Finally.... figured out how to search for a song in MY library... not iTunes library :) Tons of other useful info as well. I will be watching your other videos once I clean up my library. Thank you!
So I was looking for something about how synching playlists with iTunes works for backup purposes and came across this video. I have to tell you, this was really helpful, informative, and though not what I was originally looking for, I stuck around and it was extremely high value. Thanks for putting this together man, this is great work. I lost my whole playlist and decided to start over, using this info, I'm going to clean up what I've already done and build from there. Kudos!
Great video thanks! Quick question I have apple music and my home library is on external drive with 10,000 songs. I have it working with apple music. I can listen to any of the songs in my library on iPhone no problem. When I do top my mac and listen to my library as long as I have my external drive plugged into mac I can hear my songs. If I unplug the external drive and try to listen to my songs on apple music on my mac I get exclamations on each song. Do I always have to have my external drive plugged into mac to hear my library songs?
in my experience, yes. if you set up your library to be stored on an external drive, all the pathways for storage and playback are listed for that drive. unplug it and poof the library info file is deaf dumb and blind. has no idea where it went.
This is so helpful. It has been many many years since I fooled with my iTunes, such as changed info like Genre, and fixed artist or album names. I remember albums being categorized as “compilation” when they weren’t! I am about to import my entire cd collection into my new MacBook Air, and this will really help me organize everything. Thanks so much for such clear explanations!
I have struggled with the new Music app and this is fabulous. Thank you. I need to find information on how to mark (or whatever one does) what goes on my iPhone so that I can start clean with that. DO you have a video on that/
Very informative, have over 10k songs and you really helped me learn new ways to make my cleanup and organization experience faster, thanks for the vid!
This video is so incredibly helpful. I was a long-time iTunes user, and loved the format, and have found Apple Music to be very confusing. This video helped me figure it out. Thanks!
You know, this SAVED me from Downgrading & going back to 10.14 & iTunes. I use my iTunes & Apple Music to organize my DJ library. But using the Column Browser & what not. You saved me. #THANK THANK THANK THANK!!!!! YOUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fantastic vid! Years ago, after getting frustrated with Apple's awkward navigation and controls, I abandoned my library, and recently getting back to it. I'm looking for a fresh start and this is a great refresher. Thanks! In addition to many digital albums, I own a ton of singles. I'm curious-in the meta data-what your solution would be to organize these singles together. I don't want to lose its parent album data nor artist data. There are options such as "grouping" or "sort as…" I was wondering if you have a preferred or systematic method of organizing one-offs. Thank you. 🙏
Dylan, thank you SO much for your informative videos. I've been a Mac users since the very first Lisa and find there is always more to learn. Good job!
Wow !! That is a very well made video, complete, detailed and well explained. I was looking for a video to see if I can do those things on the phone Apple Music app, and realized it can only be done on the MacBook. Thanks you .. although it didn’t need to be 20 minutes if you didn’t talk like a kindergarten teacher on Sesame Street 🤣
Wow. What an awesome video. I thought it was another video to show me how to sort and add songs to playlists. Having been aggravated by the inaccurate genres that Apple or whoever (record label?) assigns to the songs/albums for a few years your tip is phenomenal! I never knew you could overwrite what is already there. Now, to clean up hundreds of albums and thousands of songs. Oh no, now I wish I didn't know! Thanks!
Cannot find anymore Apple Music app videos apart from organising your own library, can you send link to the others showing how to use the app functionality? Thanks
Right at the moment, those are the two Apple Music videos I've got. It is on my list for future lessons, and I will be sure to let you know when I release it. Thanks for watching!
great video sir. do you have a video on how to import music files MP3's to the music library? I am having such a hard time. when I drag a folder with multiple mp3 songs into a new playlist I created in the music app, it imports them for a second, does the adjust volume t o all the songs, then removes the songs from the playlist. I have to re drop the folder into the playlist. and sometimes they import correctly, and sometimes only a few import. then I have to import individual songs into the playlist, and on certain mp3 songs it tells me the song will be deleted from iTunes cloud and will only be able to play on this computer, and I I hit ok, it imports it, but now I cant see that song on my iPhone. urghhhhhhh I miss iTunes so much. PS: this mp3 songs are from all over the place, some are songs I I edited as a DJ, some are songs I converted from RUclips, some are songs I downloaded from a 3'rd party site. so not all the songs have all the artwork, album info, artist info, or song info correctly. could that be my problem? thanks-AC
Don't drag them, go to the file menu and select import. Then once they show up in the master library, drag them to whatever playlists you want. Also, make sure in the preference section under files you have it set to copy your files into your library and you should have better results. let me know how it goes.
Great advice. I have many entrys Which are “grayed out” and worthless. I;ve been deleting them and would love to know if there is a sort option to group them.
Absolutely. If you open the view options on your computer and sort by cloud status most of the great out ones will come together. They are great out because they didn’t finish uploading from the original device and music doesn’t know where to find the actual files. This usually happens when someone move from one computer to the other without having everything fully uploaded. If you still have the old computer you can re-upload them if not, sort by cloud status and you can get rid of them.
Glad it was helpful! Sort all songs by cloud status (you can do that under the view menu)... one of the symbols is duplicates and all the dupes will just line up next to each other.... select them all and click delete....
How do you deal with albums that have only one song, as-in, singles? Specifically, I like to go into my phone and browse albums, but I don't want to see albums with only one song, since there are so many. I just want to see whole albums. Is there a way to do that?
Unfortunately there is no way to only show completed albums. There are three potential workarounds… The first one is don’t use the album view, use the song view. That minimizes that frustration right off the bat. The second suggestion is to change the album name of The albums that only have a couple of songs to either have NO name, or you can call them all incompleted albums… Then the computer will automatically bundle all of them together. My last option going into any of those single songs, getting information about them, and checking the option that they are a compilation. Then they will be removed from the normal album view. l and obit show in compilations. None of them are a perfect simple fix, but those are the different ways I Would consider modifying it. :)
Hi Dylan. I found this video looking for an answer to why my Apple Music app is behaving so badly. I had a very well organized iTunes library on my Mac. When I had a hard drive meltdown and got it fixed it came back to me upgraded to Catalina and Apple Music. I had to laboriously recreate by library which I was able to do . . .somewhat. But Apple Music has begun to quit on its own, and when it does now, or when I quit it manually, the changes and additions to the library are lost when I restart. Also, throughout my recreating process, the view options I set up for albums and playlists change back to a default setting rather than remaining the way I set them up. I know how to do the work correctly, but it doesn't stay the way I want it. Do you know of some incompatibility that might be causing these problems? Thanks. I'm at my wit's end as I am using clunky workarounds to collect and organize my huge digital collection.
There actually are smart playlists... I am curious, how would you see hashtags working (instead of searches)? And what do you wish a smart playlist would do?
I was thinking about how the apple notes works and if it could be somehow implemented in music app. You could add hashtags to every song and sort them by mood and language and even from where you know this particular song (film, anime, etc). Then you could make smart playlists or search by hashtags just like in notes app. This would allow you to easily add songs to multiple playlists just by adding hashtags. Smart playlists that you @Mac whisper were talking about don’t work like this, tell me if I’m wrong 😅
@@jakubwadrzyk7794 you know, it's really a brilliant idea… I don't know that I had thought about it before, but you can make smart playlist work like this more or less. Some of my friends call me the workaround KING👑 … This is one of those cases where it's not quite the way it's meant to be used but it could totally be modified to work like what you're talking about. Go onto the Apple Music app on your computer, find a song in your library, get info (click command + I), and under the details Tabb, at the bottom is a section called comments. You can add your own hashtags or notes or anything you want this way. Then go to the file menu, click new smart playlist, and you can create a playlist that searches for information from that comments section. You can also create a smart playlist that searches for information almost anywhere else in the meta-data… But for what you're talking about, the comment section is probably the best place. It's not perfect, it's not the way Apple would do it (if they ever did it) but it's functional…
@@jakubwadrzyk7794 i do this by having the composer section of songs be my description or hashtags of them like you mention. You can later create a smart playlist containing specific composers/hashtags and organize them like this
All I can say is WOW! Well WOW, and Thank You! Awesome tutorial! I have already hit 👍🏾 and subbed! Now, off to meander through your vast library…Than I will certainly understand My Mac More! Cheers Mate 😊
Hi Dylan, just found your video - truly helpful and excellent work. I started out on iTunes 19 years ago and have a lot of cleanup to do..just subscribed as well..look forward to reviewing your material. You also have an impressive music library.. I have a question -under the Music app, will my playlists and songs synchronize with my devices if they were imported from my own music and I am not an Apple Music subscriber? This is one of the mysteries I am trying to solve for. The other is that I have an Apple ID for iTunes where all of my purchases are made and another Apple ID for iCloud as it was born much later...does this affect my synching of music, playlists, etc. to my other devices? Thanks again for the great video! 🙏
Hi, thanks for watching! First off, you can synchronize with the Music app without having Apple Music, but it must be done manually through a cord. If you want to sync wirelessly Apple Music is necessary. With regard to having two accounts, it’s not an issue at all. I actually have a separate iCloud account with a completely distinct iTunes account. In settings on the computer in the phone you can designate separate Apple IDs for data (iCloud) and media (iTunes, video purchases, etc.) I actually recommend people set things up this way especially if they’re part of a family because then your iCloud accounts don’t get crisscrossed, and you can share music with the whole family.
Love all your information Dylan and your energy, very uplifting. However my greatest problem is that I cannot get my libraries to sync across all my devices. For instance my Mac states I have 3.71 gb of music, my iPad Pro states 33.03gb and my iPhone 13 Pro states 51.4gb. They are all under the same Apple Music id. I hope you can help cos I am at my wits end. Thanks in anticipation. Bev.
Since music can be stored in the cloud and can be downloaded in different levels of audio qualities (some of which are bigger files than others), looking for the file size to match is futile... do you have the same number of songs? That's what really matters. And in settings do you have library sync turned on for each device?
It should be added to the files itself and into the ID3 tags, but Apple Music specific files have a tendency to revery over time. In other words you only have full control over music you "own" (purchased from itunes or other sources and/or uploaded from CDs).
