Transferring music library between two Macs

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Hello All,
I have two macs both running the latest version of Catalina. I want to copy the Music Library (muisc stored locally ripped from CDs and vinyl) from one to another and have attempted this so far but it does'nt feature all the songs listed on the first Mac on the second Mac. The first mac is storing it's library on its internal SSD and the second will be storing on an external Thunderbolt drive. Can anyone advise of the best way to do this?
Thanks
 

Slydude

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Can you tell us exactly how you moved the files from one computer to the other? In the meantime, this is just a guess but here'a what I think happened:

Background

In the past (prior versions of iTunes) this usually occurred because the songs and other media had been stored in several different folders over time. Depending upon how your preferences were set some of the folders were outside of the iTunes media folder and didn't get copied during the transfer of just the iTunes media folder. The fix was to open the iTunes preferences and tell it to move files into the media folder (consolidating them) before copying things to the new machine. Onee the libraryary was consolidated it could be copied to the new location

Probable fix

Under Catalina Music does not have that setting in its preferences. Try going to File>Library>Organize Library and check that checkbox before copying the contents of the media folder.

If that doesn't fix the problem post back. In the meantime I'll look for a definitive answer.
 
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Okay here's the details;
The first computer (the source) is a MacBook Pro 15" 2.2ghz quad core intel i7 running the latest version of Catalina (10.15.2) with 68,143 songs (471.10gb) stored in \macintosh hd\users\scott\music\itunes\itunes\music. The keep music media folder organised tick box is ticked and Copy files to music media folder when adding to library tick box is also ticked.

The second computer (the destination) is Mac mini later 2014 3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 late 2014 running the latest beta of Catalina 10.15.3 Beta (19D49f) the music is store on an external Thunderbolt drive \media\music\music. After attempted to copy form the first the second is showing 66,219 (453/78gb) The keep music media folder organised tick box is ticked and Copy files to music media folder when adding to library tick box is also ticked.

After copying both the media, Music folders and the iTunes folder from the first computer none of the playlists from the first are showing and there is a discrepancy of apps 2,000 songs. Most of these songs are ripped form CDs and or vinyl wth about a 1,000 purchased form the iTunes store. Both computers are using the same Apple ID.
 

Slydude

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Thanks for the update. I must admit that at the moment I'm stumped as to why there is a difference of roughly 2000 songs. It's probably something simple that I'm missing. I'll keep thinking. One possibility is that as songs were consolidated some of them got duplicated unnecessarily.

As far as the playlists go it sounds like the library file didn't get copied or didn't copy correctly. In this case I don't mean the music and videos. You probably know that the actual library file is a database file in a sense. look in your user folder. In the Music/iTunes folder (or perhaps a subfolder) you should find the library file. Transfer that from the computer that has playlists to the same location on the one that doesn't.
 
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If you are in Music, on the destination Mac, can you add the songs to your library that way? You may need to do it in multiple steps? Maybe 20,000 songs at a time? This should put the files in the proper location yo have specified?
 

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