How do I import songs to my new MacBook Pro?

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Level 1

17 points

How do I import songs to my new MacBook Pro?

I am buying a new MacBook Pro to replace a very old one. It is used primarily as my music manager and media streamer, connected via HDMI to my A/V receiver/processor. The old MBP is early 2015 but updated to OS Monterey and thus has the Music and TV applications. I successfully migrated from iTunes to Music on that machine. But the old one is starting to fail and so I will buy a new one. I have just shy of a TB of music on an external hard drive, which is where the music resides. (I keep two backups.) I do not Match, Cloud, or Sync anything nor do I subscribe to the Apple Music service. After setting up the new MBP the way I want (no Cloud-ing, etc), my plan is to plug in the external HD, start up Music, do File Import and point it to the music on the HD. Question 1: Does this sound ok and is it all I need to do? I wasn't planning on bringing over the Music Library file from the old machine but instead let the new one build its own Library file, so... Question 2: Do I need to do the hold-the-option-key trick while starting Music that first time, or not? Question 3: When I initially point Music to the location on the external hard drive from where to import the music files, which Folder level on the external hard drive should I select? The path on the hard drive is something like Music\Music\Media\Music\Artist\Album name, etc. Should I select that last "Music" folder or select all of the "Artist" folders? Drag and drop is not practical due to the volume of files. At the risk of being something of an a** here, I would really appreciate direct replies to my questions and not a link to a prior article, as the ones I've seen don't seem to be applicable. I'm very grateful for any replies.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Importing songs to new MacBook

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Jun 24, 2025 02:41 PM

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Answer 1

THiNC5 Author

Level 1

17 points

Jul 8, 2025 09:04 AM in response to Servant of Cats

Hi SoC - Thanks for the reply. That is pretty much what I did but there were a couple of details I wanted to confirm, which ed2345 helped me with. My Music/Library file is on the Macbook itself, not on the external HD. Some people make a copy of that file and paste it on the new machine (especially if there is no external HD involved). But in my setup, this can create major problems if the folder paths for the media are not identical to the old machine setup. Instead, I option/chose the "blank" Music/Library file on the new Macbook and then pointed to all of the music files on the HD and let it populate the formerly blank Music/Library file. I also took Ed's advice and unchecked "Keep..." and "Copy..." in the Music settings, which also saved me from it creating unwanted duplicates and other annoying consequences. I lost playlists and ratings but I can deal with that. All other metadata came over. And yes, I have two backups stored in fire resistant safes.

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Answer 2

ed2345

Level 9

63,428 points

Jun 25, 2025 05:58 AM in response to THiNC5

Hi Thinc,

The process you describe will build a whole new library from your existing set of music files. It will not retain any information from your current library such as playlists or custom metadata on any WAV files. That is not what most users want, but your call of course.

Per #2, start Music and make sure it looks at the empty library that you want, and that the Media folder is set where you want, i.e. the HD. Also, assuming you like the organization on your current hard drive, make sure Keep... and Copy... are both not checked.

Per #3, point Import to the location where the files are. I suggest you import a few files or folders first to make sure it is working as you wish, before doing larger batches.

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Answer 3

THiNC5 Author

Level 1

17 points

Jul 5, 2025 03:58 PM in response to ed2345

Hi again Ed - I'm guessing that you don't always receive feedback from your advice so I thought I'd let you know that your guidance was just what I needed and my music import on a new MacBook went as planned. It did populate a new Music/Library file and I took my time and all of my music loaded up fine. I lost some playlists and my ratings but I'm ok with that. Most of my music is in AIFF format so most other metadata came through. I had read horror stories about loading music on a new machine and it creating duplicate music files or really messing up the folder paths and so I wanted to make it as simple as possible. Mission accomplished. Quick follow-up - can/should I turn Keep... and Copy... back on for when I add new music going forward, like ripping from a CD, or leave them off? Thanks again!

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Answer 4

ed2345

Level 9

63,428 points

Jul 5, 2025 07:40 PM in response to THiNC5

Hi THiNC5,

Glad the new library worked out!

About Copy...: when you have a file already existing on your computer and you add it to your library, that parameter tells Music whether to use the file exactly where it is, or to make an additional copy in your designated Media folder for the library to use. But when you rip a file from a CD, Copy... has no effect; the brand new file goes into the Media folder.

By the way, the "horror stories" that you have heard about duplicating files generally result from unintentionally having the Copy parameter turned on! So you avoided that pitfall.

About Keep...: since you will be operating with an external drive, I suggest you leave Keep... turned off, to avoid unexpected "help" in keeping things "organized."

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Answer 5

Jul 7, 2025 10:11 PM in response to THiNC5

If your music library is already updated to Music format for Monterey, and the library and music files are already on an external drive, why not simply point Music on the new Mac at the library on the external drive? I.e., hold down the Option key while launching Music, then navigate to the external drive and select that library?

You can change the library selection at any time, so you could set up a new Mac with an empty library, then tell the Music library to use the external drive after you have other stuff set up.

I'm not sure if there is any format conversion needed between Monterey's version of the Music library and Sequoia's version, but you could make a full backup of the external drive and put it somewhere for safekeeping. Then in case you ran into any problems, you would have a copy of the old library.

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Answer 6

Jul 8, 2025 09:42 AM in response to THiNC5

If you have a large library, and you re-imported songs to build a new library, check that there aren't huge holes in the new one.

I upgraded from a Mac running High Sierra and iTunes, to one running Ventura and Music. Music did not want to convert my old iTunes library, so I pointed it at the top of a copy of the library and let it do a recursive import. It missed lots of songs. There was a pattern. It imported all songs in a particular album, or none. Importing single albums (deep down within the iTunes Library) worked every time.

This strongly suggests that the Import function builds a list of all of the individual album directories that it must examine – either as part of command line expansion, or as part of building some data structure. If the real list is long enough, it is silently truncated, and only the albums that were lucky enough to get onto the front part of the list get imported. I did not try to quantify how large a library it takes to trigger the bug. My focus once I saw the damage was on doing a number of smaller imports to force Music to fill in the missing songs.

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Answer 7

THiNC5 Author

Level 1

17 points

Jul 8, 2025 11:27 AM in response to Servant of Cats

OK, thanks. It is a large music library (just under a TB, mostly AIFF). I have scrolled through it a few times now and I'm not noticing anything out of the ordinary. I think switching from iTunes to Music while still on the old machine may have helped. Plus, as you suggested, I imported in smaller batches (by artist letter of the alphabet) and watched what it was doing.

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