HELP- I loved the video, and tried to change the genre as you recommended. After a short while, my Apple Music reverts back to the original genres. I'd like to clean them up, but it keeps reseting after a short while. I'm using my MacBook too. Can you help me?
Thank you and Great Video. The last few minutes of this video with the genre and meta data editing was awesome! Wish I would have seen long ago. I’ll have to search your other videos for more tips! I saw in your video scrolling multiple albums didn’t have cover art either on the albums view. Any more tips on getting those to find the album art short of manually finding, saving and uploading? Subscribed.
Ideally it should happen automatically if the Metadata is accurate. Otherwise there were some 3rd party apps back in the day that could help, but if I had to do it today I would probably do it manually. Wish I had a better answer for you.
Great video and info. Like you I have a ton of music in my library. However, I did not like the apple music experience when I did the trial. I found it difficult to know what was mine vs. what I downloaded from Apple music. My question is, is there a way to separate them? Also, is there an easy way to clean up the library, specifically the duplicate songs? Thanks, JT
Hey Dylan, why some of my songs in my library are greyed and cannot be played ? I have a Music folder with some songs that were in my possession before I subscribed to Apple Music.
Hey there! It sounds like the issue with your greyed-out songs in the library could be related to several factors, especially since these tracks were part of your collection before subscribing to Apple Music. Here are a few reasons why this happens and how to resolve it: 1. Songs Not Synced with iCloud Music Library If the songs were added before Apple Music or iCloud Music Library was enabled, they might not have been properly synced. Fix: Go to Settings > Music on your iPhone. Make sure iCloud Music Library is turned on. On your Mac or PC, open Music or iTunes, then go to Preferences and ensure iCloud Music Library is enabled there too. After enabling it, let your library sync again and check if the greyed-out songs become playable. 2. File Format Issues Sometimes older songs might not be in a format supported by Apple Music or iCloud Music Library, which can cause them to appear greyed out. Fix: Check the file format of the greyed-out songs. Apple Music supports formats like MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, and ALAC. If the files are in a different format, you may need to convert them to a supported format. 3. Missing Files If the original files are no longer on your device or external hard drive (where they were stored before), they will appear greyed out. Fix: Go to the Music or iTunes app on your computer. Click on the song and check if it displays an exclamation mark (!). This indicates a missing file. Re-add the missing files to your Music library from the original folder where they are stored. 4. Song Availability on Apple Music If you have the Apple Music subscription, some songs may be greyed out if they are no longer available on Apple Music. Fix: Make sure the songs are not region-restricted or removed from Apple Music’s catalog. In this case, your locally stored copies should still work unless there’s a sync issue (see #1). 5. DRM (Digital Rights Management) Issues If the songs were purchased from a different platform or are older purchases with DRM, they might not play on Apple Music if they aren’t authorized. Fix: Make sure your Mac/PC is authorized to play those songs. In Music or iTunes, go to Account > Authorizations > Authorize This Computer and sign in with your Apple ID. Quick Recap of Solutions: Ensure iCloud Music Library is enabled. Check file formats for compatibility. Re-add missing files if needed. Confirm that songs are still available in Apple Music or were synced correctly. Check and resolve DRM or authorization issues. If you’re still having trouble, feel free to join one of our live broadcasts and we can troubleshoot together in real time! 😊
Hey! I’m so confused with my iCloud music library I had it working fine and plugged it in after I returned from vacation and it is messed up. I deleted all my music from my library and re-added it to Apple Music on my mac. It’s now telling me that it’s uploading 16k+ songs to iCloud and I only have 11k. I don’t know why it’s uploading more songs than I actually have? Is there any way of clearing my music in iCloud so I can re-up all the songs from my library? HELP!!
Thanks for the video. I too have a huge iTunes library that I have collected and curated for years. I have just upgraded to a new iMac with the "Music" player. I used to use the "Songs" view exclusively in iTunes. There was a search bar at the top right that I would use to search for song titles, artists, albums etc. Where has this gone? I can't get by without it! Is there any way to get the old iTunes style search bar back?
So there is no way to revert to iTunes and its style, because it has been replaced many years ago by the Music App. In the Apple world (and the world as a whole) nothing stays the same forever, but I have found that I prefer Music now that I know how to use it. Here are some tips to replicate the iTunes way of finding and playing music: First off, view your library by clicking on the songs section on the left, and then under the view menu select column browser, and "show column browser". Then click in any of the columns (genre, artist, album) and start typing to immediately search whatever column you are in. You can also search directly in the song section by just clicking on any track in the lower area, and starting to type the name of a song. If you still need to search beyond that, you should see a search bubble in your upper left-hand corner. When you use that make sure you are selected on "my library" rather than Apple Music or the iTunes store. The search bubble is only ok, I prefer using the column browser Even though we can't go back to iTunes, you can make this app work almost the same way, with just a few modifications. And don't forget you can always use Siri to instantly find or play a specific song. To trigger Siri press and hold the command button and the space bar, and then tell her what you want to hear. Hope that helps!
@@TheMacWhisperer Thanks again. Can you explain in more detail what you mean by "You can also search directly in the song section by just clicking on any track in the lower area, and starting to type the name of a song"?
Hello Dylan! I have not updated from iTunes to Apple Music. And I am trying to order up my library before updating. I have a bunch of duplicated songs. And want to clean that up. I think I have to check the rout of each duplicated file. Then locate the song file in the Finder. Then compare the two different song files. Erase the wrong one. And relocate the right one in a folder of mine. That being said, should I keep everything under the iTunes folder? Or in a folder of my own music? What should I do?
You should do ALL of that in the app itself, not in your folder. If you move things around in the folder without doing the corresponding work in the app you will leave accidental reference files all over the place and it will make it hard for you. Apple Music has built in duplicate finding tools, so you may be better off upgrading and clearing up the duplicates from the app afterwards...
Thanks for the great info! Do you have any tips for backing up playlists? I've had several playlists disappear since apple moved from iTunes to Apple Music. I'm tired of recreating playlists.
You can export a play list to save it by going to the music app, going to the file menu, and under library you will find the option to export the playlist as a .txt file that you can save in your files and then reupload if you ever need to.
Thank you! I was able to download the file as you suggested. Your instructions were very clear and worked well. Does the 'reupload' recreate the list in the 'music' app or just give me the order so I can rebuild the list? If it recreates the list can you please provide the 'reupload' steps. Thanks again! @@TheMacWhisperer
Oh no I messed up my genre trying to copy your instructions. How do you reset all and I mean ALL my songs to their correct original genres??? I had “ALL(#Artist)” highlighted when I was doing the change genre thing!! Please help me
So sorry... there is no easy way except to hit undo IMMEDIATELY after making a global mistake like that. In the future remember that command + Z will always undo the last few actions (which could have fixed that but not now)...
Nice video! Question: I have a MacBook Pro 2015 with OS Sierra (iTunes). I have 5000 songs 80% from iTunes Store and some from other sources of digital download or imported CDs. I just bought a new MacBook Pro M1 with new Apple Music app and it’s still in the box, not setup yet. So if I use migration assistant will my library and it’s playlists migrate over from iTunes into the Music App during the process? What about all the metadata with date song added to library? Thx
@@TheMacWhisperer ha! I’m back 2 months later to tell you that that is incorrect! Out of 5000 songs downloaded on old Mac only about 2500 transferred. I left it connected a long time thinking it just needed to update itself but didn’t. For 5 days I was stumped and only thing that worked was to rebuild the music file location and re add the library from ext hd. Even this took more than a few attempts had to keep rearranging folders in the music files area for the Mac to make sense of what I was importing to the library.
@@SharpEdgeStandardOfficial That sucks. I am sorry that was your experience. How old was the old Mac? I have had good luck doing it many times on my machines, but sometimes glitches happen🤷. Good work on getting it built back up! 👍
@@TheMacWhisperer thanks! The old Mac was a MBP from 2014 I think. One other strange phenomenon I haven’t been able to figure out on new Mac is this: all my iTunes song purchases are purchased on iPhone. I don’t sub to any Apple Music service I buy all my stuff and download. When would fire up old Mac the songs would pop up and automatically download in iTunes and organize into media proper location. Only now on new Mac after the songs populate in music app I have a download arrow and song location under the “get info” tab shows “cloud”. I have to manually go into iTunes Store > purchases > not in library and manually download to music library. After that they’re organized and in proper location. Just strange that I have to manually do this and haven’t been able to figure out anything in Apple Music app settings. Other weird part is when the new purchases show up in the Mac music app before I manually download anything the tracks will still play. Any ideas as to why this is happening???
What about those who used iTunes for audiobooks? I have a library of almost 8,000audiobooks and all those in format 4mb get played by Books. Thats disgraceful because I can't have a certain author's books all together. Except converting hundreds and hundreds of files to mp3, any suggestions? Your channel is wonderful, keep up the great work, thank you
I've done some research on this, and you are right, Apple did a terrible job in managing this process. I am looking for a workaround and will let you know when I figure it out.
Hey Dylan, I’ve got items that have already been matched and are now in my iCloud library. Whenever I edit these on the “iTunes” app on my Mac the changes are reverted when the iCloud library updates. Same goes with deleting; there’s a handful of albums I no longer want and I’ve deleted them on “iTunes” which removes them from my library and allows me to delete the files but then they re-appear when the iCloud library updates. Any advice?
Hey there! It sounds like iCloud Music Library might be syncing the older, matched versions from the cloud and overriding your changes. A good first step is to make sure your iCloud Music Library is fully updated after making edits or deletions by following these steps: Turn Off iCloud Music Library on your Mac: Go to Music > Preferences > General, and uncheck iCloud Music Library. Edit or Delete Your Songs/Albums as needed. Turn iCloud Music Library Back On: Once the edits are done, turn iCloud Music Library back on and it should sync the changes instead of restoring the old versions. Also, for ongoing guidance or more tips like this, check out themacwhisperer.com where we offer 1:1 sessions, or join one of our weekly live broadcasts to ask questions directly. Hope this helps! 😊
Hey Dylan, I have the same comment as the previous one in that I was not looking for your subject matter, I learned a quite a few things I did not know. I looked at your video list, and could not find anything on the items of interest to me (and probably others). Here are suggested subjects: How to back. up and restore playlists. How to differentiate between what songs are yours (no digital rights), and those you have downloaded. Apple is very cryptic and I think intentionally vague as to force or at least nudge people to streaming everything vs owning thier own stuff.
