Cant get Apple Music app to look at the correct music media folder

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Level 1

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Cant get Apple Music app to look at the correct music media folder

Im running Monterey and use the Apple Music app. My media folder is located on a NAS, and has been working fine. Recently somehow the media folder got split up, and big portion of my media was moved into another "music" folder, at a different level from the original one. All my media was there, just located in two different folders. I used Rsync command to merge all the media back together into one music media folder.

Here is the problem: My iTunes library still wants to look at both folders even when I set the default under prefs to the single correct folder. I see my complete music library, but when I look at track "info" in the music app, it shows lots of songs located in one of the split folders. I have tried changing the folder name, moving it into another folder. music app, still finds the media in the spit folder, and not the repaired one I want it to look in. I cant figure out how to fix this, so all my music media is back in one single folder.

thanks,

dan

iPad Pro, iPadOS 15

Posted on Oct 12, 2023 2:28 PM

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Answer 1

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sakols Author

Level 1

5 points

Oct 13, 2023 8:58 AM in response to turingtest2

Actually, using Rsync worked to converge the two directories back into one. Music app, kept looking for files on the "old" directories despite setting the new one in preferences. I managed to fix the problem by pointing the preferences path to yet an older back up of the media folder on another drive, which Music app "bound" to. Then I updated the pref. path to my target media folder and it suddenly worked as it should. Hmmm. Maybe refreshing .plist would have solved this problem. No duplicates generated, "keep music organized" was unchecked.

Thanks for your reply!!

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

272,943 points

Oct 13, 2023 5:58 AM in response to sakols

See Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community and in particular the section on iTunes Media Organization. The correct approach is to update the plist and then turn Keep organized off and back on again, however if you do this now after using Rsync to merge the folders then Music will add new copies of the files with a 2 suffix where the filename it wants to use is already in use by a file that isn't connected to the library. You will probably need to add all of the songs that are in the media folder to the library, expose your same album duplicates, delete all those that have been added today sending to trash, and then update the plist and play with the Keep organized preferences. See Duplicate songs in iTunes/Music - Apple Community for background. Backup everything before you start in case you make a mistake somewhere and need to walk it back.

tt2

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Cant get Apple Music app to look at the correct music media folder

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