How can I manage split albums on Apple Music library?

I'm encountering an issue since the start of the week where albums I've added to my library have have been split up as multiple albums in the library. I understand this has been an issue for many years but it's gotten much worse recently. The workaround of clicking on Get Info on the album and resetting the metadata is pointless since the albums will sometimes split themselves later, or other albums will split for no reason. When it splits, a portion of the album will remain with the existing album, but other songs will be split into separate albums and say 'Unknown Artist'. Is there any fix for this, or is there any way for the developers to know this is happening?


I should also clarify, this is happening to albums that have one album artist name but individual songs have different artist names (ie. like a compilation), but it's also happening to albums that have one artist name and one album artist, which makes no sense.




[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 13 Pro

Posted on May 7, 2025 09:15 PM

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May 8, 2025 01:18 AM in response to Meathamper

If iTunes or Music show multiple instances of an artist or an album then what generally works is to select all related tracks and use Song Info to add say a trailing X to each of the fields that the tracks should have in common:

  • For an album; Album, Album Artist, and Artist (if artist is the same for all tracks) *
  • For an artist; Album Artist (and Artist unless there are guest/featured artists listed which should not be changed)

Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen the app between the two renaming operations. Part of a compilation should also be set consistently.


* If tracks are to be synced to a non-iOS device there should be a common Artist and/or the album should be set as a Compilation.



Use the songs view and display the fields Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, Artist and Sort Artist side by side so you see whether or not it is appropriate to edit Artist and if sort values could be causing any further problems. See Grouping tracks into albums for more help if required.



One further tip for really stubborn duplicates. At one point I had three lots of Various Artists in the artists view of my iTunes Match library that wouldn't respond to the usual trailing X treatment. What I found worked was to add the trailing X to start with, but then with each group that iTunes wanted to keep separate start typing a value and let it autocomplete from say Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.



tt2

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How can I manage split albums on Apple Music library?

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