Good topic ideas. Backing up and restoring playlists is relatively easy to do so I may do a "short" to answer that... Unfortunately separating your songs from ones with digital rights on your and other people's accounts is super hard to explain (and even harder to do properly) but if I figure out a simple way I will definitely share it. Since going full force to Apple Music I have less and less of need for that function, but I know how frustrating it can be.
Hi, I have 300gb of music in my personal library. I’m an old school audiophile. I don’t want to stream. I want to access my own collection that I keep on an external drive and download the whole thing to my iPhone 12 running IOS 17.4.1. Lately when I sync my phone to the Music app on my Mac running Sonoma, I get some weird results. The biggest issue is that Music is organizing on my phone in a way that takes tracks from compilations and puts those tracks individually with other albums (in the album view) by the same artist.. it doesn’t do that to my Mac library, only my iPhone copy. I hate this! I meticulously maintain my library. I don’t want Apple to rearrange it or charge album artwork or do anything to change the way I’ve organized it. Did I do something to cause this? Is there a way I can fix it?
Unfortunately the iPhone music app is really intended to be used with Apple Music which synchronizes things automatically through the cloud. I understand not wanting to do that but the organization can suffer as a result. There is a setting inside the music app to not download album artwork, but it’s unpredictable at best. With regard to the compilations there are some tools that you can use but again since the music app is really on Apple Music it can be problematic. I’d be happy to do one on one session with you and take a look if you’re interested. Feel free to send me an email at dylan@themacwhisperer.com and we can schedule.
For some reason, several albums by one artist that I downloaded to Apple Music will not sort with his other albums. I cannot see anything different. I checked the sort and it is set to same artist name. What am I doing wrong?
In the details section of get info, check for artist and album artist, and confirm the compilation button is not checked. You can also check the sorting tab... some songs are just finicky, and may require you to select all the songs from that artist and then manually change all the info so they connect to the other songs properly.
I have my library stored in an external hard drive. When I select add to library, it reorganizes the external hd to sort by artist the way that I don't like it. Especially, it touched the various artists folder. How can I do it, without the Music app disrupting the external hd organization?
Inside the music app preferences there is a setting to keep music organized… If you uncheck that it will leave your music organized in whatever way you haveit set manually.
I am having an issues with apple music matching to wrong albums that I have ripped from CDs. Is there a way to unmatch so that the correct tracks will synch?
Best I can say is try to manually put the correct info in the metadata manually and that should help. You may need to look at the actual album on iTunes to find the correct info.
I just migrated all of my 800 albums that were on my old itunes to my new system that only has "music" app. They loaded in DOUBLE...YIKES. is there a way to uninstall and start all over?
Oh no, double albums-that’s a lot to handle! 😬 Don’t worry, you don’t need to uninstall everything. You can fix this without starting from scratch by following these steps: Consolidate Duplicates: In the Music app, select File > Library > Show Duplicate Items. You can review and delete duplicates manually from there. Avoid Duplicates in Future Imports: Before importing, go to Preferences > Files, and make sure the Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library option is unchecked. This will prevent duplicate files from being created when importing. If things get too tangled and you'd prefer a fresh start, you can manually delete your music library and re-import your files. Also, feel free to join one of our live broadcasts to get more tips in real-time, or visit themacwhisperer.com for 1:1 guidance to make this process smoother. 😊
Thanks for the reply. I actually found a way to sort the music. Not optimum, But I added the “kind” field under the songs tab and it put them in order that I could see which were mine and which had digital rights protection.
Hello, i'm interested to work with multiple 'Music Media folder location files' in order to reduce the storage on my macbook-hdd. I would like te create a new Media folder, stored on an external hdd-drive, containing my Classical music library. Where can i find some information on this option? Thnx and merry xmas! Marc
It's a little complicated to manage multiple libraries like that. I understand the need, but I would focus on finding other ways to manage the space on your computer. I have a video that can help you find what is using the majority of your space. (ruclips.net/video/GgKGeKHnGAU/видео.html) For me, since I have such a large music library and so many different categories I like to keep it all in one place. If you have Apple Music you can send songs to the cloud so that can also help with storage. It is possible to do what you are trying to do, but certainly not simple.
Apple Music formerly iTunes got so bad regarding. Organizing your original music. It’s an aweful tune for meta tagging songs. It’s not even easy to add music to an iPhone because synching is not very useful. I need to find a way to find my songs easily by genre so I can submit them to music sups. I do have my own online site which I programmed which I had been around longer than disco and works very well but it takes a bit of time to add my own songs. If Apple Music had a more intuitive drag and drop into a new playlist that would be smart. But again I’d need to have everything tagged already. Mp3 tag for pc or Mac is the best tool for this. Read that again !
My desktop music library is a bit of a mess, including 1) multiple copies of songs, 2) loads of recordings from the original iTunes where "the original file could not be found" (Martin Luther King, Dylan Thomas, and Harry Potter among them!), 3) hundreds of Garageband songs I recorded, and 4) record albums I downloaded into iTunes. 1) Is there any way to group the songs with missing data together so they can all be deleted quickly? 2) Is there any way to consolidate the libraries from my laptop, desktop, iPhone, and iPad together -- assuming there is room?
Messy music libraries are pretty common these days. The first thing you can do is while in the song view, edit the view options to include cloud status, and then sort by that. That will put the duplicates together, and the missing files together. If you click on any of the missing files and locate one of the songs (they’re usually in the music library by artist name) it will attempt to associate the other songs as well. I’ve had some good success doing that although you have to do it multiple times to get them all. As far as synchronizing multiple devices there are two ways to do it… Several years ago Apple had a service called iTunes match That costs $25 per year. If you have a subscription to that you can use it to synchronize… Unfortunately they discontinued the service so you can no longer get a subscription if you don’t already have it. So if you don’t have that subscription the only other option is to use Apple Music Which will bring all your songs together and your devices going into the settings and clicking sync. Without Apple Music there’s no way to do it automatically. I do a lot of work with people cleaning up music libraries on a one-on-one basis… If that’s something you’re interested in looking into send me an email at dylan@themacwhisperer.com and we can schedule a remote session to get you pointed in the right direction.
@@TheMacWhisperer Thanks greatly for your amazingly quick response! My view options are Title, Cloud Download, Cloud Status, Time, Artist, Bit Rate, Album, and Kind. I set the Library to "Show Exact Duplicate Item" with the Option key. Now, I'm working to eliminate the duplicates with the lower Bit Rate. Unfortunately, the "Cloud Status" column is empty for all of my songs. So, this should take a lot of time! I hadn't heard of iTunes Match, but apparently, it's still for sale ($24.99/year) in the iTunes Store. It "stores your entire music library in the Cloud, including music from CDs, and lets you enjoy it anywhere, anytime, on your iOS devices, computers, or Apple TV" It sounds great. The only problem is that they hold your entire music library hostage if you stop paying! It sounds a little bit like ransomware. It sounds like Apple Music includes (replaces) all that iTunes Match does. But it sounds a bit like giving Apple my entire music collection (including all the music I play and record) and then paying for the privilege of renting it back from them. Why rent a cow when I already have the milk? After I'm done dispensing with duplicates, I may very well schedule a remote with you. Thanks again!
It looks like despite my misgivings, Apple Match was indeed the solution to the problem. The library on all my devices is growing. 4316 and counting! Despite this size, the "Cloud Status" column will now enable me to group the missing files together. Apparently, Apple Match enabled my Cloud to actually have some Status!
is there a video on how to get the artist photo to load correctly on apple music? it does it fine on my phone but not on my mac and i cannot find an option in settings.
Not sure about getting it to load correctly... but the setting for artwork on the mac is in music under settigns, under advanced... automatically update artwork for imported songs.
Hi my friend; thanks again for another outstanding video. Great introduction to Apple Music for me. Wish many Happy Holidays to you and your family from the “HAWAIIAN shirt guy”. This week in Winnipeg is minus 15-17 Celsius: (that is around - 4 Fahrenheit). Stay safe, ❤️👕 B. Bisignano
There is a setting in Music that will download artwork if it is available. If the song was downloaded from some random source or uploaded from a mixed CD or something, it won’t match with the proper artwork, but you can always add any artwork you like to the song; you just have to do it manually by clicking apple + i and going to the artwork tab.
There was a service called iTunes match that cost $25 a year and came before Apple Music that allowed your entire CD library to get synchronized with your Apple account. For people who didn’t use that, you need to start by finding where your music that you uploaded is. If it’s on an old computer or something we can bring it onto your new machine and then turn on Apple Music which will automatically synchronize all of that for you. In order to get it synced up you do need to have Apple Music and the first time you need to have the actual files. For people who can’t find the actual files I recommend just re-downloading all of that stuff on Apple Music now and if you can locate the actual files later we can integrate them in. Those files most likely disappeared because of being on a different device and not having iTunes match or Apple Music on the original device.
The easiest way is to go to your computer, select the Artists you don’t want, and click the delete button. If you go through the song view with the column browser enabled you should be able to select and delete all the info from any given artist with just a few clicks. If it is a dong you purchased from Apple you can’t “delete” it, but you can “hide” it, and then you won’t see it anymore.
If the song has a main singer and a featured artist I tend to put the featured artist(s) in the song title area at the end of the title in parenthesis. If there are a lot of artists on one song it can be pretty frustrating, but fortunately that's uncommon (songs like We are the World, etc that have that issue I put under "various artists" instead of any specific singer)
Hi! Amazing video. So I was accustom to changing / updating tags by changing Groui mg option but it still says mixed even if I highlight all songs and delete the grouping number. Any ideas on how to fix that?
