Importing iTunes library into Catalina's Apple Music?

[mikzn]

Hey Mizn,

you ever get your problems resolved. it tokk me over four weeks to figure out how to even get a library on an external SSD impoterted with playlists and mdiea. media came first then i still had to et Pplaylists. well low and be hold, reading tall the posts on this over and over, i finally found what worked for me. you have to point to the .itl on the root music folder of where your library is especially external. what a relief. it makes the Music app usable for me again.

I did not really have an issue with the import - just used the option key to "choose library" and it imported just fine - back on beta 4 or 5

My issue is the column browser - still missing and the search function is kind of lame and defaults to only album view which is pretty much useless if you want to use the song view.

It really seems like the focus is not on library mangement but using music for streaming of "Apple Music"

IMHO

 

[rishi.talreja]

I agree. I prefer to view my music library by listing 'Songs' rather than viewing 'Albums', however the album artwork display is not available in 'Song' view, unlike iTunes.

Same here. Ironically, when playing a song from all songs view (shuffle let see say) the go to current track (cmd j) doesn't take you to the song in the list but shows the album with the artwork! Haha.

 

[lungbutter]

Write my reply...

 

[lungbutter]

I did not really have an issue with the import - just used the option key to "choose library" and it imported just fine - back on beta 4 or 5

My issue is the column browser - still missing and the search function is kind of lame and defaults to only album view which is pretty much useless if you want to use the song view.

It really seems like the focus is not on library management but using music for streaming of "Apple Music"

IMHO

Hey Mizn,

How's it working for ya now? pleased that it stabilized a couple betas for 10.15 GM. Running 10.15.1 as I'm sure many. I can live with this. I REALLY hope that the Music department gets twice the budget they had last year. it may stimulate thtem to continue to improve things. In fact, if they TRIPLED their salaries, i'd bet we'd see some new great features added. i reject all other theories and substitute my own. LOL. -MB

 

[Rizvi1]

I'm dealing with this now. I've always kept my music files in the shared drive and always just went into itunes preferences and pointed to that music folder. I did my last data backup while my computer was still Mojave and when I got my new computer with Catalina, I went into Music preferences, pointed to my iTunes folder back on the shared drive and nothing. I then tried importing the iTunes Library.itl file and nothing.

But, when I import the iTunes Music Library.xml file, then it seems the process starts, but it seems to be taking forever. The little "importing "itunes music library.xml"..." window shows up (across all the different applications you're working on) and won't go away. After a while I stopped it and started it up and it seems I now see some of my songs from the iTunes Media folder on my shared drive listed. But don't see any of the playlists or anything.

I'm wondering if what I should do instead is go to my other computer that's still on Mojave and do the Catalina upgrade on that and then perhaps that'll do the migration automatically in that process?

 

[Rizvi1]

Update: I tried importing the XML file again and let it run for 12 hours and all in all like 12 albums downloaded. No playlists or anything.

So then I went to my Mojave 13" MPB "Go" computer (older secondary computer that one I don't keep anything on, just use when I'm out for basic tasks) and imported all my music and other iTunes media. Once that was all set up, I did the upgrade to Catalina and all my songs were all there, my playlists were there, play counts, etc. Also, the new TV+ app and podcasts apps were all setup correctly and pulling files from the iTunes media folders where they resided (still within the Music folder).

So then I tried manually moving over the library files for Music and TV+ to my new 16" w/ Catalina. That kind of worked. I did have to do an import from the XML file which this time worked fast. But because of my two failed attempts at import I had a lot of duplicates I had to clean out. Not too bad. What was annoying was that my TV+ wasn't accessing *all* my files. The "Home Videos" tab was missing which is all my vids that I've had imported into iTunes over the years so that I could watch them on my iPod.

My Podcasts app wasn't accessing my saved podcasts in the iTunes Media folder as well. Neither of these were a terribly big deal but if it could all be done right, I wanted it to.

So I tried plan B: Which was to try and clean install Mojave on my new 16" MBP, setup iTunes and everything on that, upgrade to Catalina, and then with these files setup right, import the rest of my files back from backup. So I cleared the hard drive of the 16" MBP, made the Mojave installer, and went to install, but:

I looked around on the web and it seems on the 16" you can't do a Mojave install. So the was out.

The last option then was Catalina install again and this time bring all the iTunes, TV+, Podcast stuff via the Migration assistant. That process worked.

And as I'm typing this, I'm bringing all my files back on from back-up.

I lucked out having a computer with Mojave on it. I was just too lazy to do the upgrade on that for however long Catalina's been out. Looks like my laziness paid off.

 

[Te0SX]

So after all, it's really simple. I made a clean install, came from Mojave.

1) I copied my Music/iTunes folder from Time Machine to User/Music.
2) Then I Option clicked to Music app, I chose from the iTunes folder the .itl file and without moving the media anywhere, it just started importing everything including my playlists, artworks, plays, date added etc. Everything imported normally. From Music ->Preferences the path was ready "/DiskName/User/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media".

I've made the mistake many times before today copying the media elsewhere, like the Music/Music/Media and then copying .itl there and trying to figure out things but nah, it's just the solution above.

 

[jmj04202015]

Just go to file,add to librrary and go to the music folder on mojave drive,itunes and selct itunes media and all your files will be imported even the home videos.

Hi, "add to library" is grayed out and not an option to choose in Music on Catalina when I go to my account.

 

[zjs820]

I also did a clean install on an external SSD - and did not use migration since there are a lot apps on my Mojave working version that are not going to be possible to migrate ( ie 32 bit etc.)

I was able to import the Mojave (iTunes) library by placing a copy of the library.itl in the music folder - used the "option key" when opening the Music app - it does ask to "Create or Choose" a library (just like iTunes)- so I selected the old library and the Music App then asked to save as a new "Music 1" library

Once I did that - it imported all the history, with play counts, ratings, genres and all the other info seems to be there intact

Too bad there is no Column View

I am hoping they put the column view back (upcoming versions?) and then there will not be much difference over the iTunes version - although I do find it more set up for streaming music from the apple store than for playing my existing music files.

It works! Thank you so much!

 

[redAPPLE]

Playlists import fine - its the search / column browser for large libraries like yours that I can't understand - makes no sense

I deleted all Music caches, folders, and Preferences. I added Music to the Full Disk Access permissions, since the Library lives on its own disk. I started Music with Option key down and selected iTunes.itl. That seems to work well so far.

how did you add music to the full disk access permissions?