How-Where place Music to move back to Mac HD from External HD?

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Level 1

93 points

How-Where place Music to move back to Mac HD from External HD?

I move Music library to external disk a few years ago to make space on my MBP. Now have a MBA M1 with 2T of space. want to move Music back safely to Mac.

Looked a Home>Music and can see if’ve a dozen folders there. Pix below.

Can I simply drag Music folder from external and drop on Music folder on Mac? Or do I change the location in Music>Setting>Files to Home>Music Folder? does that actually move music?

Thanks

MacBook Air (M1, 2020)

Posted on Apr 1, 2023 9:14 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

turingtest2

Level 10

274,264 points

Apr 3, 2023 12:49 PM in response to ArmandoWyo

Hi,

You can copy your active .musiclibrary package into ~/Music/Music, option-start-Music to access the new copy of the library, then reset the media folder to ~/Music/Music/Media, and finally consolidate to the new location. That should bring in all of the old content wherever it happens to be, gathering up the library into the standard layout where the .musiclibrary and Media folder are in the same parent folder.

tt2

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Answer 2

ArmandoWyo Author

Level 1

93 points

Apr 1, 2023 3:40 PM in response to javaliga

Thanks I had read the 1st article but not the 2nd. Lots of info, but don’t actually say what to do if situation is reverse of usual. Moving Music Folder back to where Music would have put it.

Are you saying that I can run Consolidate with somethings (my screenshot) on MBA (Home>Music) and the major part on th external HD. That doesn't sound right, although Music App knows the music contents is on external HD. it will not play when external not connected to MBA.

Back to asking, should I drag Music folder on external to MBA Music folder?

When I open the Music folder on external HD, it is a long series of folders in the name of each artist on each album, CD or song.

In the folder on external Music folder there isn’t any of the structure mention is 2nd article Music>Music>Media. That suggest I should drag the contents of external Music folder to the Music>Media folder on MBA.

Sorry, to be dense. And asking basic steps questions. but I really screwed up moving Photos back to MBA and wound up with only reference photos in Photos.

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