You’re very welcome, Johnny! 😊 I’m glad you enjoyed the video. If you ever have more questions or need more tips, feel free to join one of our weekly live broadcasts! And if you found the content super helpful, feel free to drop a Super Thanks-it really helps me know what topics to cover more of. 🎉
Anything is possible. It really depends on how your files were set up in iTunes and whether things were migrated properly from any prior computers. If you can find a song that isn't there and search for that song on your computer and locate it somewhere other than the music library, it (and any other files in the same location) can be imported. If the music was purchased through Apple or iTunes, make sure you are logged in with the same iTunes/Apple ID, and you should be able to locate it that way. There are a lot of situations that could result in missing files, so it's hard to say for sure... can you tell me more?
Theoretically, there is a setting in the Music App for just that. Go to the music menu, and preferences, then under playback make sure the "Sound Check" button is on. If that doesn't work it gets significantly more complicated.
Thanks for all of the information. I have one question about playlists. I created a few, but when I use them I notice that some songs never play, but others play many times. Is there a way to fix that, or is there a limited number of songs that you should put in a playlist? Note that I am not streaming through the music app, I originally purchased all of the songs when it was iTunes.
Most of the times when a song won’t play, and songs have been purchased from itunes there may be more than one iTunes account that the songs are from, or there may be an issue with some of those songs (corruptions, etc). Find the song that does not play and double click it to see if it gives you an error or a message, if that doesn’t work select the song and hit command + i, and go to the file tab to see if it can help you determine the problem. The cloud status section will tell you if it was purchased, uploaded, matched, etc… see if you can find the connection between the songs that don’t play and report back here to see if we can resolve the issue.
The problem with apple music is that when you go to an artist page and you see that there is already an "essentials" playlist,. When you add that to your library it adds it to the playlist section but those individual songs do not get added to the songs. I want to be able to get all my songs in one place so I can just hit play shuffle when as I carry on in my day. I do not want to have to be jumping from songs to playlists to hear certain artists. Any suggestions?
There is a super easy fix. In the settings (on the phone, iPad and computer) there is an option to add songs to library when adding to playlists. This should mean that when you add that playlist all the songs get added to your library. Then you can remove the playlists and keep the songs.
Is there anyway to do these things on windows 11? I struggle using iTunes. I keep my music on my iPad and iPhone to play and create playlists. One of my frustrations is that the album art keeps getting changed when I transfer it from iTunes on my pc to my iPad.
Unfortunately the windows version of iTunes has not been updated in forever, and the iPhone and iPad software is updated every year, so it’s far from the same experience. Also, as “the MacWhisperer” I don’t really focus on windows products or apps. With regard to the artwork, I would make sure that “automatically download artwork” is not turned on for the PC, since that might be creating the discrepancy. 🙂
I need some help using Apple Music on my phone (streaming) along with my owned collection of mp3s I've ripped from my big CD collection. It is very important to me to be able to use BOTH. However, I am unable to create playlists on my phone using Apple Music (streaming) without clicking "yes" to "Organize My Library". I am nervous to click yes because I fear my file structure on my computer will get over-riden and files will be moved to new folders and all of my custom playlists based on song ratings, play count, etc etc etc will be over-riden. Any thoughts on this?
Click "sync library" on the computer first and it will match the computer's files and then do it on the phone. You can't do it easily from the phone first or it will get overwritten.
I really appreciate you doing this video and I ran across this video for a different reason. I have been looking for a video on how to get my itune music from my old iMac into the Music App on my new 2022 Monterey IMac. Do you know if there is a video around that might be helpful. I would really appreciate if any one knows of one. Thanks
It’s actually really easy. Go to your old computer, go to your home folder, music folder, and take the iTunes music folder from there and put it on the new machine. Then on the new machine go to import, pointed to that folder and let it file the songs where they belong. There’s another way to do it that involves uploading all of the songs from the iMac to Apple Music, and then making sure the new computer is also sent up with Apple Music and they should merge… But it’s really easy to do it manually and that’s the way I generally do it.
Does anyone know how to sort your itunes library to weed out songs that are under other apple IDs? I have about 30k songs, and there are a bunch that aren't under my apple ID that I don't have access to and I want to delete.
This has been an issue and a problem forever. I have always wished that there was some easy way to sort an entire library and separate it out by Apple ID, but there really isn't any way that I've found to do that, which is super frustrating. When you find ones that are not in your Apple ID, if you know the Apple ID information, you can do a search for it in the store and try to eliminate it from there by the 'On this device' option, but there should be an easier way to click a button and have it show you all of those miscellaneous Apple IDs we've collected over the decades. I did a big search for it yesterday trying to help you out, but unfortunately there's still no tool, not even a script or a shortcut that I could find that will accomplish that properly. I'll keep my eye out and let you know if that changes. Sorry, I don't have a better answer. This is a stupid situation that should have been resolved by Apple forever ago. 🤷♂️
I do not have column browser on mac os Ventura 13.1 to convert to revert to old iTunes review. my problem is under artists I have the artists numerous times. How do I get all the artists's songs under one artists? example; Fleetwood Mac is listed more then once with a few songs. Then again listed under Fleetwood Mac one song.
You may not havethe column browser turned on, but you do have it. Go to the songs view, Click on the view menu at the top, click column browser, and select show column browser. The artist's list is almost always a mess, and there are always multiple Artists for various reasons. Find the column browser (you can also access it from the songs view by clicking apple + B), and use that view to clean up errors, multiple artist, incorrect genres, etc...
Unfortunately it's not something we have a lot of control over. As long as you have turned on automatic artwork in preferences (in the advanced section) Apple will automatically add images for known artists. In the cases of artists that don't get artwork, it may be because their name is misspelled or entered in in a way that is different from how iTunes recognizes it. You can add artwork to the album… But not for the artist directly. If someone else figures out how please let me know.
Hi Dylan- two questions: 1) is there any way to stop Apple from making duplicates of my songs in my library? 2) I recently moved my library to a network drive so I can listen to my library without having my iMac on. But Apple Music now lists all of my music in both my old and new locations, even after I have deleted the library from the old location. How do I get Apple Music to only look at the new location? If I do a mass delete and try to “start over”, Apple also removes the music from my library, and not just from Apple Music. Any help is most appreciated!
Try this :) 1. Way to stop Apple from making duplicates of my songs in my library -> Open iTunes / Apple Music. -> Go to File > Library > Show Duplicate Items. -> Select the tracks you wish to delete. -> Right-click > Delete from library.
@@TheMacWhisperer Thank you. That’s how to delete the duplicates. I was hoping that you knew of a way to prevent the duplicates from being made in the first place. Also- did you see my second question? Thank you Dylan!
Some songs may have streaming licensing issues. You "own" it, but cannot legally stream it, so it's greyed out. Unfortunately this is an issue with certain music publishers and I don't know any way around it.
I’ve never had an issue with my songs leaving my library or getting removed from Apple Music so I guess you need to give me more information so I can help better.
![Megan Thee Stallion - Mamushi (Remix) [feat. TWICE] [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5c0_u9PsrsQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Finally.... figured out how to search for a song in MY library... not iTunes library :) Tons of other useful info as well. I will be watching your other videos once I clean up my library. Thank you!
Thanks for watching! :)
So I was looking for something about how synching playlists with iTunes works for backup purposes and came across this video. I have to tell you, this was really helpful, informative, and though not what I was originally looking for, I stuck around and it was extremely high value. Thanks for putting this together man, this is great work. I lost my whole playlist and decided to start over, using this info, I'm going to clean up what I've already done and build from there. Kudos!
Awesome!
Great video thanks! Quick question I have apple music and my home library is on external drive with 10,000 songs. I have it working with apple music. I can listen to any of the songs in my library on iPhone no problem. When I do top my mac and listen to my library as long as I have my external drive plugged into mac I can hear my songs. If I unplug the external drive and try to listen to my songs on apple music on my mac I get exclamations on each song. Do I always have to have my external drive plugged into mac to hear my library songs?
Any idea on my question ?
in my experience, yes. if you set up your library to be stored on an external drive, all the pathways for storage and playback are listed for that drive. unplug it and poof the library info file is deaf dumb and blind. has no idea where it went.
This is so helpful. It has been many many years since I fooled with my iTunes, such as changed info like Genre, and fixed artist or album names. I remember albums being categorized as “compilation” when they weren’t! I am about to import my entire cd collection into my new MacBook Air, and this will really help me organize everything. Thanks so much for such clear explanations!
Awesome!!! Glad you got vsalue out of it!
I have struggled with the new Music app and this is fabulous. Thank you. I need to find information on how to mark (or whatever one does) what goes on my iPhone so that I can start clean with that. DO you have a video on that/
Hi can you please elaborate more what you need help with?
Excellent practical coverage of a complex & multifaceted topic THANKS! 🙂
Glad it was helpful!
Very informative, have over 10k songs and you really helped me learn new ways to make my cleanup and organization experience faster, thanks for the vid!
This video is so incredibly helpful. I was a long-time iTunes user, and loved the format, and have found Apple Music to be very confusing. This video helped me figure it out. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful! 😊
You know, this SAVED me from Downgrading & going back to 10.14 & iTunes. I use my iTunes & Apple Music to organize my DJ library. But using the Column Browser & what not. You saved me. #THANK THANK THANK THANK!!!!! YOUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy to know it helped! ;)
new to Apple must and wondering if I should use my iMac or iPhone to download songs/playlists. I just need to explore and learn it I guess!
You can download songs/playlists on either device. You can also use Apple Music to manage your music if you like. Let me know if you have questions.
Fantastic vid! Years ago, after getting frustrated with Apple's awkward navigation and controls, I abandoned my library, and recently getting back to it. I'm looking for a fresh start and this is a great refresher. Thanks! In addition to many digital albums, I own a ton of singles. I'm curious-in the meta data-what your solution would be to organize these singles together. I don't want to lose its parent album data nor artist data. There are options such as "grouping" or "sort as…" I was wondering if you have a preferred or systematic method of organizing one-offs. Thank you. 🙏
You're welcome! Happy to know it helped you..
Thank you for the great video.
