You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

📰 Newsroom Update

Billie Eilish is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2024. Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: Rich B22
Rich B22 Author
User level: Level 1
23 points

Catalina Music not converting or accessing iTunes library.

Did a clean install of Catalina in its own APFS container, leaving my Mojave installation intact, as there are some 32 bit apps I still want to keep. Opened Music and it asked for Library so on the Mojave installation, I went to ~music (Choose)>iTunes(Choose)>iTunes Media(Choose)>Music(Choose) and it then goes to the individual artist/album and then the song is grayed out. Also tried it opening Music with the option key with same results.


Was able to copy the songs to the Music folder in the Catalina container, however, it didn't bring along any of the date like ratings, playlists, etc.


Any help much appreciated.



iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 29, 2020 8:58 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
274,552 points

Posted on Oct 30, 2020 3:37 AM

You should be able to option-start-Music and choose the iTunes Library.itl file inside /<Mojave Volume>/Users/<User>/Music/iTunes. This will prompt for a location to save the converted library which would normally be in /<Catalina Volume>/Users/<User>/Music/Music. To make the Catalina library independent of the Mojave volume you would typically reset the media folder (Music > Preferences > Files) and then consolidate the library.


tt2

View in context

Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
274,552 points

Oct 30, 2020 3:37 AM in response to Rich B22

You should be able to option-start-Music and choose the iTunes Library.itl file inside /<Mojave Volume>/Users/<User>/Music/iTunes. This will prompt for a location to save the converted library which would normally be in /<Catalina Volume>/Users/<User>/Music/Music. To make the Catalina library independent of the Mojave volume you would typically reset the media folder (Music > Preferences > Files) and then consolidate the library.


tt2

Reply
User profile for user: Rich B22
Rich B22 Author
User level: Level 1
23 points

Nov 2, 2020 10:58 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks so much for your reply and it worked well to bring the data in, however, the information only stays under the iTunes folder. It works with Music.app, so I don't really care that much, however, it seems this should be a smoother, more straight-forward process.


Unfortunately, the import process of the music itself left a lot to be desired and I had to recover almost 300 songs manually. Seems like Catalina/Music moving from Mojave/iTunes should be a lot smoother and accurate, however, maybe I did something wrong, although I can't imagine what.


Thanks again for your help

Reply

Catalina Music not converting or accessing iTunes library.

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up