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Apple Music not using the specified media folder

My Apple Music App is set to use a specific folder on an external drive for storing media. It used to work, but now, even though it is set correctly within the app, Apple Music is pulling media from the local drive.

I have attached an image of where I have the Music Media folder, and another shot of where Apple Music is actually pulling music from. I have tried reseting the connection, and restarting the computer. Still nothing.

I don't know when the change occurred, as I have not used Apple Music in some time.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.4

Posted on May 6, 2024 12:27 PM

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195 points

Posted on May 7, 2024 9:18 AM

I found a solution: see below.

First, Turingtest, I understand what you are saying, but as you can see from my screen shots, the media folder location, as indicated by the settings, was correct. I may have tried to open the app when the external drive was not connected, but I did reconnect the drive and change the settings within the app to use it. The problem was the app just wasn't using it.

Starting fresh. I option-started the app, created a new library, and just imported all audio into the new library. Then deleted old. This required using a second external hard drive as an interim storage for this operation.

Anyway, it's all working now.

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Top-ranking reply

Level 2

195 points

May 7, 2024 9:18 AM in response to turingtest2

I found a solution: see below.

First, Turingtest, I understand what you are saying, but as you can see from my screen shots, the media folder location, as indicated by the settings, was correct. I may have tried to open the app when the external drive was not connected, but I did reconnect the drive and change the settings within the app to use it. The problem was the app just wasn't using it.

Starting fresh. I option-started the app, created a new library, and just imported all audio into the new library. Then deleted old. This required using a second external hard drive as an interim storage for this operation.

Anyway, it's all working now.

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Level 10

278,297 points

May 6, 2024 3:24 PM in response to Jon H.

Like iTunes before it Music will reset the media folder to a location where the database is stored if you ever launch the app when the external drive isn't ready. It will do so silently, and generally uses that location until you explicitly change it again. After changing the media folder you may get prompted to consolidate the library, which would copy in any content outside of the media folder into. Clean up of the original files is a manual task left to the user.

See Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for further advice. You might consider moving your active Music Library.music library database to <External>/Music and then consolidating to <External>/Music/Media which would make the library easier to backup and move around in future, and prevents this media folder reset issue from occurring.

tt2

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Apple Music not using the specified media folder

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