Migrating iTunes/Music with external HD from old iMac to new MacBook Pro

Hi,

Starting with the detail that your iTunes media folder is currently Home\Music\iTunes 1\iTunes Media\Music it would seem you've selected one folder too deep. This would normally be of the form <library folder>/iTunes Media, where <library folder> is the location of the .itl file. Depending on the age of your library or whether you've ever selected the Rearrange files... option your artist folders will be in a Music subfolder of the media folder listed in preferences, with other top level folders for different media kinds. Older versions of iTunes put artists folders directly in the media folder. If needs be you should be able to open iTunes, reset the media folder to ../iTunes Media, and close to effect that change.

On a Mac renaming or moving folders within the same volume (a physical drive can be split into one or more logical volumes) is usually acceptable and things carry on working. I.e. you can rename the folder iTunes 1 to iTunes and you should be able to open the library normally. (What you cannot do is move iTunes 1 from say Macintosh HD to External HD without creating issues.) I don't recall if you get prompted to choose a library because the last known library cannot be located, but if you do it should work once you browse to and open the .itl in the renamed folder. You might however skip this step since your external drive already has an iTunes folder in HD/Music which might be where you want to put the copy of your library as step on your migration.

With the library in a portable shape you can copy it out to an external drive, then option-start-iTunes to access it on that new path and it should update all of the internal references in the database to point to the copies of the files on the external drive. This helps when you come to convert the iTunes library to Music.

You can option-start-Music to get the usual choose or create a library dialog. If you choose an iTunes .itl file Music will prompt you for a location to save the converted library, and a name for the folder. Since there is already a Music folder on your external drive I'd suggest you store the library there in a folder called Music (it might suggest Music 2), so your new library is saved as HD/Music/Music. This library would initially pick up media from HD/Music/iTunes 1/iTunes Media. It should then be possible, while Music is closed, to move the iTunes Media folder into HD/Music/Music and rename it as Media. On relaunching Music it should pick up on the change and adjust accordingly.

Which brings us to the other library at HD\Music\iTunes. Is that a backup of an older version of the library with more content? Does it perhaps include video content that you left out of the library on the internal drive, or duplicates that you since deleted? Or is the library on the external drive your active library rather than the one on the internal drive? I suspect you will need to do some detective work to see exactly what is going on. If you're not sure, and don't want to inadvertently lose anything, a possible approach might be to import all of the music from the additional media folder, then deduplicate. See Duplicate songs in iTunes/Music - Apple Community for advice on that front.

tt2

See Move your iTunes/Music library to a new computer - Apple Community for general advice. Yes, in general you should blow away whatever has been copied over by Migration assistant, then copy the content of ~/Music to your external drive, move the drive to the new computer, copy ~/Music to the internal drive (if it isn't too big) then option-start-Music to connect to the library you have copied over.

If needs be see Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community and rearrange the library into a more portable layout (/Music/ folder containing .musiclibrary database and /Media/ folder) completely on the external drive so it becomes easier to backup as a unit and move between computers.

tt2

Hi, yes. That should give you tips on how to restructure the library into a more conventional layout. Give me a shout if you need me to go into more detail for your specific circumstances, but a combination of manual moves/renames and/or consolidating the library to the default media folder location (../Music/Media/) will usually work.

tt2