Copy my music library from one Mac to the other

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Copy my music library from one Mac to the other

Hello community!

I want have my Music on a second Mac (Monterey) just like I have it on the first Mac (also Monterey). During "iTunes" times, I simply copied the folder iTunes from one to the other Mac and I was done.

How can I do that with this App "Music"?

I tried to copy the folder ./Music/iTunes and ./Music/Music from one to the other Mac but this didnt work - eventhough the directories and files made it well, the application Music did only show about 4000 songs from 14000 which are included in my library.

Due to the confusing naming of files, directories and the App (all Music!!) it is very hard to search for help. So I am hoping on help this way ...

Thx!

MacBook Air (2018 – 2020)

Posted on Dec 3, 2024 6:05 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

279,425 points

Dec 3, 2024 11:44 AM in response to Hesslich

Try renaming the ~/Music/Music folder on your new machine to say ~/Music/Music Test, then copy over ~/Music/Music from the old computer to the new one again. Finally hold down option when launching Music and choose the library ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary.

A Music library is in the portable shape if all the media is inside a Media folder that is in the same folder as the .musiclibrary package.

By revisiting the migration I mean trying again if the library doesn't show all of the content that you expect. Since it looks like you have already copied over the media correctly it may be that the library package hasn't made the trip, or that Music is somehow remaining connected to an initial or corrupt copy. Hence the advice in the first paragraph in this post.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

279,425 points

Dec 3, 2024 6:27 AM in response to Hesslich

See Move your iTunes/Music library to a new computer - Apple Community. In most cases if you copy everything from the ~/Music folder (~ is your user's home folder) from one computer to the other then option start Music to open the transferred library it should work. It gets slightly more complicated if you have a Music library that was based on a previous iTunes library, particularly if that library wasn't in a fully standard layout.

tt2

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Answer 3

Hesslich Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 4, 2024 6:37 AM in response to turingtest2

turingtest2 wrote:

Try renaming the ~/Music/Music folder on your new machine to say ~/Music/Music Test, then copy over ~/Music/Music from the old computer to the new one again. Finally hold down option when launching Music and choose the library ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary.

...

Yes, this did the trick. I can now simply copy ./Music/iTunes and ./Music/Music from one computer to the other and it work after starting Music according your advice. Thx!

I finally noticed that those infos are commonly available but it is really hard to find them. This ridiculous naming (just everything is named Music or in German Musik), does not ease up things. Its tough to get an "entry point"

for your search. With your infos, links and terms, I finally got it going.

Nevertheless, I will try to consolidate all my music files into one folder ./Music/Music and get rid of ./Music/iTunes. But this is a different story and I guess the docs I found with your help will assist :-)

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Answer 4

Hesslich Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 3, 2024 6:54 AM in response to turingtest2

Thx for your info and the links. Reading thru it, I feel like it basically should be possible to simply copy "./Music/" from one Mac to the other. And it seems like I ran into problems since my Library on the fist Mac was somehow upgraded while upgrading from from Catalina to Big Sur and now lately to Monterey.

So, I assume that a very first step should be to straighten out my Music Library on the first Mac and get rid of the iTunes folder. I guess the last paragraph of your doc "macOS 10.15 Catalina and later" applies the best to my situation. But to be honest ... I am not sure wether I understood it right and I am afraid to loose my meta information like "last played" or "added to mediathek".

Do you have some more hints and tips for me? What is ment by "... library in the portable shape ..." or "... revisit the migration ..."?

All my mp3-files are located in my standard iTunes folder. No external locations.

Again, 1000thx for your help!

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Answer 5

Hesslich Author

Level 1

6 points

Dec 3, 2024 2:11 PM in response to turingtest2

Thx again for your time and ideas on the topic. I will test and investigate and get back here with a result.

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Copy my music library from one Mac to the other

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