Upgrading from Mojave to Monterey - how to handle Music?

[weezin]

I have a Mac Studio with Monterey that is taking the place of a 2018 Mac Mini on Mojave. The Mini had my music library in iTunes and with Monterey, it seems as if I should use the music app.

I seem to remember the transition from Mojave to Catalina way back when doing weird things to people's music libraries. Is that still a thing now?

Generally - what is the best way to start using the Music app with my old iTunes library? Should I just re-import all of the music into the Music app?

 

[haralds]

I just did an upgrade from High Sierra to Catalina and it "just worked." But the downloaded portion of iTunes Match, the synched library, on this MacBook was not that big.

 

[weezin]

I just did an upgrade from High Sierra to Catalina and it "just worked." But the downloaded portion of iTunes Match, the synched library, on this MacBook was not that big.

That’s good to know, thank you. I’m bringing my library over to the new machine on an external drive, so I’m wondering whether I should just re-import it all again.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

If you don't like "Music", you can still use iTunes.

Use the free app "Retroactive":

GitHub - cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive: Retroactive has been discontinued. You should transition from Retroactive to supported apps such as Music, iTunes for Windows, iMazing, Photos, Darktable, Lightroom Classic, and DaVinci Resolve.

Retroactive has been discontinued. You should transition from Retroactive to supported apps such as Music, iTunes for Windows, iMazing, Photos, Darktable, Lightroom Classic, and DaVinci Resolve. - ...

github.com

It will install and modify iTunes so it can be used on the latest Macs/OS's.

 

[weezin]

Thanks, however I think I'd like to give the Music app a shot!

To import my library to Music, I Option-Clicked the Music app and selected my previous .itl iTunes library. It was expected that Music would convert it and open it up, but my Music app is now stuck with a "loading" message on the screen for the last hour. Maybe it will take longer, but it seems as if something went wrong..

 

[Grumpus]

To import my library to Music, I Option-Clicked the Music app and selected my previous .itl iTunes library. It was expected that Music would convert it and open it up, but my Music app is now stuck with a "loading" message on the screen for the last hour. Maybe it will take longer, but it seems as if something went wrong..

In my experience, that "loading" message will be there forever, or until you give up, whichever comes first. The only thing I found that works is using the File->Import menu and then navigating to your old iTunes music folder.

If you have podcasts downloaded in iTunes, be sure to drill down to the actual iTunes Media Music folder for the import, or those podcasts will be imported as music files. There is no way that I know of to import iTunes podcasts into the Podcasts.app.

If you have a lot of album art, you may find that most or all of it is missing after the import. You can click Settings -> Advanced -> Automatically Update Artwork for Imported Songs and over time the missing artwork will be replaced by whatever is on the Apple servers, which may or may not match your old album artwork.

Playlists will not be imported by File->Import. The only way I found to handle those was to export the playlists individually from iTunes in xml format, and then import them into Music.app via File-> Library -> Import Playlist.

 

[weezin]

In my experience, that "loading" message will be there forever, or until you give up, whichever comes first. The only thing I found that works is using the File->Import menu and then navigating to your old iTunes music folder.

If you have podcasts downloaded in iTunes, be sure to drill down to the actual iTunes Media Music folder for the import, or those podcasts will be imported as music files. There is no way that I know of to import iTunes podcasts into the Podcasts.app.

If you have a lot of album art, you may find that most or all of it is missing after the import. You can click Settings -> Advanced -> Automatically Update Artwork for Imported Songs and over time the missing artwork will be replaced by whatever is on the Apple servers, which may or may not match your old album artwork.

Playlists will not be imported by File->Import. The only way I found to handle those was to export the playlists individually from iTunes in xml format, and then import them into Music.app via File-> Library -> Import Playlist.

That is incredibly helpful, thank you. I will proceed down that route. Shame this is not easier!

 

[Tony07]

Well I bit the bullet and upgraded to Mac OS Monterey from Mojave and I am very pleased that I did, everything works ok.

 

[weezin]

Glad to hear it!

I went and transferred the music over to my Monterey machine and it mostly went well, although much of the cover art was screwed up, which is annoying.

 

[Tony07]

Just one thing with my move to Monterey is I can't now use HDMI with my imac, cobblers anybody have a solution?

 

[MarkC426]

I am looking ahead for my transition to AS.

I have many iTunes purchases, but mostly imported CD's and recorded Vinyl....this has taken me a LOOONG time to collate, and is still in progress.
Would this cause any headaches moving to Music?

I want to just point to my external drive (on new Mac) which has my library.
I don't want anything copying to the internal drive.

My current setup is all TV series/Films/Music purchases streamed to iPhone/iPad, all downloaded to Mac media drive.

I am aware of 'retroactive', but is this safe to use for future purchases in the App Store, and does it break after software updates?

 

[Tony07]

Just found another thing with Moneray., Siri is not working properly and doesn't find files.??? plus iTunes is gone.