HELP! Transfer iTunes Library from High Sierra to Catalina.

[newyorksole]

Hey guys. I can’t seem to find this help anywhere. I have a 2010 iMac with a 50GB iTunes library and all I want to do is move it to my 2019 27” iMac running Catalina to the new Music app. That simple.

I don’t use iCloud Library. I just want to use my external hard drive. I can’t seem to figure it out. I want to preserve my likes/play count etc.

Please help.

 

[Doc69]

Did you figure out the best way to do it?

 

[Yesshows91]

I would also like to hear what other "professionals" on this forum have to say. I am also trying to move a large library from iTunes to the Catalina Music app. So far, moving the music files (only) seems to be fine, but the move is destroying my playlists. I have about 300 playlists in 30 folders which I want to keep intact. I have identified a bug in Catalina 10.15.1 which is making this difficult. I can go into detail on that if needed, but at this point I am curious how other people would transfer a large playlist library with many folders...?

 

[Bgeeoz]

Hey guys. I can’t seem to find this help anywhere. I have a 2010 iMac with a 50GB iTunes library and all I want to do is move it to my 2019 27” iMac running Catalina to the new Music app. That simple.

I don’t use iCloud Library. I just want to use my external hard drive. I can’t seem to figure it out. I want to preserve my likes/play count etc.

Please help.

Here is how I did it. I don’t use likes/ play count, so can’t confirm that.

Have current iTunes library available to Finder

One way is to copy “your user name home”/Music/iTunes to external drive
Another way would be to start your High Sierra Mac in Target Disk Mode and connect the two computers.

For Music;

Open Music on Catalina
Select File/Import/“your user name home”/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

Sit back

On Music, select View/Show Status Bar. This will show you the number of music files in new library.


For Video;

Open TV on Catalina

Select File/Import/“your user name home”/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

Sit back

On TV, select View/Show Status Bar. This will show you the number of music files in new library.


Books

Open Books on Catalina
Select File/Add to Library/“your user name home”/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

Sit back

On Books, I can’t find a way to count books short literally counting them. And they hid the files really well in Library.

 

[newyorksole]

Did you figure out the best way to do it?

Mannnn. You know what I had to do? I had to put my iTunes library onto an external hard drive, then make a new user account on my old computer. From that new user account I imported my library from the hard drive. The new user account’s library is an EXACT replica of my library on my main account.

I think did a Time Machine backup of that new user account. By doing that, I now had a backup of the iTunes library and I fired up the new computer and used Migration Assistant to only transfer the iTunes library from High Sierra to Catalina.

By doing it this way, it perfectly moved my music, playlists and data from the iTunes structure to the new Music app structure. And by doing it the way I did it, I ONLY transferred music. No other strange files.

I know that seems like a lot, but it wasn’t so bad and it was the easiest way. No other method worked for me.

I would also like to hear what other "professionals" on this forum have to say. I am also trying to move a large library from iTunes to the Catalina Music app. So far, moving the music files (only) seems to be fine, but the move is destroying my playlists. I have about 300 playlists in 30 folders which I want to keep intact. I have identified a bug in Catalina 10.15.1 which is making this difficult. I can go into detail on that if needed, but at this point I am curious how other people would transfer a large playlist library with many folders...?

If you do what I did, it’ll work like a charm. Everything in tact.

Here is how I did it. I don’t use likes/ play count, so can’t confirm that.

Have current iTunes library available to Finder

One way is to copy “your user name home”/Music/iTunes to external drive
Another way would be to start your High Sierra Mac in Target Disk Mode and connect the two computers.

For Music;

Open Music on Catalina
Select File/Import/“your user name home”/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

Sit back

On Music, select View/Show Status Bar. This will show you the number of music files in new library.


For Video;

Open TV on Catalina

Select File/Import/“your user name home”/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

Sit back

On TV, select View/Show Status Bar. This will show you the number of music files in new library.


Books

Open Books on Catalina
Select File/Add to Library/“your user name home”/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media

Sit back

On Books, I can’t find a way to count books short literally counting them. And they hid the files really well in Library.

Luckily my main concern was just music. Documents, videos, photos, keychains and messages all transferred super smoothly by dragging and dropping / using iCloud.