Is my ancient iTunes Library salvageable?

joanna117 wrote:

Is it even remotely possible to salvage an iTunes Library from the Stone Age? (Some purchases go back more than 10 years.) Can I convert them to Apple Music, and if so how?

Yes. The Music app in Sequoia may not be able to import the iTunes Library, as an iTunes Library, directly. (I don't remember having much luck getting Ventura's version of Music to recognize a copy of my old iTunes Library from High Sierra). But you can tell Music to Import files, then point it at a directory within your iTunes Library, to have it recursively import all of the individual songs within that directory.

Caveat:

• If you have a large iTunes Library, and try to import it all at once, the Import may silently omit a lot of the songs you are trying to import, leaving your library full of holes. I suspect that if you try to import "too much stuff" at once, you trigger a buffer overflow bug. The workaround is to import songs in smaller batches.

The "Library" is just a master file outlining the location of the individual music files, plus some additional information. Unfortunately Apple did not support library carry-over from iTunes to Music except at the time the transitions took place (so is my understanding). As such, you cannot import the "library". It is too late for that.

What you can do is import the media files by adding them to a blank Music library. That's what you get when you start Music with no Music version library present. After that you'll have to rebuild your playlists, ratings, etc.

I tried opening my iTunes 7 library with Sequoia Music and it didn't know what I was trying to do. It had never heard of an iTunes Library file.