

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Answer 5

turingtest2

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Mar 29, 2022 11:46 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

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Where are Music playlists stored?

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