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Music app on my Mac can no longer find my music files

I recently replaced my SSD on my mid 2015 Macbook Pro and did a restore from Time Machine. Everything works fine. However, now the Music app can't find my music files on my external hard disk drive. I have tried the "Consolidate Files" in Music but to no avail. I can manually locate a music file but I have over 7000 music files so this would be too cumbersome for my entire library. I have a mix of both purchased and uploaded from CD music files. I have the correct Music Media folder for my external hard drive specified in Music Preferences Files and I have "Keep Music Media Folder organized" and "Copy files to Music Media Folder when adding to Library", checked. I had this problem once before, years ago, and was able to fix it by doing a global edit on the file paths in the iTunes Library.xml file but that didn't seem to do anything when I tried it this time.


Will someone please tell me how to get the Music app to find ALL my music files?


MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Jan 16, 2023 12:44 PM

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Posted on Jan 18, 2023 9:48 AM

You should set the media folder to /iTunesHDD/iTunes/iTunes Media. There will be a hidden preferences file in the active media folder that determines whether Music looks for the artist folder in the media folder (Music default) or <Media Folder>/Music (iTunes default). Change the media folder first then see if you still need to adjust the hiddden .Media Preferences.plist to match the layout of the media. There is an integer value stored in the text file, 0 is without an additional Music subfolder, 1 includes it. Once the bulk of your library is working correctly you can manually move any problem items up or down a layer if needed.


tt2

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 18, 2023 9:48 AM in response to lowellMBA

You should set the media folder to /iTunesHDD/iTunes/iTunes Media. There will be a hidden preferences file in the active media folder that determines whether Music looks for the artist folder in the media folder (Music default) or <Media Folder>/Music (iTunes default). Change the media folder first then see if you still need to adjust the hiddden .Media Preferences.plist to match the layout of the media. There is an integer value stored in the text file, 0 is without an additional Music subfolder, 1 includes it. Once the bulk of your library is working correctly you can manually move any problem items up or down a layer if needed.


tt2

Jan 18, 2023 7:59 AM in response to lowellMBA

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

Jan 18, 2023 9:30 AM in response to turingtest2

tt2, thanks for your help. I selected a song in Music with an exclamation point and clicked Cancel when it prompted me to browse for the location. I then brought up the File tab in Get Info for that song and it indicates the following


file:///Volumes/iTunesHDD/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Music/Compilations/Jazz For A Sunday Morning/06 Waltz For Scotty.m4a


Which as you can see has two Music folders. The Music | Preferences | Files has the following path.


/iTunesHDD/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music


I believe that is what is going wrong now that I've followed your instructions. The actual file path is iTunesHDD | iTunes | iTunesMedia | Music | Compilations | Jazz For A Sunday Morning | 06 Waltz For Scotty.m4a.


A related issue is my parent level Music folder has 7900 items according to the Get Info window. The sub folder Music/Music has 666 items.


So I guess my questions are,

  1. how do I move all the content in Music/Music up one folder to Music and have the Music app recognize the change (in other words, updated the file paths for in the Music app to point to the parent Music folder)?
  2. how do I fix the path in Music for the items like Waltz For Scotty which are in the correct Music folder but Music thinks they are in Music/Music?




Music app on my Mac can no longer find my music files

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