I transferred my Apple TV library to a new external SSD when I bought my MacBook Pro last spring. A large number of video files did not transfer correctly and are now in the Apple Music library in an "Unknown Album."
This happened after I chose "Keep media folder organized" and reset the media folder location from the Files setting menu.
Is there a way to get them into the TV Library where they belong?
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.2
Perhaps, but the strange thing is where they are located:
They are in my internal SSD>Movies>TV>Media>Music>Unknown Artist>Unknown Album, at least in part. There are 70 of the missing files in there. Here is a screenshot of the info for one of them
The strange thing is where they are located:
They are in my internal SSD>Movies>TV>Media>Music>Unknown Artist>Unknown Album, at least in part. There are 70 of the missing files in there.
“Keep media folder organized” should re-arrange files if better meta data (tagging) gets added. But it also forces a type of organizing that may not match how your brain works. It is just a step up from unidentifiable randomized strings as folder names, but still not ideal for Finder browsing — so don’t do that. The important thing is that the apps know where media files are.
If you can think of a better way to organize the content in folders, then you should abandon the “Keep media folder organized” settings and do it all manually. Then files can be anywhere you choose.
So, as I remember, you are the person who helped me when I transferred my library. Everything had been in iTunes on my prior iMac. I brought the data over to my MacBook Pro and then created a TV Library. I also had to change the setting to keep organized and reset the location as you had instructed.
Everything else was left as it was. Most files ended up where they should have, but some did not. I have only used the Finder to locate where the missing files are, because the apps do not know where they are. They do not show up in the TV or Music user interface. And I cannot import the .mp4 files.
When I look for these files I find that many, if not all of them, are in a Music media library that is different from the one that I created with the data now on my external SSD connected to my MacBook Pro and, of course, different from the TV Library that I created at the same time.
The data on the external SSD looks just like it did before, e.i. it looks like it did when I was using iTunes: Music>iTunes>iTunes Music>Home Videos, Movies, Music, TV Shows.
Within the TV Shows folder there is a Show folder which should contain 6 seasons with over 300 videos. It did include that when I completed the transfer, but only season 6 showed up in the TV user interface.
Now it mysteriously shows folders for only seasons 1, 5, & 6. Season 1 contains 69 video files none of which appear in the TV user interface, Season 5 contains only 1 video file which is not in the user interface, and Season 6 contains 23 video files all of which are in the user interface. Some of these 23 videos were created before I had my new MacBook, so they were transferred correctly and added to the TV app and some were created later in the TV app.
Could it be that these are tagged as Music Videos? That would be the regular reason for associating video files with the Music app in this way.
Some Apple TV files incorrectly transferred to Apple Music