Glad it helped!! ;)
Dylan, thank you SO much for your informative videos. I've been a Mac users since the very first Lisa and find there is always more to learn. Good job!
I love it Lucy... another OG Mac user in the house. Let me know if there is a particular topic you would like to see me cover!
Amazingly thorough and understandable instructions. Finally, I feel in control of my music library. Yippee. Thanks.
Glad it helped!
Wow. You know your stuff and I really understood what you said. Thank you.
Wow !! That is a very well made video, complete, detailed and well explained. I was looking for a video to see if I can do those things on the phone Apple Music app, and realized it can only be done on the MacBook. Thanks you .. although it didn’t need to be 20 minutes if you didn’t talk like a kindergarten teacher on Sesame Street 🤣
Glad it was helpful!
Wow. What an awesome video. I thought it was another video to show me how to sort and add songs to playlists. Having been aggravated by the inaccurate genres that Apple or whoever (record label?) assigns to the songs/albums for a few years your tip is phenomenal! I never knew you could overwrite what is already there. Now, to clean up hundreds of albums and thousands of songs. Oh no, now I wish I didn't know! Thanks!
🤗Sorry.... not sorry. Glad you found this video and my channel. Let me now if you have questions!
Thank you for these lessons! I've subscribed and will continue to watch.
Welcome aboard! So glad to have you here. Please let me know how i can help.
Excellent! Thanks! I'm a subscriber.
You rock!!! Welcome!
Cannot find anymore Apple Music app videos apart from organising your own library, can you send link to the others showing how to use the app functionality? Thanks
Right at the moment, those are the two Apple Music videos I've got. It is on my list for future lessons, and I will be sure to let you know when I release it. Thanks for watching!
great video sir. do you have a video on how to import music files MP3's to the music library? I am having such a hard time. when I drag a folder with multiple mp3 songs into a new playlist I created in the music app, it imports them for a second, does the adjust volume t o all the songs, then removes the songs from the playlist. I have to re drop the folder into the playlist. and sometimes they import correctly, and sometimes only a few import. then I have to import individual songs into the playlist, and on certain mp3 songs it tells me the song will be deleted from iTunes cloud and will only be able to play on this computer, and I I hit ok, it imports it, but now I cant see that song on my iPhone. urghhhhhhh I miss iTunes so much. PS: this mp3 songs are from all over the place, some are songs I I edited as a DJ, some are songs I converted from RUclips, some are songs I downloaded from a 3'rd party site. so not all the songs have all the artwork, album info, artist info, or song info correctly. could that be my problem? thanks-AC
Don't drag them, go to the file menu and select import. Then once they show up in the master library, drag them to whatever playlists you want. Also, make sure in the preference section under files you have it set to copy your files into your library and you should have better results. let me know how it goes.
@@TheMacWhisperer thank you sir I def will try this method. Cheers 🍻
Great advice. I have many entrys Which are “grayed out” and worthless. I;ve been deleting them and would love to know if there is a sort option to group them.
Absolutely. If you open the view options on your computer and sort by cloud status most of the great out ones will come together. They are great out because they didn’t finish uploading from the original device and music doesn’t know where to find the actual files. This usually happens when someone move from one computer to the other without having everything fully uploaded. If you still have the old computer you can re-upload them if not, sort by cloud status and you can get rid of them.
Thank you! You are a genus and you explain this better than Apple ever did. Now... How do I safely clean out ALL duplicate songs?
Glad it was helpful!
Sort all songs by cloud status (you can do that under the view menu)... one of the symbols is duplicates and all the dupes will just line up next to each other.... select them all and click delete....
How do you deal with albums that have only one song, as-in, singles? Specifically, I like to go into my phone and browse albums, but I don't want to see albums with only one song, since there are so many. I just want to see whole albums. Is there a way to do that?
Unfortunately there is no way to only show completed albums. There are three potential workarounds… The first one is don’t use the album view, use the song view. That minimizes that frustration right off the bat. The second suggestion is to change the album name of The albums that only have a couple of songs to either have NO name, or you can call them all incompleted albums… Then the computer will automatically bundle all of them together. My last option going into any of those single songs, getting information about them, and checking the option that they are a compilation. Then they will be removed from the normal album view. l and obit show in compilations. None of them are a perfect simple fix, but those are the different ways I Would consider modifying it. :)
Hi Dylan. I found this video looking for an answer to why my Apple Music app is behaving so badly. I had a very well organized iTunes library on my Mac. When I had a hard drive meltdown and got it fixed it came back to me upgraded to Catalina and Apple Music. I had to laboriously recreate by library which I was able to do . . .somewhat. But Apple Music has begun to quit on its own, and when it does now, or when I quit it manually, the changes and additions to the library are lost when I restart. Also, throughout my recreating process, the view options I set up for albums and playlists change back to a default setting rather than remaining the way I set them up. I know how to do the work correctly, but it doesn't stay the way I want it. Do you know of some incompatibility that might be causing these problems? Thanks. I'm at my wit's end as I am using clunky workarounds to collect and organize my huge digital collection.
Thanks for watching! :)
Do you have any ideas on my question about the compatibility problem? Thanks.@@TheMacWhisperer
Do everyone wish there was a hashtag based music system and smart playlists or is it only me?
There actually are smart playlists...
I am curious, how would you see hashtags working (instead of searches)?
And what do you wish a smart playlist would do?
I was thinking about how the apple notes works and if it could be somehow implemented in music app. You could add hashtags to every song and sort them by mood and language and even from where you know this particular song (film, anime, etc). Then you could make smart playlists or search by hashtags just like in notes app. This would allow you to easily add songs to multiple playlists just by adding hashtags.
Smart playlists that you @Mac whisper were talking about don’t work like this, tell me if I’m wrong 😅
I don’t remember every song by artist or album and this hashtag system would be very helpful.
I’m waiting for your next video 👌
@@jakubwadrzyk7794 you know, it's really a brilliant idea… I don't know that I had thought about it before, but you can make smart playlist work like this more or less.
Some of my friends call me the workaround KING👑 … This is one of those cases where it's not quite the way it's meant to be used but it could totally be modified to work like what you're talking about.
Go onto the Apple Music app on your computer, find a song in your library, get info (click command + I), and under the details Tabb, at the bottom is a section called comments. You can add your own hashtags or notes or anything you want this way.
Then go to the file menu, click new smart playlist, and you can create a playlist that searches for information from that comments section.
You can also create a smart playlist that searches for information almost anywhere else in the meta-data… But for what you're talking about, the comment section is probably the best place.
It's not perfect, it's not the way Apple would do it (if they ever did it) but it's functional…
@@jakubwadrzyk7794 i do this by having the composer section of songs be my description or hashtags of them like you mention. You can later create a smart playlist containing specific composers/hashtags and organize them like this
So clearly presented in every possible detail!!! THOROUGH!!! Thank you!!!!! grateful!!!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for the video, great tips. I’m looking for some helpful tips on cleaning up my “iTunes” Apple Music. I have over 25,000 songs in my library.
+Rich C- KN4YLL
All I can say is WOW! Well WOW, and Thank You! Awesome tutorial! I have already hit 👍🏾 and subbed! Now, off to meander through your vast library…Than I will certainly understand My Mac More! Cheers Mate 😊
Thank you so much, Mate! :)
Thank you so much for this! How about a video on navigating the music app on Apple TV? Maybe it’s just me but it’s a nightmare at times.
Thanks for watching :)
Hi Dylan, just found your video - truly helpful and excellent work. I started out on iTunes 19 years ago and have a lot of cleanup to do..just subscribed as well..look forward to reviewing your material. You also have an impressive music library..
I have a question -under the Music app, will my playlists and songs synchronize with my devices if they were imported from my own music and I am not an Apple Music subscriber? This is one of the mysteries I am trying to solve for. The other is that I have an Apple ID for iTunes where all of my purchases are made and another Apple ID for iCloud as it was born much later...does this affect my synching of music, playlists, etc. to my other devices? Thanks again for the great video! 🙏
Thanks for watching! :)
@@TheMacWhisperer Thanks Dylan, do you have any insights on the two questions that I asked? Would appreciate your perspective. Thank you.
Hi, thanks for watching! First off, you can synchronize with the Music app without having Apple Music, but it must be done manually through a cord. If you want to sync wirelessly Apple Music is necessary.
With regard to having two accounts, it’s not an issue at all. I actually have a separate iCloud account with a completely distinct iTunes account. In settings on the computer in the phone you can designate separate Apple IDs for data (iCloud) and media (iTunes, video purchases, etc.)
I actually recommend people set things up this way especially if they’re part of a family because then your iCloud accounts don’t get crisscrossed, and you can share music with the whole family.
Thank you!@@TheMacWhisperer
this is very useful, looking forward to the next Apple Music video ✌🏻
Thanks... I am working on the script today. I plan on diving into Apple Music and how to get around on it and get the most out of it.
Great info!
Great, helpful video, thanks
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
Love all your information Dylan and your energy, very uplifting. However my greatest problem is that I cannot get my libraries to sync across all my devices. For instance my Mac states I have 3.71 gb of music, my iPad Pro states 33.03gb and my iPhone 13 Pro states 51.4gb. They are all under the same Apple Music id. I hope you can help cos I am at my wits end. Thanks in anticipation. Bev.
Since music can be stored in the cloud and can be downloaded in different levels of audio qualities (some of which are bigger files than others), looking for the file size to match is futile... do you have the same number of songs? That's what really matters.
And in settings do you have library sync turned on for each device?
Enjoy the video. Very informative.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice vid! Quick question, I have a few songs with long boring intros. How do I edit or cut the long boring part out? Thanks in advance!
Click on the song, click ⌘+i, click on the options tab and change the start (or end) time.
@@TheMacWhisperer Many thanks!!!
Thanks for your Job i love watch all your videos regards from Ecuador South América
Thanks for watching!
Great quality of presentation. Thank you.
You're very welcome! ;)
Appreciate this SO much, thank you!
You're so welcome!
14:33 Does the info we edit for songs or artist/albums get saved only in Apple Music or gets embedded in the files ( ID3 tags) ?
