I want to move my music files to an external drive but am afraid of losing my playlists. Where are the playlists stored and how do I keep them intact if I move my music files? I would also like to keep things like the "date added", my manually added genres, and unchecked songs. Using the Music app on a Pro Tower/Catalina.
Mac Pro, macOS 10.15
In most cases the simplest way to move the library to an external drive will be to copy ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary into an empty Music folder created in the root of the external drive, use the option-start-Music method to access this new copy of the library, use Music > Preferences > File > Reset to reset the media folder to <External>/Music/Media and then use File > Library > Organize Library... > Consolidate Files to copy in the media. That should keep all the playlists and other music data. After the library has been tested, and ideally backed up to another drive, the original media folder can be removed.
For more info, see the 'Apple Music in macOS 10.15 Catalina and later' section I(and others) in:
Make a split library portable - Apple Community
In most cases the simplest way to move the library to an external drive will be to copy ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary into an empty Music folder created in the root of the external drive, use the option-start-Music method to access this new copy of the library, use Music > Preferences > File > Reset to reset the media folder to <External>/Music/Media and then use File > Library > Organize Library... > Consolidate Files to copy in the media. That should keep all the playlists and other music data. After the library has been tested, and ideally backed up to another drive, the original media folder can be removed.
For more info, see the 'Apple Music in macOS 10.15 Catalina and later' section I(and others) in:
Make a split library portable - Apple Community
Thank you!!! Just set up externally with all playlists, etc. intact. The only thing is after choosing Organize Library... > Consolidate Files 975 fewer songs copied into the new location of the Media folder: 8659 instead of 9634. Would you know why this happened? I can hang onto the original media folder and try to figure out what's missing.
Also, now there are two instances of the Music Library.musiclibrary file, one still on my internal drive and one on the external. They both point to the new external location—do I need to keep the internal one or trash it?
After consolidating do you see any tracks that have an exclamation mark indicating they couldn't be found? This mark disappears if you relaunch the app.
When inspecting .musiclibrary files you must use the option-start-Music method to swap between them. When you swap back to the library on the internal drive it should be connected to the original media folder.
Are you going by Song count in the songs view of the library, or file count in the folder in Finder?
tt2
I'm going by file count in the folder on finder.
Swapping between the two music libraries the song count is the same. There are exclamation points for a few songs but they appear to be identical between the two libraries.
So I guess I could just manually recopy the original music files into the new media folder...?
Thanks for your help!
A difference in the counts would suggest you either have orphaned music files in the original folder, e.g. content removed from the library but not sent to the trash, or legacy iTunes media that isn't part of the Music library, e.g. audiobooks, podcasts, movies, TV shows etc. Compare some sample folders on the original location and on the external drive to see if you can make sense of the difference. Neither Music nor iTunes actively scan the media folder. You can place content inside and add the whole folder to the library, or make use of the Automatically Add to Music folder inside the media folder to add tracks have have them organized within the media folder.
The exclamation marks are for entries in the library where the original file has been removed, or renamed in a way macOS cannot detect automatically.
tt2
Moving music files—what happens to playlists?
