Separate music library on iMac

I want to use my iMac to organize my extensive DJ music library. I have multiple apple devices - MacBook Pro, iPhone, 2 iPads, Apple TV and iMac. I also have over 20 flash drives filled with folders of music. My music has appeared in different folders in many different locations. Some folders have the part of the same name but different date and different songs inside. There are duplicate songs and inconsistent syncing to the cloud. I also have 2 old MacBooks pros with music content that are not on my network at this time.


I want to dedicate my iMac for music only. I have over a terabyte of music. I don't want to sync anything to my iMac because I don't want to create more duplicates or get confused about what song is coming from which folder or which song is synced or not synced. I also don't want to run out of space I want to use my iMac to gather, organize, edit and store one super music library of all my songs. I don't want to use Apple Music because that will create another syncing nightmare. How can I set my iMac up for this project within the above stated parameters?


My iMac is a 2019 27inch 6-Core intel core i5 running Sonoma 14.6.1


iMac 27″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Jan 25, 2025 04:23 PM

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Jan 26, 2025 07:29 AM in response to uvextreme

You can hold down option as you launch Music to choose or create a new library. While it is possible to have multiple libraries for multiple purposes (I have a primary library, a second Apple Music subscription library, and I will create libraries for testing) a single library on a drive large enough to hold all of your content, and with room to expand is likely to be less hassle to manage. You can clone that library to a second drive for backup.


If you have a subscription to the Apple Music service each library can be independently enabled or not for that service.


tt2

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Separate music library on iMac

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