Apple Music messes up Music folder under Sequoia

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Level 1

27 points

Apple Music messes up Music folder under Sequoia

Apple Music on Sequoia no longer seems to use the "... > Music > Media folder for the local audio files, but now uses/creates "... > Music > Music". It's really annoying, because I copied all audio files from my old MacBook to a new one, and used the "... > Music > Media" folder.

Then Apple Music started to add new imports to "... > Music > Media > Music > [artist name] > [album name]". Which I didn't want, I wanted them to be in "... > Music > Media > [artist name] > [album name]" (as all my other albums are there). That didn't happen, as Apple Music always creates an additional "Music" folder, whatever the settings in its configuration window.

I tried to learn to live with it, so I let it create the "...> Music > Music" folder and told it to copy all audio files from my library to it. Sadly, my old "... > Music > Media" folder is 162 GB on disc with 18.433 files, and my new "... > Music > Music" folder is 119 GB with 14.547 files. So not only is Apple Music not able to use the folder I would have liked, it also seems incapable to automatically copy all the files to the folder it insists on using itself. :-(

Is there any way to get all my audio files to the new location? Without checking it manually?

Posted on Jan 18, 2025 8:44 AM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

275,462 points

Jan 18, 2025 11:18 AM in response to Yost

See Managing your Mac media libraries - Apple Community for some background. The default location for the music media folder is ~/Music/Music/Media, with Music then adding a /Music folder to separate music from other types of media in the library (of which there aren't any). This is a legacy from iTunes Media Organization where it made sense. You can tell music not to create the final /Music folder before artist folders if you edit the hidden preference file .Media Preferences.plist in your media folder, change the integer value from 1 to 0, then turn Keep organize off, and back on again.

tt2

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Answer 2

Yost Author

Level 1

27 points

Jan 18, 2025 9:11 AM in response to Yost

Hmmmm, I tried moving all the audio files from Media to Music manually, and told Finder to overwrite everything. Now I have 0 files in Media, but 22.004 files in Music. And for some of the tracks in Apple Music, the links to the audio files are not updated. So it now asks me to manually point to the correct file. Never a dull moment...

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