Moving iTunes library WITH individual song options (start time, stop time, volume)

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Moving iTunes library WITH individual song options (start time, stop time, volume)

My MacBook recently needed to be erased and have the OS freshly installed, such is the joy in my life. I have a disk image (DMG file) of the entire hard drive before it was erased.

I've managed to move my music from the iTunes library in that image file into Music on my newly set-up MacBook. I moved from Mojave to Monterey in the process so moved from iTunes to Music.

So far so good, the music's come across fine.

But I have a lot of songs with long intros/outros where I manually set the start or stop point to be a certain length into the track, by right clicking on the track, selecting 'get info', selecting 'options' and putting in my desired start/stop points. I also manually adjust the volume for any tracks that are abnormally quiet or loud.

I did all of this years ago and have been enjoying the results ever since. Now I've had to migrate my iTunes library those settings have not made it across into Music and I really don't want to do it all again, in fact I couldn't as I can't remember them all.

How do I get that info across? In my image file I can see:

iTunes Library.itl

iTunes Music Library.xml

iTunes Library Extras.itdb

I've tried importing all of those into Music and it doesn't seem to have done anything.

Posted on Sep 26, 2022 5:35 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

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274,540 points

Sep 26, 2022 5:45 AM in response to Torshen

See Move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Community. In general if you move the whole library and then use the option-start-Music method to open and convert the iTunes Library.itl database into the .musiclibrary format you should get all of the custom metadata such as start & stop times, ratings, play counts, etc.

That said some people seem to have difficulties in Monterey with Music locking up and not completing the conversion process. See itunes library to music app - Apple Community for a thread where I've discussed workarounds.

tt2

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Answer 2

Torshen Author

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Sep 26, 2022 6:52 AM in response to turingtest2

Okay, deleted everything from music, worked around that error message and have managed to choose my old library when option-starting Music. It's now just sitting with 'Loading..." and a spinning wheel, no indication of progress.

Been doing it about 15 mins so far, my library is about 9GB in size, so not particularly large, and I'd copied it to the internal SSD before option-start-choosing it.

Any idea how long I ought to leave it? It doesn't look like it's copying anything into Users/<me>/Music, at least I can't see anything moving/growing in Finder.

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Answer 3

Torshen Author

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Sep 26, 2022 7:21 AM in response to Torshen

Update... Right, I see the forever-spinning wheel on the loading screen is the second issue you mentioned. I read your previous posts and tried to use your workaround of importing my XML (I don't have access to Big Sur or Catalina) and it's imported all of my songs but not the metadata. I don't have the start/stop times or volume settings. I do have the play counts but not the other stuff. Looking at the XML in a text editor I can see that info (start/stop/volume) simply isn't included within the <dict> tags for each track, so I don't think the XML method will work for me, sadly

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Answer 4

Torshen Author

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Sep 26, 2022 7:59 AM in response to turingtest2

Thank you very much. In your other post, when you say to place the database 'above the media folder' do you mean in the same location as the media folder?

So both the DB file and the Media folder should be here:

Users/<me>/Music/<Library name>/

If so, I'll make sure my iTunes media is moved accordingly first.

Should I keep the 'Album Artwork' folder from my old iTunes library too, in the same place?

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Answer 5

turingtest2

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274,540 points

Sep 26, 2022 8:09 AM in response to Torshen

With iTunes the normal layout is ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/<All the media> with the iTunes Library.itl file going into the iTunes folder. The obvious location for the converted Music Library.musiclibrary database is the same place as the .itl file, although I think you will still need to manually fix the media folder path using Music > Preferences > Files when you first get your converted database.

Once it is all working you could leave things as the are, or potentially rename iTunes as Music, and iTunes Media as Media, to make the library conform to the modern layout, but you don't have to.

The old iTunes Album Artwork folder isn't needed, Music builds the artwork cache in a different location.

tt2

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Answer 6

turingtest2

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Sep 26, 2022 11:44 AM in response to Torshen

I've sent you the converted database. If it cannot find tracks when you try to play them you may need restore the original folder names.

tt2

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Answer 7

Torshen Author

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Sep 26, 2022 6:23 AM in response to Torshen

Ok, this seemed to work for that error above:

"You cannot change the music library at t… - Apple Community

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Answer 8

Torshen Author

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Sep 26, 2022 6:10 AM in response to turingtest2

Oh, not off to a great start. What do I need to do with my iPhone then, to get this to work?

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Answer 9

Torshen Author

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Sep 26, 2022 6:00 AM in response to turingtest2

Cheers tt2, that's good info, I'll see how I get on. So I guess I'll delete everything from Music and start again with the Option-start method. Ta.

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Answer 10

turingtest2

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274,540 points

Sep 26, 2022 7:31 AM in response to Torshen

I can try converting the .itl for you in my Catalina system. Two for two so far. Email me the .itl or a link to it on a cloud service and I will post back the .musiclibrary version.

tt2

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