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How do I use an existing music library that's been copied to another external drive?

This seems like it should be simple but I'm having trouble. I have my music files on an external drive that I use on my home MacBook. The music library is also located on this external drive (not on my MacBook). I copied all the contents of external drive #1 onto another external drive (external drive #2) so that I could play my music on my work MacBook. When opening Apple Music on my work computer, I select "choose library" and then click on the music library on external drive #2. My music albums appear, but when I click on any song, I get a message that the song can't be located. When I look at the song's file information, I see that it's still referring to the music library on External Drive #1, not External Drive #2.


How can I use an existing library that's been copied to a new drive, rather than creating a new library? (I have 1.5 TB of music so it takes a long time to create a new library).


Thanks!


MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Nov 22, 2022 8:00 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 22, 2022 9:19 AM

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2

Similar questions

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 22, 2022 9:19 AM in response to kdwardtn

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2

Nov 28, 2022 5:18 PM in response to kdwardtn

I think your media folder should be set to:


/Volumes/Office Music drive 03.09.19/iTunes Media


rather than:


/Volumes/Office Music drive 03.09.19/iTunes Media/Music


But you might still need to make use of the fix links script. You might choose to put things in a more conventional (for the Music app) layout where the Music Library.musiclibrary database is stored at /Volumes/<External Drive Name>/Music, and the existing iTunes Media folder is moved/renamed so it becomes /Volumes/<External Drive Name>/Music/Meda, which may just work, or should repair easily with the script. A shorter volume name might be nice.


tt2

Nov 30, 2022 9:33 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks very much! This solved the problem. The only additional thing I had to do for the music on the copied external disk to play properly was to move all my music into a "music" sub-directory ( /Volumes/Office Music drive 03.09.19/Music/Media.localized/Music), which I figured out thanks to one of your other responses (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253623929).




Nov 28, 2022 12:30 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks so much for your detailed response. Here is the information you requested:

  1. My media folder is on my external drive, which is /Volumes/Office Music drive 03.09.19/iTunes Media/Music
  2. The location of a sample missing track is: file:///Volumes/Office Music drive 03.09.19/Music Library/Music/Media.localized/Music/Compilations/Absolute Zero/01 Absolute Zero.m4a
  3. The true path of the file in #2 is: Office Music drive 03.09.19/iTunes Media/Music/Compilations/Absolute Zero/01 Absolute Zero.m4a


From this information, I can see that the path that Music is searching for is NOT the true path, but how do I fix that? Should I move my media files from the "iTunes Media" folder to the "Music Library" folder (my music library is located here with this path name: /Volumes/Office Music drive 03.09.19/Music Library/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary).


thanks for your help!

How do I use an existing music library that's been copied to another external drive?

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