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Some more in-depth info about the new Music app?
- Thread starter Janichsan
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is it possible to login to Apple music with an seperate AppleID?
This keeps me from switching to Apple Music.
I have a private AppleID with family sharing but i want to listen on my work mac with different AppleID.
This keeps me from switching to Apple Music.
I have a private AppleID with family sharing but i want to listen on my work mac with different AppleID.
I was wondering for backups can the new music apps folder with all your music be dragged and dropped onto a new mac/old mac or say if you have to ever re-install, like the old iTunes folder? I keep various backups one on a thumb drive and just wanted to know if this is the same so I can continue to do this.
So if you needed to do a clean install you can drag and drop your music folder into the app as you can with the iTunes folder, as I don't use iCloud and really have no wish to start doing so. Also where are the iPhone/iPad syncs kept now? is it a hidden folder or part of the music app? Sorry is this is a dumb question, I've just not really not had the time to read though everything in-depth as of yet.
So if you needed to do a clean install you can drag and drop your music folder into the app as you can with the iTunes folder, as I don't use iCloud and really have no wish to start doing so. Also where are the iPhone/iPad syncs kept now? is it a hidden folder or part of the music app? Sorry is this is a dumb question, I've just not really not had the time to read though everything in-depth as of yet.
Oh yes, missed that sorry.
Back to my original question then: Where did music videos end up?
Yeah I think I am taking the "adapting" part a little more seriously this time around than I usually do. I used to wait until a few weeks before a new OS release and then round up my list of third party apps with an eye to compatibility. This time it's not about third party apps, or only in the sense I hope I don't have to resort to them to end up with the equivalent of how I manage music, music videos, audiobooks in particular now in iTunes.
I'm trying to remember it's early days... sorta early days.... not really!! Still I'm submitting feedback to Apple yet again regarding questions about multiple iTunes libraries and wondering about editing of smart playlists (re references to selection criteria that might not be available any more). Just to remind Apple there are millions of people who have made good use of options to maintain multiple libraries, and to edit metadata track by track or in groups, and incorporate such edits into playlist construction as well.
I'm not necessarily reassured by that support doc Apple put up. It's wordsmithed to a fare thee well, e.g. saying that "Music playlists and smart playlists that you've created in iTunes will be in the new Apple Music app" . That doesn't confirm to me that editing will have the same options, nor for instance even that foldered playlists will still be a feature. Without foldered playlists, I'm dead: I must have thousands of them and rely on foldering to keep the visual rush of data down to a dull roar when refreshing various devices with different kinds of material (or in the case of certain iPods, the right files to use for auto-refresh option).
And then.. what about those multiple music libraries... and manual storage and arrangement of music data files. I wish I had time to be a beta tester of Catalina.
There are screenshots showing "Genius" in Music's sidebar, so it seems so.
This is fundamental, really. *All* of the third party apps I know of use the .xml file to import/sync to the iTunes library.
If they changed something, they'll have broken 99% of the audio apps out there, including hi-end players like Amarra, Audirvana, Pure Music, etc...
Can anyone take a peek inside the User's folder and see how the Music folder hierarchy is organized?
I asked this question in the other thread but didn't get an answer - does music app allow hiding the sidebar? iTunes allowed that in 10.14.
It's a bit confusing, but then I was confused about iTunes folder locations even before this upgrade 
I have, in my home directory, a directory called Music and one called iTunes. Previously, Music was empty and iTunes was where iTunes stored everything. So, for example, I had ~/iTunes/Music with all my music in it, and ~/Music that was empty but the O/S needed for some reason.
I *think* the default was ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media (and music was stored in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music) and I vaguely remember moving the iTunes Media folder to ~/iTunes years ago (I have a 2013 Macbook Pro).
After upgrading to 10.15 I still have ~/Music and ~/iTunes (and hence ~/iTunes/Music etc) but the ~/Music directory now contains a folder called Music in it. Yeah. This is why I get confused. Anyway, in ~/Music/Music is one file: Music Library.musiclibrary. So I have ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary. Brilliant.And this is just a text file with some preferences in it. I trashed the entire ~/Music directory and opening the Music app recreated it.
So, XML files .... nope. The Music app isn't using one. It left the old one in ~/iTunes but it's not being updated. What one can do is export the library to an XML file. Obviously, this is just a snapshot of the library at the time you click "export".
Sorry if my explanation isn't the clearest!
EDIT!!!!
