How do I clean up Music app file structure and duplicate files and playlists?
I'm trying to fix a number of problems with my music files in the Music app. I do not have an Apple Music subscription.
I keep my music files on an external drive that I connect to my laptop for downloading digital files or from purchased CDs. The files on this drive represent all the music I want in my digital music library.
A while back, the Music app duplicated many of my playlists as many as 10 or more times. Sometimes, these playlists recognized where the song files were located and sometimes they only recognized where some of the song files were located. One thing I want to do—preferably not one at a time, but if one at a time, then in a way I won't have to turn around and do again—is get rid of these duplicate or partial playlists.
Additionally, over the past while, the Music app has also sometimes duplicated music files so that there are up to 3 copies of a song listed in the music library. I would like to find a way to clean that duplication up, again not one at a time if possible, but certainly in a way that it won't easily be repeated once cleaned up.
Finally, most recently, the Music app has also created a second Music folder within my iTunes media Music folder and moved a number of my music files to this Music-within-Music folder. I would prefer to have a simpler file structure with all the music files in a single Music folder on the external drive organized by artists as Music typically does it. Maybe there's some setting I'm using the wrong way under "Organize Library," but I'm not sure what it might be.
If there were a way to reorganize the files, first, then generate a new library based on them...but at the same time not lose all the older playlists that are still in decent shape, I'd be willing to try it. But at this point I'm too afraid to tinker with this for fear of creating even more duplicates and making the program virtually unusable.
I have tried talking with Apple Support on several occasions, but these attempts have usually just proved exhausting, not productive, and ultimately have been without helpful results.
Help?!
Tom
