Music STILL unable to have an external drive with all the music on

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Level 1

9 points

Music STILL unable to have an external drive with all the music on

Having searched the web a lot (stupid idea naming Apple Music and Apple Music app the same thing), it is quite clear that the software design for Music is broken.

New iMac. No option for a proper sized hard drive. 1Tb max. I don't want to have all my media in the cloud due to issues with downloading etc if broadband down (frequent).

Moved it to an external drive. All good.

Music CANNOT find the music despite choosing an alternative library having consolidated etc. If I launch that it takes >24 hours to load.

AND then EVERY time I launch it I have to repeat the same process.

Come on this is basic software design why can't it form a proper library in the right place?

Or scan it properly to rebuild the library?

It appears I'm going to either have to completely reimport OR remove everything else off the drive.

Very silly.

Any help is really appreciated.

iMac (24-inch, M1, 2021, 2 ports)

Posted on Oct 2, 2022 11:15 PM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Oct 3, 2022 07:11 AM in response to threestain

So you still have access to Big Sur? Press and hold down option as you launch Music, when prompted select the choose library option, then browse to and open your iTunes Library.itl file. Select a new location for the converted Music Library.musiclibrary, e.g. <External>/Music/. To complete the conversion to the standard Music layout you might want to move/rename your iTunes Media folder so it becomes <External>/Music//Media. On the new machine option-start-Music to connect to the database at <External>/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary.

tt2

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

277,729 points

Oct 3, 2022 05:59 AM in response to threestain

Have you moved to Monterey from Mojave or earlier, or Windows? Monterey appears to have an issue converting .itl files. See this recent post: High sierra iTunes to Monterey apple music - Apple Community.

tt2

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