Songs that I have already in my iMusic

Hi,

I'm not familiar with iMusic so I don't know exactly what you'll experience, but here are some broad strokes that might help.

*** Experts, please correct me on any of this ***

In the old days:

1. Apple offered a service called iTunes Match which did bad things to some folks' music libraries when it first rolled out
2. Apple offered a service called iTunes Cloud Library (later renamed to "Cloud Music Library") which also did bad things to some folks' music libraries when it first rolled out
3. Apple did a poor job explaining exactly what those services were doing
4. Users didn't always understand what those services were actually offering, which led to some bad situations

That's where a lot of the horror stories come from.

These days:

1. In both macOS and iOS, Apple provides the Music app
   1. This is not Apple Music
      1. Apple Music is Apple's standalone streaming service
      2. You access Apple Music through the Music app
      3. Yes, it's confusing
2. The Music app can also be a home for your local files

Good things to know:

1. Music.app is aimed at people who don't want to deal with files and does everything it can to help them
2. Music.app keeps all of its data in a Library
3. You can add Apple Music songs, albums, playlists and more to your Library
4. You can add local files to your Library
5. Music.app will present everything you add to your Library as a single cohesive experience
6. If you turn on Music > Preferences > Sync Library, your Library will available on any device you sign into (very helpful)

There are a few things that can trip people up:

1. By default, the local Library files are located in Macintosh HD > Users > ***you*** > Music > Music
   1. You can change this location at any time — This will be important below
2. If you add local files to your Library, Music.app will likely try to copy them to your Library
   1. If you have a hundreds of gigs of music on an external drive and your Library is in the default location on a tiny local drive...you can see the problem
   2. There's a setting in Preferences to turn that on/off
3. Music app has a preference to organize your Library's local files
   1. If you let it organize, (I think) it will copy all your files to the Library — Same issue as the last bullet
   2. Also, if you've hand-organized your music files a certain way, you want to turn that option off
   3. But if your files are a mess, turn it on (it's great for basic organization)

It's worth trying out, but:

1. Back up all your local music files first
2. Dig through Music.app's Preferences and really understand what it wants to do by default
3. Start lightly with just few local files and pay attention to what it does with them
4. Get familiar with local song's Get Info > File panel
5. Get familiar with the Library's local files

Hope that helps. It's kind of confusing at first but it will make sense eventually. Sort of.

Major caveat: If you're into hi-res music, the Music.app is not bit-perfect. You'll have to manually switch bit depth / sample rate in the Audio MIDI Setup app. One post I read sad you had to restart Music.app as well (I don't know). It's kind of a ridiculous situation now that they're offering hi-res lossless.