Music files location after moving Music folder from one Mac to another Mac

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mandoskier Author

Level 1

10 points

Music files location after moving Music folder from one Mac to another Mac

I recently copied my Music folder from one Mac to another Mac as follows:

1. Copied my Music folder from Mac #1 to an external hard drive.

2. Deleted the contents of the Mac #2 Music folder.

3. Copied the contents of the external drive’s Music folder to Mac #2 Music folder.

4. Launched the Music app on Mac #2.

When I launched the Music app in Mac #2, I noticed the file path was ~/Music/Music while the file path in Mac #1 is ~/Music/Music/Media.

Although the Music app finds the music files successfully on both Macs why is the Music Media file path different?

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.5

Posted on Aug 8, 2023 11:47 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

277,979 points

Aug 9, 2023 6:44 AM in response to mandoskier

If your artist folders are in ~/Music/Music rather than ~/Music/Music/Media then the first folder would be a better fit for the media folder, which might explain why Music selected that path when you first copied over your library. Where is the Music Library.musiclibrary database? The normal location would be ~/Music/Music. Music doesn't actively scan the media folder looking for content, although it will pick up new items in the active Automatically Add to Music folder. You could potentially consolidate the media into the new location that you've set, but that would double up the files which you might not have room for, and then you would have to manually delete the originals. Given it is a Mac however you could move the folders from one layer down to the next and Music should automatically adjust to the new locations.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

277,979 points

Aug 8, 2023 11:55 AM in response to mandoskier

See Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community.

tt2

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Answer 3

mandoskier Author

Level 1

10 points

Aug 8, 2023 2:14 PM in response to turingtest2

Thank you for supplying more info via the link.

After reading your user tip regarding managing Mac media libraries, I still don’t understand why the Music app automatically pointed to ~/Music/Music and not to the lower level Media file as well.

Your image showing the file structure for the Music folder shows the Media file containing the actual music files whereas my Music/Media file only contains two empty folders (Automatically Add to Music and Downloads-Music).

Out of curiosity, I changed the Music Media location in the Music app to ~/Music/Music/Media and the app still found my music media as it did when the Music Media location omitted the Media folder.

Since my Music/Media file doesn’t contain any media, how is the app finding my music?

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Music files location after moving Music folder from one Mac to another Mac

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