It should be added to the files itself and into the ID3 tags, but Apple Music specific files have a tendency to revery over time. In other words you only have full control over music you "own" (purchased from itunes or other sources and/or uploaded from CDs).
really thank you
Glad to help!
A channel dedicated to getting organized on your Mac? Yes, please.
Welcome! Let me know if there are any specific tools you would like to learn more about!!!
HELP- I loved the video, and tried to change the genre as you recommended. After a short while, my Apple Music reverts back to the original genres. I'd like to clean them up, but it keeps reseting after a short while. I'm using my MacBook too. Can you help me?
Try doing it in small chunks. You are probably too much at a time and it is getting stuck syncing.
Thank you and Great Video. The last few minutes of this video with the genre and meta data editing was awesome! Wish I would have seen long ago.
I’ll have to search your other videos for more tips! I saw in your video scrolling multiple albums didn’t have cover art either on the albums view. Any more tips on getting those to find the album art short of manually finding, saving and uploading?
Subscribed.
Ideally it should happen automatically if the Metadata is accurate. Otherwise there were some 3rd party apps back in the day that could help, but if I had to do it today I would probably do it manually. Wish I had a better answer for you.
Regarding genres, many songs will need to have multiple genres.
Great Video!! Thanks!!
Glad you liked it! ;)
Great video and info. Like you I have a ton of music in my library. However, I did not like the apple music experience when I did the trial. I found it difficult to know what was mine vs. what I downloaded from Apple music. My question is, is there a way to separate them? Also, is there an easy way to clean up the library, specifically the duplicate songs? Thanks, JT
Thanks for watching! :)
Duplicates - yes there is a way... I believe you go to Library-->Songs and then from the top menu bar go to File --> Library --> Show Duplicate Items.
Hey Dylan, why some of my songs in my library are greyed and cannot be played ? I have a Music folder with some songs that were in my possession before I subscribed to Apple Music.
Hey there! It sounds like the issue with your greyed-out songs in the library could be related to several factors, especially since these tracks were part of your collection before subscribing to Apple Music. Here are a few reasons why this happens and how to resolve it:
1. Songs Not Synced with iCloud Music Library
If the songs were added before Apple Music or iCloud Music Library was enabled, they might not have been properly synced.
Fix:
Go to Settings > Music on your iPhone.
Make sure iCloud Music Library is turned on.
On your Mac or PC, open Music or iTunes, then go to Preferences and ensure iCloud Music Library is enabled there too.
After enabling it, let your library sync again and check if the greyed-out songs become playable.
2. File Format Issues
Sometimes older songs might not be in a format supported by Apple Music or iCloud Music Library, which can cause them to appear greyed out.
Fix:
Check the file format of the greyed-out songs. Apple Music supports formats like MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, and ALAC.
If the files are in a different format, you may need to convert them to a supported format.
3. Missing Files
If the original files are no longer on your device or external hard drive (where they were stored before), they will appear greyed out.
Fix:
Go to the Music or iTunes app on your computer.
Click on the song and check if it displays an exclamation mark (!). This indicates a missing file.
Re-add the missing files to your Music library from the original folder where they are stored.
4. Song Availability on Apple Music
If you have the Apple Music subscription, some songs may be greyed out if they are no longer available on Apple Music.
Fix:
Make sure the songs are not region-restricted or removed from Apple Music’s catalog. In this case, your locally stored copies should still work unless there’s a sync issue (see #1).
5. DRM (Digital Rights Management) Issues
If the songs were purchased from a different platform or are older purchases with DRM, they might not play on Apple Music if they aren’t authorized.
Fix:
Make sure your Mac/PC is authorized to play those songs. In Music or iTunes, go to Account > Authorizations > Authorize This Computer and sign in with your Apple ID.
Quick Recap of Solutions:
Ensure iCloud Music Library is enabled.
Check file formats for compatibility.
Re-add missing files if needed.
Confirm that songs are still available in Apple Music or were synced correctly.
Check and resolve DRM or authorization issues.
If you’re still having trouble, feel free to join one of our live broadcasts and we can troubleshoot together in real time! 😊
Hey! I’m so confused with my iCloud music library I had it working fine and plugged it in after I returned from vacation and it is messed up. I deleted all my music from my library and re-added it to Apple Music on my mac. It’s now telling me that it’s uploading 16k+ songs to iCloud and I only have 11k. I don’t know why it’s uploading more songs than I actually have? Is there any way of clearing my music in iCloud so I can re-up all the songs from my library? HELP!!
Sorry for the late response... are you still struggling with this?
Thanks for the video. I too have a huge iTunes library that I have collected and curated for years. I have just upgraded to a new iMac with the "Music" player. I used to use the "Songs" view exclusively in iTunes. There was a search bar at the top right that I would use to search for song titles, artists, albums etc. Where has this gone? I can't get by without it! Is there any way to get the old iTunes style search bar back?
So there is no way to revert to iTunes and its style, because it has been replaced many years ago by the Music App. In the Apple world (and the world as a whole) nothing stays the same forever, but I have found that I prefer Music now that I know how to use it.
Here are some tips to replicate the iTunes way of finding and playing music:
First off, view your library by clicking on the songs section on the left, and then under the view menu select column browser, and "show column browser". Then click in any of the columns (genre, artist, album) and start typing to immediately search whatever column you are in.
You can also search directly in the song section by just clicking on any track in the lower area, and starting to type the name of a song.
If you still need to search beyond that, you should see a search bubble in your upper left-hand corner. When you use that make sure you are selected on "my library" rather than Apple Music or the iTunes store. The search bubble is only ok, I prefer using the column browser
Even though we can't go back to iTunes, you can make this app work almost the same way, with just a few modifications. And don't forget you can always use Siri to instantly find or play a specific song. To trigger Siri press and hold the command button and the space bar, and then tell her what you want to hear.
Hope that helps!
@@TheMacWhisperer Thanks again. Can you explain in more detail what you mean by "You can also search directly in the song section by just clicking on any track in the lower area, and starting to type the name of a song"?
Great info thanks
Glad it was helpful
Thanks. Today, you may very-well may have saved lives. The changes from iTunes to macOS Music has made me homicidal...
I totally get it!!!
Hello Dylan! I have not updated from iTunes to Apple Music. And I am trying to order up my library before updating. I have a bunch of duplicated songs. And want to clean that up. I think I have to check the rout of each duplicated file. Then locate the song file in the Finder. Then compare the two different song files. Erase the wrong one. And relocate the right one in a folder of mine. That being said, should I keep everything under the iTunes folder? Or in a folder of my own music? What should I do?
You should do ALL of that in the app itself, not in your folder. If you move things around in the folder without doing the corresponding work in the app you will leave accidental reference files all over the place and it will make it hard for you. Apple Music has built in duplicate finding tools, so you may be better off upgrading and clearing up the duplicates from the app afterwards...
Thank you, Dylan! God bless you and your loved ones.@@TheMacWhisperer
Thanks for the great info! Do you have any tips for backing up playlists? I've had several playlists disappear since apple moved from iTunes to Apple Music. I'm tired of recreating playlists.
You can export a play list to save it by going to the music app, going to the file menu, and under library you will find the option to export the playlist as a .txt file that you can save in your files and then reupload if you ever need to.
Thank you! I was able to download the file as you suggested. Your instructions were very clear and worked well.
Does the 'reupload' recreate the list in the 'music' app or just give me the order so I can rebuild the list? If it recreates the list can you please provide the 'reupload' steps. Thanks again! @@TheMacWhisperer
Great video, well played sir.
Thank you kindly!
Oh no I messed up my genre trying to copy your instructions. How do you reset all and I mean ALL my songs to their correct original genres??? I had “ALL(#Artist)” highlighted when I was doing the change genre thing!! Please help me
So sorry... there is no easy way except to hit undo IMMEDIATELY after making a global mistake like that. In the future remember that command + Z will always undo the last few actions (which could have fixed that but not now)...
Thanks for your reply! I did manage to fix my dumb mistake. Took forever to do one by one.
Nice video! Question: I have a MacBook Pro 2015 with OS Sierra (iTunes). I have 5000 songs 80% from iTunes Store and some from other sources of digital download or imported CDs. I just bought a new MacBook Pro M1 with new Apple Music app and it’s still in the box, not setup yet. So if I use migration assistant will my library and it’s playlists migrate over from iTunes into the Music App during the process? What about all the metadata with date song added to library? Thx
If you use the migration assistant everything should transfer flawlesly.
@@TheMacWhisperer ha! I’m back 2 months later to tell you that that is incorrect! Out of 5000 songs downloaded on old Mac only about 2500 transferred. I left it connected a long time thinking it just needed to update itself but didn’t. For 5 days I was stumped and only thing that worked was to rebuild the music file location and re add the library from ext hd. Even this took more than a few attempts had to keep rearranging folders in the music files area for the Mac to make sense of what I was importing to the library.
@@SharpEdgeStandardOfficial That sucks. I am sorry that was your experience. How old was the old Mac? I have had good luck doing it many times on my machines, but sometimes glitches happen🤷. Good work on getting it built back up! 👍
@@TheMacWhisperer thanks! The old Mac was a MBP from 2014 I think. One other strange phenomenon I haven’t been able to figure out on new Mac is this: all my iTunes song purchases are purchased on iPhone. I don’t sub to any Apple Music service I buy all my stuff and download. When would fire up old Mac the songs would pop up and automatically download in iTunes and organize into media proper location. Only now on new Mac after the songs populate in music app I have a download arrow and song location under the “get info” tab shows “cloud”. I have to manually go into iTunes Store > purchases > not in library and manually download to music library. After that they’re organized and in proper location. Just strange that I have to manually do this and haven’t been able to figure out anything in Apple Music app settings. Other weird part is when the new purchases show up in the Mac music app before I manually download anything the tracks will still play. Any ideas as to why this is happening???
Is there a way to change the order of the 'recently added' page in the music app? Mine seems to have changed to some random order
Unfortunately not that I can see.
