After Ventura upgrade, all my music files are gone, ~/Music no longer exists

The default location for the Music library is ~/Music/Music. If ~/Music is gone then your library cannot be in the default location. Is it perhaps in the trash for reasons unknown? Or elsewhere, such as an external drive? Was the library using the typical Music media folder location of ~/Music/Music/Media, or something inherited from iTunes?

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.

Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.

In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.

If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2

See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.

tt2

Hi autnagrag,

Welcome to the Apple (user-to-user) Community.

Have you tried searching for one of the missing music files on your Mac ?

Find one, and you will likely find all, if they are still available.

Narrow your search results on Mac – Apple Support

If Ventura still works like earlier OS versions:

You can also type the file type : (eg: .WAV or .MP3 or .AIFF or such)

into the search field at the top of a finder window, to see the icons of all files with that particular file extension. Then highlight one of the files (press on it) and see its location displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the finder window.

Perhaps the whole folder has been moved or renamed, as it was not an Apple Music Library.

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Else:

You might want to look where the files were located when you first placed your music collection on your Mac:

Eg:

"When you add an item already on your computer to your library, Music places a copy of the file in your Music folder. The original file remains in its current location"

from: Change where your music files are stored on Mac – Apple Support

Else:

Wondering if you backed up all your Mac data before upgrade, as Apple suggests.

If so, you will be able to recover / import / transfer / your music files back.

Also:

If a Relocated Items folder appears on your Mac after upgrading macOS – Apple Support

All the best :-)

Thank you for your reply, letting us know.

All the best :-)