Where's my **** music?

Where are my songs? I import songs to my ever expanding music library (stored on an external drive), and yet the next time I open Apple Music/iTunes, they're often not there, and changes I've made to other tracks are also often lost. Eventually the songs (and changes) remain, but I often have to import or edit the track info several times.


I'm running Catalina on a late 2013 iMac (I'm planning to move to a new MacBook Air soon, and I don't want to loose my music in the process, so this is important). Also, I don't feel I or anyone else should have to pay eleven bucks--or whatever it is--a month, simply to be allowed to play music I've already bought and paid for, in some cases years ago--that just seems like unnecessary price gouging.


But this has become an ongoing problem, and all I get from Apple are invitations to spend more money.



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Posted on Feb 6, 2024 10:07 AM

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Posted on Feb 6, 2024 11:42 AM

Hold down option as you launch Music and explicitly reselect the library file that you want to open. It seems Music may sometimes open a cached copy that it then doesn't update correctly. You can also try holding down both option+cmd which opens Music in its safe mode and may do some internal housekeeping on the library. See also Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community. If your media is on an external drive you may want to put the library database on that drive too. I.e. library at <External>/Music with the media at <External>/Music/Media.


tt2

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 6, 2024 11:42 AM in response to Kevinburtonsmith

Hold down option as you launch Music and explicitly reselect the library file that you want to open. It seems Music may sometimes open a cached copy that it then doesn't update correctly. You can also try holding down both option+cmd which opens Music in its safe mode and may do some internal housekeeping on the library. See also Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community. If your media is on an external drive you may want to put the library database on that drive too. I.e. library at <External>/Music with the media at <External>/Music/Media.


tt2

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Where's my **** music?

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