The file "Music Library.musiclibrary" is actually a package and if you select Open Package or simply cd into the directory in Terminal then you can see that this is where the new library (the equivalent of iTunes' XML files) is stored. It appears this is not read until a reboot so me deleting my ~/Music directory appeared to have no effect until I rebooted, after which my library and playlists etc had all gone. I could simply change my media folder back to where my music was and import everything, but that wouldn't recover my playlists. Luckily, being a bit of a unix geek, when I say I deleted the Music folder I actually just renamed it to Music-old so I renamed it back, rebooted, and my playlists and entire library are back.
I have, in my home directory, a directory called Music and one called iTunes. Previously, Music was empty and iTunes was where iTunes stored everything. So, for example, I had ~/iTunes/Music with all my music in it, and ~/Music that was empty but the O/S needed for some reason.
I *think* the default was ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media (and music was stored in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music) and I vaguely remember moving the iTunes Media folder to ~/iTunes years ago (I have a 2013 Macbook Pro).
After upgrading to 10.15 I still have ~/Music and ~/iTunes (and hence ~/iTunes/Music etc) but the ~/Music directory now contains a folder called Music in it. Yeah. This is why I get confused. Anyway, in ~/Music/Music is one file: Music Library.musiclibrary. So I have ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary. Brilliant.
So, XML files .... nope. The Music app isn't using one. It left the old one in ~/iTunes but it's not being updated. What one can do is export the library to an XML file. Obviously, this is just a snapshot of the library at the time you click "export".
Sorry if my explanation isn't the clearest!
EDIT!!!!
The file "Music Library.musiclibrary" is actually a package and if you select Open Package or simply cd into the directory in Terminal then you can see that this is where the new library (the equivalent of iTunes' XML files) is stored. It appears this is not read until a reboot so me deleting my ~/Music directory appeared to have no effect until I rebooted, after which my library and playlists etc had all gone. I could simply change my media folder back to where my music was and import everything, but that wouldn't recover my playlists. Luckily, being a bit of a unix geek, when I say I deleted the Music folder I actually just renamed it to Music-old so I renamed it back, rebooted, and my playlists and entire library are back.
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It's a bit confusing, but then I was confused about iTunes folder locations even before this upgrade
I have, in my home directory, a directory called Music and one called iTunes. Previously, Music was empty and iTunes was where iTunes stored everything. So, for example, I had ~/iTunes/Music with all my music in it, and ~/Music that was empty but the O/S needed for some reason.
I *think* the default was ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media (and music was stored in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music) and I vaguely remember moving the iTunes Media folder to ~/iTunes years ago (I have a 2013 Macbook Pro).
After upgrading to 10.15 I still have ~/Music and ~/iTunes (and hence ~/iTunes/Music etc) but the ~/Music directory now contains a folder called Music in it. Yeah. This is why I get confused. Anyway, in ~/Music/Music is one file: Music Library.musiclibrary. So I have ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary. Brilliant. And this is just a text file with some preferences in it. I trashed the entire ~/Music directory and opening the Music app recreated it.
So, XML files .... nope. The Music app isn't using one. It left the old one in ~/iTunes but it's not being updated. What one can do is export the library to an XML file. Obviously, this is just a snapshot of the library at the time you click "export".
Sorry if my explanation isn't the clearest!
It's clear to me.... and thank you. It's weird there's no XML... and unfortunate. Maybe they will fix that. So many other apps depend on it, what are they supposed to do now?
The files in Mojave look a little different for me due to having multiple iTunes libraries. Most look like ~/Music/[itunes library name]/ iTunes Music/artist/album/
But if the iTunes library is my one that is currently dedicated to Apple Music, created at first with only a few selected tracks copied from my other libraries (so I can turn on iCloud Music library and not have it matching or uploading gigabytes of my stuff),,,,
then it has ended up with a pair of folders divvying up the music (AM vs "mine")
I didn't do that split arrangement of the file containers for artist/album; the OS and the AM-related parts of itunes forced that split on stuff that's "theirs" versus "mine".
~/Music/[itunes library name]/iTunes Media/Apple Music (my AM downloads)
~/Music/[itunes library name]/iTunes Media/Music (cloud redownloads)
and then each of those has artist/album folders.
~/Music/[itunes library name]/iTunes Media/Music (cloud redownloads)
and then each of those has artist/album folders.
I didn't do that split arrangement of the file containers for artist/album; the OS and the AM-related parts of itunes forced that split on stuff that's "theirs" versus "mine".
I guess as long as the new Music app still honors multiple libraries, it will work out ok. You can be sure I won't upgrade to Catalina immediately. i don't want to find out what happens if there's no provision for multiple libraries. I wonder about it... because of the idea of "sync" via Finder. See iPhones never wanted to look at a different library and threatened to wipe music and video off your phone if you plugged one into a USB port while having iTunes up and pointing at some other iTunes library. What will the MacOS music app do?
