Thinking About Using my 2009 Mini to manage my iTunes Library and Sync with my iPod

[MacFoxG4]

So, I've been thinking about using my 2009 Mini to manage my iTunes library instead of the Windows 10 laptop I currently use and been using for the past four years. I would love to just do everything on a Mac and never use that terrible laptop again, but I think I would need an M1 Mac or newer Intel in order to do that. What I shouldn't need an M1 for though is managing my iTunes library and syncing with my 6th Gen iPod Touch. iTunes on Windows has this annoying issue where you download a song, but get some kind of permission error that prevents you from playing it back, so you have to delete the song from your library and re-download it again. Last I checked this was an ongoing issue that Apple has yet to fix. The iPod requires Mountain Lion as the minimum OS, so that is the bare minimum OS for me. I currently have Monterey on here, which is slow to boot, but it works. The Music app can still import CDs and I can access the iTunes store. I am weary of signing in with my Apple ID though since this is not a supported Mac and I am not sure if Apple would do something to my account for using an unsupported machine. I've considered using either Mavericks or El Cap since they are supported OSes on here (though my copy of Mavericks isn't from Apple because I didn't download it until after Apple took it down from their servers, so I had to get it elsewhere. Not sure if Apple can tell whether the copy of Mavericks you have came from them or not). I also considered Mojave or High Sierra since I like the performance I get from them better than the performance I get from Monterey, but like Monterey they are unsupported on this Mac so I am weary of signing in with my Apple ID on them too.

So between Mavericks, El Cap, High Sierra, Mojave and Monterey which should I use for syncing my iPod and managing my music library? Or should I just get an M1 or later Intel instead?

Thanks in advance.

 

[swamprock]

My 2009 Mini runs Monterey and streams video and music to my old Apple TV (3rd gen) with no problem. I wouldn't worry about signing into your Apple account. They won't do anything.

 

[Jack Neill]

I use iTunes 12.9.5 on all Intel Macs from 10.15 to 12.1. 12.9.5 doesn't play nice with M1, so I use 10.7 on M1.

 

[MacFoxG4]

Thanks @swamprock and @Jack Neill for your replies! I did try using the Music app on Monterey, which I had installed at the time, and it worked rather nicely. However, last time I used Monterey it froze up during the Apple logo screen and I had to do a hard shutdown. When I turned the Mini back on again I was able to successfully boot into Monterey. This experience, however, has made me weary of using Monterey on this Mac, so I downgraded to High Sierra and despite an issue where a security update wouldn't install properly it works fine on here. 10.13's iTunes (12.8.3.1) works well, no issues so far. I'm not sure how "future-proof" my setup is, but hopefully it will last a little while.

 

[MacFoxG4]

Okay, so some developments since the last post. I found out that on both the Big Sur and Monterey versions of the TV app, videos will play with audio, but no video. I didn't care about playing TV episodes and movies before since the only videos I watch on my iPod are ones I bought from the iTunes store, so I figured I would just uncloud any videos I need directly to the iPod. Now that I see that I can't watch my iTunes videos on either Monterey or Big Sur, I'm kind of annoyed. I tried installing iTunes on Monterey using Retroactive, but iTunes 12 wouldn't launch at all and iTunes 11 would launch and could download a video, but couldn't play the video at all. I didn't try iTunes 10. The only thing I can think of is that not having a Metal GPU is throwing off the TV app somehow and causing issues, like how some Apple Arcade games won't work properly without a Metal GPU. I don't have an unsupported Mac with a Metal GPU to test this theory out though.

So now I'm trying to decide how badly I want to be able to watch my iTunes TV shows and movies on this Mac Mini. I think I would have to downgrade back to High Sierra or Mojave. I'm a bit concerned about using either OS for iTunes store purposes due to future proofing concerns and not getting updates anymore, but I don't see any other option other than buying a newer Intel Mac with a Metal GPU or giving up on ever watching iTunes videos altogether on my 2009 Mac Mini.