What about those who used iTunes for audiobooks? I have a library of almost 8,000audiobooks and all those in format 4mb get played by Books. Thats disgraceful because I can't have a certain author's books all together. Except converting hundreds and hundreds of files to mp3, any suggestions?
Your channel is wonderful, keep up the great work, thank you
I've done some research on this, and you are right, Apple did a terrible job in managing this process. I am looking for a workaround and will let you know when I figure it out.
@@TheMacWhisperer If you manage to find a workaround I wold be very, very grateful. Thank you
Hey Dylan, I’ve got items that have already been matched and are now in my iCloud library. Whenever I edit these on the “iTunes” app on my Mac the changes are reverted when the iCloud library updates. Same goes with deleting; there’s a handful of albums I no longer want and I’ve deleted them on “iTunes” which removes them from my library and allows me to delete the files but then they re-appear when the iCloud library updates. Any advice?
Hey there! It sounds like iCloud Music Library might be syncing the older, matched versions from the cloud and overriding your changes. A good first step is to make sure your iCloud Music Library is fully updated after making edits or deletions by following these steps:
Turn Off iCloud Music Library on your Mac:
Go to Music > Preferences > General, and uncheck iCloud Music Library.
Edit or Delete Your Songs/Albums as needed.
Turn iCloud Music Library Back On:
Once the edits are done, turn iCloud Music Library back on and it should sync the changes instead of restoring the old versions.
Also, for ongoing guidance or more tips like this, check out themacwhisperer.com where we offer 1:1 sessions, or join one of our weekly live broadcasts to ask questions directly. Hope this helps! 😊
Hey Dylan, I have the same comment as the previous one in that I was not looking for your subject matter, I learned a quite a few things I did not know. I looked at your video list, and could not find anything on the items of interest to me (and probably others). Here are suggested subjects: How to back. up and restore playlists. How to differentiate between what songs are yours (no digital rights), and those you have downloaded. Apple is very cryptic and I think intentionally vague as to force or at least nudge people to streaming everything vs owning thier own stuff.
Good topic ideas. Backing up and restoring playlists is relatively easy to do so I may do a "short" to answer that...
Unfortunately separating your songs from ones with digital rights on your and other people's accounts is super hard to explain (and even harder to do properly) but if I figure out a simple way I will definitely share it.
Since going full force to Apple Music I have less and less of need for that function, but I know how frustrating it can be.
Hi, I have 300gb of music in my personal library. I’m an old school audiophile. I don’t want to stream. I want to access my own collection that I keep on an external drive and download the whole thing to my iPhone 12 running IOS 17.4.1. Lately when I sync my phone to the Music app on my Mac running Sonoma, I get some weird results. The biggest issue is that Music is organizing on my phone in a way that takes tracks from compilations and puts those tracks individually with other albums (in the album view) by the same artist.. it doesn’t do that to my Mac library, only my iPhone copy. I hate this! I meticulously maintain my library. I don’t want Apple to rearrange it or charge album artwork or do anything to change the way I’ve organized it. Did I do something to cause this? Is there a way I can fix it?
Unfortunately the iPhone music app is really intended to be used with Apple Music which synchronizes things automatically through the cloud. I understand not wanting to do that but the organization can suffer as a result. There is a setting inside the music app to not download album artwork, but it’s unpredictable at best.
With regard to the compilations there are some tools that you can use but again since the music app is really on Apple Music it can be problematic. I’d be happy to do one on one session with you and take a look if you’re interested. Feel free to send me an email at dylan@themacwhisperer.com and we can schedule.
Thanks much for this! New Sub.
Awesome, thank you!
For some reason, several albums by one artist that I downloaded to Apple Music will not sort with his other albums. I cannot see anything different. I checked the sort and it is set to same artist name. What am I doing wrong?
In the details section of get info, check for artist and album artist, and confirm the compilation button is not checked. You can also check the sorting tab... some songs are just finicky, and may require you to select all the songs from that artist and then manually change all the info so they connect to the other songs properly.
I have my library stored in an external hard drive. When I select add to library, it reorganizes the external hd to sort by artist the way that I don't like it. Especially, it touched the various artists folder. How can I do it, without the Music app disrupting the external hd organization?
Inside the music app preferences there is a setting to keep music organized… If you uncheck that it will leave your music organized in whatever way you haveit set manually.
I am having an issues with apple music matching to wrong albums that I have ripped from CDs. Is there a way to unmatch so that the correct tracks will synch?
Best I can say is try to manually put the correct info in the metadata manually and that should help. You may need to look at the actual album on iTunes to find the correct info.
I just migrated all of my 800 albums that were on my old itunes to my new system that only has "music" app. They loaded in DOUBLE...YIKES. is there a way to uninstall and start all over?
Oh no, double albums-that’s a lot to handle! 😬 Don’t worry, you don’t need to uninstall everything. You can fix this without starting from scratch by following these steps:
Consolidate Duplicates:
In the Music app, select File > Library > Show Duplicate Items.
You can review and delete duplicates manually from there.
Avoid Duplicates in Future Imports:
Before importing, go to Preferences > Files, and make sure the Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library option is unchecked. This will prevent duplicate files from being created when importing.
If things get too tangled and you'd prefer a fresh start, you can manually delete your music library and re-import your files. Also, feel free to join one of our live broadcasts to get more tips in real-time, or visit themacwhisperer.com for 1:1 guidance to make this process smoother. 😊
Thanks for the reply. I actually found a way to sort the music. Not optimum,
But I added the “kind” field under the songs tab and it put them in order that I could see which were mine and which had digital rights protection.
Glad it helped! :)
Hello, i'm interested to work with multiple 'Music Media folder location files' in order to reduce the storage on my macbook-hdd. I would like te create a new Media folder, stored on an external hdd-drive, containing my Classical music library. Where can i find some information on this option? Thnx and merry xmas! Marc
It's a little complicated to manage multiple libraries like that. I understand the need, but I would focus on finding other ways to manage the space on your computer. I have a video that can help you find what is using the majority of your space. (ruclips.net/video/GgKGeKHnGAU/видео.html)
For me, since I have such a large music library and so many different categories I like to keep it all in one place. If you have Apple Music you can send songs to the cloud so that can also help with storage. It is possible to do what you are trying to do, but certainly not simple.
Thank you for the tutorial!
My pleasure!
Apple Music formerly iTunes got so bad regarding. Organizing your original music. It’s an aweful tune for meta tagging songs. It’s not even easy to add music to an iPhone because synching is not very useful. I need to find a way to find my songs easily by genre so I can submit them to music sups. I do have my own online site which I programmed which I had been around longer than disco and works very well but it takes a bit of time to add my own songs.
If Apple Music had a more intuitive drag and drop into a new playlist that would be smart. But again I’d need to have everything tagged already. Mp3 tag for pc or Mac is the best tool for this. Read that again !
My desktop music library is a bit of a mess, including 1) multiple copies of songs, 2) loads of recordings from the original iTunes where "the original file could not be found" (Martin Luther King, Dylan Thomas, and Harry Potter among them!), 3) hundreds of Garageband songs I recorded, and 4) record albums I downloaded into iTunes. 1) Is there any way to group the songs with missing data together so they can all be deleted quickly? 2) Is there any way to consolidate the libraries from my laptop, desktop, iPhone, and iPad together -- assuming there is room?
Messy music libraries are pretty common these days. The first thing you can do is while in the song view, edit the view options to include cloud status, and then sort by that. That will put the duplicates together, and the missing files together.
If you click on any of the missing files and locate one of the songs (they’re usually in the music library by artist name) it will attempt to associate the other songs as well. I’ve had some good success doing that although you have to do it multiple times to get them all.
As far as synchronizing multiple devices there are two ways to do it… Several years ago Apple had a service called iTunes match That costs $25 per year. If you have a subscription to that you can use it to synchronize… Unfortunately they discontinued the service so you can no longer get a subscription if you don’t already have it.
So if you don’t have that subscription the only other option is to use Apple Music Which will bring all your songs together and your devices going into the settings and clicking sync. Without Apple Music there’s no way to do it automatically.
I do a lot of work with people cleaning up music libraries on a one-on-one basis… If that’s something you’re interested in looking into send me an email at dylan@themacwhisperer.com and we can schedule a remote session to get you pointed in the right direction.
@@TheMacWhisperer Thanks greatly for your amazingly quick response! My view options are Title, Cloud Download, Cloud Status, Time, Artist, Bit Rate, Album, and Kind. I set the Library to "Show Exact Duplicate Item" with the Option key. Now, I'm working to eliminate the duplicates with the lower Bit Rate. Unfortunately, the "Cloud Status" column is empty for all of my songs. So, this should take a lot of time!
I hadn't heard of iTunes Match, but apparently, it's still for sale ($24.99/year) in the iTunes Store. It "stores your entire music library in the Cloud, including music from CDs, and lets you enjoy it anywhere, anytime, on your iOS devices, computers, or Apple TV" It sounds great. The only problem is that they hold your entire music library hostage if you stop paying! It sounds a little bit like ransomware.
It sounds like Apple Music includes (replaces) all that iTunes Match does. But it sounds a bit like giving Apple my entire music collection (including all the music I play and record) and then paying for the privilege of renting it back from them. Why rent a cow when I already have the milk?
After I'm done dispensing with duplicates, I may very well schedule a remote with you. Thanks again!
It looks like despite my misgivings, Apple Match was indeed the solution to the problem. The library on all my devices is growing. 4316 and counting! Despite this size, the "Cloud Status" column will now enable me to group the missing files together. Apparently, Apple Match enabled my Cloud to actually have some Status!
Great Vid 😎
Glad you enjoyed it ;)
is there a video on how to get the artist photo to load correctly on apple music? it does it fine on my phone but not on my mac and i cannot find an option in settings.
Not sure about getting it to load correctly... but the setting for artwork on the mac is in music under settigns, under advanced... automatically update artwork for imported songs.
Hi my friend; thanks again for another outstanding video.
Great introduction to Apple Music for me.
Wish many Happy Holidays to you and your family from the “HAWAIIAN shirt guy”.
This week in Winnipeg is minus 15-17 Celsius: (that is around - 4 Fahrenheit).