Were your actual music data files for a regular iTunes library always in ~/iTunes/Music or did they get copied in there even if you had them somewhere else while running Mojave iTunes?
I ask that question because someone here (maybe not this thread) had said Music app will now copy and organize your media even if you don't want that done. ?? I have some music data files that are kept out of iTunes folders on purpose because I don't want them arranged by artist/album or put into compilations either. So I wonder about this in the new MacOS Music app. I don't want my storage space usage ballooning because I can't control what the app does about music data file management. And what about aliased refererences if some music is intentionally in more than one library?
Does this mean that in tvOS beta the "Computers" app is a thing of the past and Home Sharing functionality is rolled into the TV app?
I've not tried it to see if it works, but here's a screenshot of the Music app preferences:
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I am really liking what I see. And they brought back colors to the app, I love that! And the app doesn't appear as gutted as I had feared.
Could someone hook us up with a screenshot of the Info box for a song with a lot of metadata (Command-I)?
Could someone hook us up with a screenshot of the Info box for a song with a lot of metadata (Command-I)?
Yes, Yes, and yes
[doublepost=1559914261][/doublepost]
Computers app is still there
I use playlists and libraries (and don't use a streaming service) in extremely limited ways so my knowledge is lacking but my music addiction makes me empathize* with those who use them extensively. I did some digging and found something that supplements/agrees with what @adrianlondon has posted regarding the switch to .musiclibrary from .xml. It's also claimed without explanation that:
https://pariscreative.com/for-djs-only/djs-what-we-know-about-mac-music-so-far/[...]There is a way to generate the typical .xml file that 3rd parties would use, but as of this writing this is a purely manual process.
[...]
It's a DJ's site. DJ haunts (reddit, etc.) could be good sources regarding the *switch*.
----------------------------
It appears that iTunes File Sharing made it through:
https://appletoolbox.com/2019/06/no-more-itunes-use-finder-in-macos-catalina/[...]
[...]
- Files are also available as an option here apart from Audiobooks, Books and Photos. You should be able to see your pages documents and other Files content here.
*For anyone––I'd be happy to send feedback to Apple about any feature that's missing or been made less effective, including ones not currently important to me. I'm sure others would, as well. Give a thumbnail explainer (here or via PM) so the feedback can be cogent. Maybe a Wiki should be created.
Can you request apple to restore the previous functionality from iTunes where the sidebar was allowed to be hidden? I don’t understand why they had to take it away. Without the sidebar the app had a very clean look to it.
I guess there could be workarounds, such as an Applescript that exports the library (to XML) each time the Music app is opened/closed. There'd be no possibility for any third party app updating it of course.
Eh, I'll give it a shot and de-rust my awk skills and see if I can come up with a converter when the time comes.
Ugh... I wanted to "like" your post but I don't like your discovery... Just found a reason to bring back the downvote!
Thank you for checking it out. The kb shortcut used to be option-command S. Another thing to try to erase from motor memory I guess.. But I too hope they put that back into the new Music app. In iTunes, it was always very handy to toggle hide/show sidebar in song list view, since it expanded display of track info in the lower pane without having to swipe on the songs pane.
Also it had a nice navigational feature in that when you did hide the sidebar, its contents immediately became available as a dropdown menu in the Library tab under the now-playing track window. So you could drop in to check that a smart playlist was updating correctly, or you could exit directly to a different view without having to toggle back to showing the sidebar to get to your next stop.
Do we have many users of Doug's scripts here? He has put a note up that he'll have a busy summer fixing whatever Catalina will have broken in his scripts for use in Music app vs iTunes... but it's encouraging he didn't say the end of the world had arrived... alas, he too confirms that Column Browser is gone.. and also the XML file.
I know some of Doug's scripts have proved handy for certain operations on metadata... but the script I and a few others rely on is the one called New Shuffled Playlist that makes a copy of a selected playlist and shuffles the copy, visually showing you the rearranged play order; and then any time you apply the script again to the shuffled copy, it shuffles it anew and again shows you the new play order.
I love that one for pre-shuffling content of playlists I want to use on iPods or my iPhone, and then when I get what looks like a good play order, port it to the mobile device and play it straight through there, leaving the device's "shuffle" option turned off. I have a lot of classical music and having the iOS Music shuffle option turned on by mistake makes the playback of classical works in an album pretty bizarre... but I do like shuffling music of other genres.
I'll be unhappy if that particular one of Doug's masterpieces doesn't work in Catalina because I was definitely unhappy when the "option-shuffle" playlist feature disappeared from iTunes. And I was thrilled when Doug's scripts turned up a replacement function. Time to ship ol' Doug another contribution...
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