Importing an iTunes Music Library into the Music app in MacOS - Album Artwork Not Showing Correctly

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Orion1972 Author

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Importing an iTunes Music Library into the Music app in MacOS - Album Artwork Not Showing Correctly

After 16 years of using iTunes on a PC, I am returning to Mac and trying to get my iTunes library into the "Music" application on a new MacBook Pro running Sonoma 14.3.1. Keeping the original artwork stored in the mp3 music files is important. It is also important to retain the information about the Plays, Date Added, and Last Played for each song.

I have had the same iTunes library since 2008 (roughly 50,000 songs with 100+ playlists). All the music files are mp3's with IDV2.3 tags that are stored in a single directory (with no subdirectories) using appropriate filenames (Artist - Title.mp3). Each ID3 tag in the MP3 has accurate title, album, composer, etc. along with original artwork. I have always had the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" set to Off. Some call this a "split" iTunes Library (since the actual music files are stored in a different location than the iTunes library file). I have also read the excellent article by TuringTest2 (Make a split library portable - Apple Community) and have followed that procedure.

I start with all the music in a single folder on my Mac. Next, I put my "iTunes Library.itl" and "Album Artwork" folder from my PC in the Music folder on my Mac. I start the Music app on my Mac while holding down the option key. This brings up a menu asking me which library I want to use. I point it to my "iTune Library.itl" file. It imports my library. On my Mac, in the Apple Music application, I go to Settings > Files and change the "Music Media folder location" to be the folder where my music is located on my Mac. I click to play a song in the Music app, and MacOS asks me to locate it. I locate it correctly, and it plays correctly. I click on another song, and MacOS asks if I want to look in the same location to find other missing files, and I agree. The Music app then finds all my music correctly (though it takes a couple of hours). At this stage: all my songs play correctly in Music; my playlists are there and in tact; the Play count, Rating, Date Added, and Last Played are all there and correct. Even my dozens of Smart Playlists work correctly, which is great. But....

The only problem -- and a significant problem -- is that none of the artwork shows-up correctly. See the screen shots below. Album and song artwork does not show-up in the main window. But, if you look at the top of the screen, to the right of the play/pause button, you see the correct artwork:

In the screenshot above, you can see there is no album artwork. Also, if I request Music to show the artwork for each song, it does not show-up there either.

However, if I click on the tiny artwork that shows-up at the top of the screen, the app opens the mini-player and displays the artwork correctly in fullscreen or minimized (in the mini-player):

When I close the mini-player and "Get Info" on the song, the artwork does not show up in the "Artwork" tab:

Experts, please help. I really want to return to Mac in full musical style :)

Also, using "Get Album Artwork" is not useful since well-over half of my library has original artwork that is not accessible to Apple Music.

Posted on Feb 12, 2024 11:18 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

278,055 points

Feb 12, 2024 1:33 PM in response to Orion1972

Hi there,

The new Music app in Catalina and later builds of macOS doesn't make any use of a previous iTunes library's artwork cache. For best results embed all artwork while you are in iTunes for Windows before moving the library across.

I have two scripts that can help with embedding artwork; CreateFolderArt and EmbedFolderArt. The scripts have slightly different functions:

CreateFolderArt ensures that every album folder ends up with a Folder.jpg image which is the art that iTunes already knows about. Side effects are that if artwork has been updated in iTunes the folder art should be updated also, and if any track from the album doesn't have embedded artwork it gets embedded.

EmbedFolderArt was actually written for someone who already had various artwork images stored in the album folders and wanted them added to their tracks, but not if iTunes had already downloaded a better quality image. It creates new files of any store art with the name iTunesArt.jpg, then embeds the largest image by area in the album's folder, based on the premise that this is likely to be the best image.

In either case you could search and destroy the images in the folders after they are embedded if you don't want them.

What I describe as a "split library" is one where the .itl file is in one folder (typically iTunes) and the media folder is anything other than a folder called iTunes Media in the same location as the .itl file. The internal structure of the media folder can be anything you like, but having the subfolder relationship between the .itl file is what makes moving between platforms, volumes, drives, paths, etc. a painless process. Seconds to adjust rather than the couple of hours that you experience now, using a method which doesn't always work. If your .itl file is located in the folder immediately above your media folder, then you should be able to rename the media folder as iTunes Media (if it isn't already) and iTunes should automatically adjust. This outer with the .itl inside should then make the transition to macOS more easily. Embed the artwork first though.

Even when art is correctly embedded Music may sometimes fumble the creation of a new artwork cache. See this post to reset the cache so it starts again: Apple Music Big Sur Album Artwork Cache R… - Apple Community. You might start with this step, and only revisit the migration of the library if it hasn't been fully successful.

In terms of your Music library surviving its next move to a new computer or drive this will be easier if the media folder is now labelled simply as Media and is in the same location as the Music Library.musiclibrary package that is the replacement for the .itl file and its companions. See Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for details. Macs are much more forgiving if you rename a file or folder as long as it stays on the same volume. Given your love of a flat folder structure see the section on iTunes Media Organization so you can prevent Music from generating a /Music subfolder and wanting to move/create content there. You'll still need to move anything Music actively downloads, rips, or converts.

tt2

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Importing an iTunes Music Library into the Music app in MacOS - Album Artwork Not Showing Correctly

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