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Music library problem after Sonoma update


After updating to Sonoma the Music app only finds my purchased music, I suppose through my iCloud registration. I don't have an Apple Music subscription and all music files reside on my macbook. All 315GB of music files are there (several thousand entries), but I don't seem to be able to get the Music app to find the listing and database. Where can I point the preferences>Files location to? If I point it to ~>Music>iTunes and click choose it waits for another deeper choice. Within the iTunes folder I have a folder iTunes Music which contains some of the library folders, but there's also Movies, Podcasts, TV Shows, Compilations, and more music folders at the same level, and a folder ~>Music>iTunes>Music which seems to have any new songs I drag into the library. In ~Music>iTunes here's also a 16 MB iTunes Library .xml file from July 2022 which was just prior to a move from an older laptop to this laptop. There are also ~>Music>Music and Music 1 folders which seems to contain the current and previous databases, but these are all small files like 2 MB. It's a real mess.

So if anyone has any good knowledge about how to recover from this, please let me know!

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.0

Posted on Oct 19, 2023 1:37 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 20, 2023 12:07 PM

Hi Bill Spears,


Welcome to Apple Support Communities. To help locate your music files, we suggest for you to follow these steps as it may help:


Locate your Music files
1. In the Music app  on your Mac, click Songs in the sidebar.

2. Do one of the following:

* Find out where a file is stored: Select the item, then choose Song > Info.

* The path to the file is shown at the bottom of the File pane (next to location).

* Show the file in the Finder: Select the item, then choose File > Show in Finder.

* If you don’t see Show in Finder, the file may be in your music library and not on your computer.

If a song no longer appears in Music

If a song used to appear in Music but doesn’t now, it may be because the music library or song was moved from the Music folder. To make your songs appear in the Music window again, try the following in this order:
* Locate your Music folder in the Finder  on your Mac, then drag it to the Music window. Your songs appear in your library again. If the music library file is included, playlists, song ratings, and other information you created appear.

* If that doesn’t work, your songs may be elsewhere on your computer. In the Finder, choose File > Find, then search for a song by title or artist. Or search for “MP4” to find files downloaded from the iTunes Store or “MP3” to find songs encoded in MP3 format. Drag songs (or folders containing songs) to the Music window to add the songs to Music again.

Following these steps may help and is outlined in this article: Change where your music files are stored on Mac - Apple Support


If that doesn't help and you need additional assistance, we encourage for you to contact Apple Support through this link here: Get Support


Kind regards.


Similar questions

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 20, 2023 12:07 PM in response to Bill Spears

Hi Bill Spears,


Welcome to Apple Support Communities. To help locate your music files, we suggest for you to follow these steps as it may help:


Locate your Music files
1. In the Music app  on your Mac, click Songs in the sidebar.

2. Do one of the following:

* Find out where a file is stored: Select the item, then choose Song > Info.

* The path to the file is shown at the bottom of the File pane (next to location).

* Show the file in the Finder: Select the item, then choose File > Show in Finder.

* If you don’t see Show in Finder, the file may be in your music library and not on your computer.

If a song no longer appears in Music

If a song used to appear in Music but doesn’t now, it may be because the music library or song was moved from the Music folder. To make your songs appear in the Music window again, try the following in this order:
* Locate your Music folder in the Finder  on your Mac, then drag it to the Music window. Your songs appear in your library again. If the music library file is included, playlists, song ratings, and other information you created appear.

* If that doesn’t work, your songs may be elsewhere on your computer. In the Finder, choose File > Find, then search for a song by title or artist. Or search for “MP4” to find files downloaded from the iTunes Store or “MP3” to find songs encoded in MP3 format. Drag songs (or folders containing songs) to the Music window to add the songs to Music again.

Following these steps may help and is outlined in this article: Change where your music files are stored on Mac - Apple Support


If that doesn't help and you need additional assistance, we encourage for you to contact Apple Support through this link here: Get Support


Kind regards.


Feb 17, 2024 5:41 PM in response to bryanr14

I, too, stored all my music on my devices, because I am often in remote locations without cloud access. After Sonoma update, I found my music in Home>Music<iTunes and followed your advice to drag and drop music files (folders) onto the Music window, which I did, and now, whew, a long time later, the music is still transferring, as you can see by the red dotted circles beside each title. Why did only that one song transfer and is playable? I will next consolidate the files according to the link included in your helpful response. What I notice on my iPhone is that any song that resides on the cloud (purchases by spouse on his iPhone)will not play in Music. Do I need to somehow consolidate the music database on our iPhone?s I would really his device, my device, my desktop to sync—is that possible? Could I have my library both on the cloud and on my device? My device would not update its stored library though, correct?

Oct 20, 2023 12:52 PM in response to bryanr14

As you can see below I solved the original problem before I saw your reply. Nevertheless I am now trying to share a music library between two users on the same computer. As far as I can google this should be possible. I have set up home sharing with the first user, and I can see on another machine in the house that this is working. But for the second user on the same machine it isn't. There is no Library arrow to choose the library in the Music app of the second user. Despite opening up the permissions of the Music folder of user 1 to user 2, if as an alternative I try to point user 2's Music app to the user 1 Library I get the message "The library "Music Library" is locked, is on a locked disk, or you do not have write permissions for this library". Both users are using the same appleID. Any ideas?


Music library problem after Sonoma update

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