Moved my Music Library Years Ago Pre-Streaming, How/Where To Move It Back?

Years ago, just before Apple introduced streaming, I moved my Music Library to a different location. I can't recall why, something to do with losing my collection of 5,000 albums. I had an excellent reason as I remember.

I've had a series of endless issues over the years, like updating my iPhone with new music sets in motion the need to update the entire iPhone Music content and not only the new music additions. It takes hours and I've kind of not bothered updating unless it's desperate. I've simply put up with the pain in the _____.

Currently, the Music Library sits on an external hard drive as no Apple laptop has a large enough storage space. How and where do I move my Music Library? What files can I delete as well?

Here is what the file system looks like (a mess):

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.5

Posted on Jul 23, 2023 7:16 PM

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1 reply

muguy

Level 10

90,440 points

Jul 23, 2023 7:25 PM in response to zedmirier88

You can certainly keep your music files on an external drive, I do.

you’ll need to know which of the music library files is your best music library. The one with your music as you think it is structured. It will be one of the music libraries with the musiclibrary extension.

id open music and see which library then has the modified date of today. That file contains the references to all of your music.

once you know which library is the good one. Ensure that all of your music is on the external drive. You can go to Music - Settings - Files to see the media file location. Check both keep organized and copy. Then go to File - Library - Organize Library to place all your music on the external drive.

now you can delete everything but the external media and the good music library file.

be sure to back up everything first, just in case.

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Moved my Music Library Years Ago Pre-Streaming, How/Where To Move It Back?