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Music app on Monterey not opening very large iTunes library from Mojave

I have recently upgraded to a new Macbook Pro running Monterey 12.5. I have been apprehensive about switching from iTunes on Mojave to the new Music app with such a large library on Monterey and as expected I am having issues.


My library is very large, ~365GB / 40,000 items, mostly .mp3 with the odd .wav. I do not use Apple Music. I would really like to retain 'date added' metadata as that is important to me.


I keep my iTunes library on an external drive previously as my local was too small. However, on my new MBP there is enough space to store it locally and I am familiar with choosing different iTunes libraries when opening iTunes previously.


I have:

  • copied my old iTunes library folder from my external HDD to a folder on my new Macbook Pro.
  • this folder is located inside my Dropbox folder
  • opened the 'Music' app while holding down 'option' to choose the library
  • chosen the 'iTunes Library.itl' file on my local
  • Named the new 'Music' library and saved it in the same folder as the 'iTunes Library.itl' file


Once I have done all of this the Music app shows with a loading spinner in place of the song list, and I left it overnight to process everything as I thought it might take a while. But it was still there 8 hours later with no visible change so I assume it either was taking an extremely long time or did not work.


What is the issue? Do I have to wait longer? If so how much longer? Do I need to move it to the typical location within Documents/Music for the 'Music' app to read the old iTunes library properly? Is it not going to work inside a Dropbox folder, I see no reason why it shouldn't? Do I need to try another approach?


I am confident cracking open Terminal and copy/paste some commands if I need to.


Thank you!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Aug 1, 2022 4:51 PM

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3 replies

Aug 3, 2022 8:23 AM in response to joegarlicknz

A couple of observations. See Make a split library portable - Apple Community and make sure that your library is in a portable shape. Ideally open the new copy you make on your old system to ensure that the .itl file can correctly locate each track in the library.


iTunes/Music and Dropbox (OneDrive, etc.) really don't mix well. While some users have reported success adding their media folders to their cloud storage solution iTunes and Music expect to have immediate access to the content in the media folder. The way that the database files are updated can be hampered by another service attempting to catch and upload changes.


See also Move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Community.


tt2


Aug 2, 2022 2:11 PM in response to Sheree_P

Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately, then I lose 15+ years of 'date added' metadata which is extremely valuable to me. I use my collection chronologically. The most important 'date added' data to me is the past few years, anything older than that isn't as important, but still useful and meaningful to me.


Surely an iTunes library can be converted to a Music Library easily? It would be ludicrous of Apple to not allow that.

Music app on Monterey not opening very large iTunes library from Mojave

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