Stay safe,
❤️👕
B. Bisignano
Happy holidays my fellow shirtaholic... glad you enjoyed the video!!!
some songs or playlists doesn't have an artwork , why ?
There is a setting in Music that will download artwork if it is available. If the song was downloaded from some random source or uploaded from a mixed CD or something, it won’t match with the proper artwork, but you can always add any artwork you like to the song; you just have to do it manually by clicking apple + i and going to the artwork tab.
What about CDs that I’d imported into iTunes that are now missing in Apple Music?
There was a service called iTunes match that cost $25 a year and came before Apple Music that allowed your entire CD library to get synchronized with your Apple account. For people who didn’t use that, you need to start by finding where your music that you uploaded is. If it’s on an old computer or something we can bring it onto your new machine and then turn on Apple Music which will automatically synchronize all of that for you. In order to get it synced up you do need to have Apple Music and the first time you need to have the actual files.
For people who can’t find the actual files I recommend just re-downloading all of that stuff on Apple Music now and if you can locate the actual files later we can integrate them in.
Those files most likely disappeared because of being on a different device and not having iTunes match or Apple Music on the original device.
Life saver!!!!
Any time! 😉
i have a ton of unwanted artists how do i make them go away ?
The easiest way is to go to your computer, select the Artists you don’t want, and click the delete button. If you go through the song view with the column browser enabled you should be able to select and delete all the info from any given artist with just a few clicks. If it is a dong you purchased from Apple you can’t “delete” it, but you can “hide” it, and then you won’t see it anymore.
I like your lesson but I still miss the xml part that used to make it so easy to share iTunes with other music apps.
Thanks for watching! :)
Help: What is the best devider for mac to recognise that there are separate multiple artists in one song?
If the song has a main singer and a featured artist I tend to put the featured artist(s) in the song title area at the end of the title in parenthesis.
If there are a lot of artists on one song it can be pretty frustrating, but fortunately that's uncommon (songs like We are the World, etc that have that issue I put under "various artists" instead of any specific singer)
@@TheMacWhisperer That kind of sucks that mac doesn't allow for multiple main artists. Probably gonna switch back to windows 😅
Hi! Amazing video. So I was accustom to changing / updating tags by changing Groui mg option but it still says mixed even if I highlight all songs and delete the grouping number. Any ideas on how to fix that?
I am not sure I understand the question, can you rephrase it please… 😊
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!
You’re very welcome, Johnny! 😊 I’m glad you enjoyed the video. If you ever have more questions or need more tips, feel free to join one of our weekly live broadcasts! And if you found the content super helpful, feel free to drop a Super Thanks-it really helps me know what topics to cover more of. 🎉
Music? It seams that all my music from ITunes is not in in Music. Could that be? Great video, thank you.
Anything is possible. It really depends on how your files were set up in iTunes and whether things were migrated properly from any prior computers. If you can find a song that isn't there and search for that song on your computer and locate it somewhere other than the music library, it (and any other files in the same location) can be imported. If the music was purchased through Apple or iTunes, make sure you are logged in with the same iTunes/Apple ID, and you should be able to locate it that way.
There are a lot of situations that could result in missing files, so it's hard to say for sure... can you tell me more?
Thanks Dylan! I wonder how to make an even volume and sound with Itunes because some of my cd's are old, any advice?
Theoretically, there is a setting in the Music App for just that. Go to the music menu, and preferences, then under playback make sure the "Sound Check" button is on. If that doesn't work it gets significantly more complicated.
Thanks for all of the information. I have one question about playlists. I created a few, but when I use them I notice that some songs never play, but others play many times. Is there a way to fix that, or is there a limited number of songs that you should put in a playlist? Note that I am not streaming through the music app, I originally purchased all of the songs when it was iTunes.
Most of the times when a song won’t play, and songs have been purchased from itunes there may be more than one iTunes account that the songs are from, or there may be an issue with some of those songs (corruptions, etc). Find the song that does not play and double click it to see if it gives you an error or a message, if that doesn’t work select the song and hit command + i, and go to the file tab to see if it can help you determine the problem. The cloud status section will tell you if it was purchased, uploaded, matched, etc… see if you can find the connection between the songs that don’t play and report back here to see if we can resolve the issue.
The problem with apple music is that when you go to an artist page and you see that there is already an "essentials" playlist,. When you add that to your library it adds it to the playlist section but those individual songs do not get added to the songs. I want to be able to get all my songs in one place so I can just hit play shuffle when as I carry on in my day. I do not want to have to be jumping from songs to playlists to hear certain artists. Any suggestions?
There is a super easy fix. In the settings (on the phone, iPad and computer) there is an option to add songs to library when adding to playlists. This should mean that when you add that playlist all the songs get added to your library. Then you can remove the playlists and keep the songs.
Thanks!
Thanks for the tip! I’m glad you got good value out of this video, let me know if there are any other Koch you’d like me to cover in the future.
Is there anyway to do these things on windows 11? I struggle using iTunes. I keep my music on my iPad and iPhone to play and create playlists. One of my frustrations is that the album art keeps getting changed when I transfer it from iTunes on my pc to my iPad.
Unfortunately the windows version of iTunes has not been updated in forever, and the iPhone and iPad software is updated every year, so it’s far from the same experience. Also, as “the MacWhisperer” I don’t really focus on windows products or apps. With regard to the artwork, I would make sure that “automatically download artwork” is not turned on for the PC, since that might be creating the discrepancy. 🙂
I need some help using Apple Music on my phone (streaming) along with my owned collection of mp3s I've ripped from my big CD collection. It is very important to me to be able to use BOTH. However, I am unable to create playlists on my phone using Apple Music (streaming) without clicking "yes" to "Organize My Library". I am nervous to click yes because I fear my file structure on my computer will get over-riden and files will be moved to new folders and all of my custom playlists based on song ratings, play count, etc etc etc will be over-riden. Any thoughts on this?
Click "sync library" on the computer first and it will match the computer's files and then do it on the phone. You can't do it easily from the phone first or it will get overwritten.
I really appreciate you doing this video and I ran across this video for a different reason. I have been looking for a video on how to get my itune music from my old iMac into the Music App on my new 2022 Monterey IMac. Do you know if there is a video around that might be helpful. I would really appreciate if any one knows of one. Thanks
It’s actually really easy. Go to your old computer, go to your home folder, music folder, and take the iTunes music folder from there and put it on the new machine. Then on the new machine go to import, pointed to that folder and let it file the songs where they belong. There’s another way to do it that involves uploading all of the songs from the iMac to Apple Music, and then making sure the new computer is also sent up with Apple Music and they should merge… But it’s really easy to do it manually and that’s the way I generally do it.
@@TheMacWhisperer Thank You Very Much!
Thank youuuuu!!!! ❤
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
Does anyone know how to sort your itunes library to weed out songs that are under other apple IDs? I have about 30k songs, and there are a bunch that aren't under my apple ID that I don't have access to and I want to delete.
This has been an issue and a problem forever. I have always wished that there was some easy way to sort an entire library and separate it out by Apple ID, but there really isn't any way that I've found to do that, which is super frustrating.
When you find ones that are not in your Apple ID, if you know the Apple ID information, you can do a search for it in the store and try to eliminate it from there by the 'On this device' option, but there should be an easier way to click a button and have it show you all of those miscellaneous Apple IDs we've collected over the decades.
I did a big search for it yesterday trying to help you out, but unfortunately there's still no tool, not even a script or a shortcut that I could find that will accomplish that properly. I'll keep my eye out and let you know if that changes.
Sorry, I don't have a better answer. This is a stupid situation that should have been resolved by Apple forever ago. 🤷♂️
I do not have column browser on mac os Ventura 13.1 to convert to revert to old iTunes review. my problem is under artists I have the artists numerous times. How do I get all the artists's songs under one artists? example; Fleetwood Mac is listed more then once with a few songs. Then again listed under Fleetwood Mac one song.
You may not havethe column browser turned on, but you do have it. Go to the songs view, Click on the view menu at the top, click column browser, and select show column browser. The artist's list is almost always a mess, and there are always multiple Artists for various reasons. Find the column browser (you can also access it from the songs view by clicking apple + B), and use that view to clean up errors, multiple artist, incorrect genres, etc...
When in artist view some of the little circles have pictures some don’t, has anyone figured out a way to add or edit those circle pictures?
Unfortunately it's not something we have a lot of control over. As long as you have turned on automatic artwork in preferences (in the advanced section) Apple will automatically add images for known artists. In the cases of artists that don't get artwork, it may be because their name is misspelled or entered in in a way that is different from how iTunes recognizes it. You can add artwork to the album… But not for the artist directly. If someone else figures out how please let me know.
Exactly what I wanted...although losig the 'pretty' album art interface as my go to will be hard to bear ;-)
I completely understand, but i will take efficient over pretty any day...
Hi Dylan- two questions: 1) is there any way to stop Apple from making duplicates of my songs in my library? 2) I recently moved my library to a network drive so I can listen to my library without having my iMac on. But Apple Music now lists all of my music in both my old and new locations, even after I have deleted the library from the old location. How do I get Apple Music to only look at the new location? If I do a mass delete and try to “start over”, Apple also removes the music from my library, and not just from Apple Music. Any help is most appreciated!
Try this :)
1. Way to stop Apple from making duplicates of my songs in my library
-> Open iTunes / Apple Music.
-> Go to File > Library > Show Duplicate Items.
-> Select the tracks you wish to delete.
-> Right-click > Delete from library.
@@TheMacWhisperer Thank you. That’s how to delete the duplicates. I was hoping that you knew of a way to prevent the duplicates from being made in the first place.
Also- did you see my second question?
Thank you Dylan!
Why some music that I own get this dot gray circle with a banner saying, "this song is not able in your country"?
Some songs may have streaming licensing issues. You "own" it, but cannot legally stream it, so it's greyed out. Unfortunately this is an issue with certain music publishers and I don't know any way around it.
How do you keep your songs in your library and make sure they stay there on Apple Music
I’ve never had an issue with my songs leaving my library or getting removed from Apple Music so I guess you need to give me more information so I can help better.