comparing iTunes files on different macs

[kirkmc]

Turn on Home Sharing on each Mac. Choose the library that you want to ensure have all the tracks. One by one, load the other libraries on that Mac in Home Sharing, and choose to only display files Not in This Library. You can then select them all and import them. 

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/music/mus56cd6f5/mac  

 

Once you've got one Mac with all the files, you can repeat the process on the other Macs, copying the files from the main Mac to them. 

 

But my question is why do you have four Macs with music files? You can use one, turn on Home Sharing, and access its music on the other Mac. Then you only have one library to manage.

[kirkmc]

Hank, that's all very complicated. 🙂

 

It really sounds to me like you're the ideal person to use a cloud solution for music. With either Apple Music or iTunes Store, you could have all your music in the cloud, accessible from all your devices. You'd have just one library, and you wouldn't need to hassle to keep other libraries up to date. Even if, like me, you don't want to mix your main library with Apple Music music, you could create a second library just for the cloud (that's what I do), where you put some or all of your existing music. 

 

Or, you could use Plex, which would allow you to access the music from the Sonos app on any device. 

[kirkmc]

6 hours ago, GregWormald said:

I have 3 macs and 3 iTunes libraries, all in the same house. I use home sharing to keep them all current, and think of the redundancies as backups.

 

That's a sensible approach. 

[kirkmc]

In step 2, you click that little arrow and select the other Mac (or one of your other Macs). That won't import anything unless you select music and click Import at the bottom of the window. 

 

At the bottom off the window, there's a menu. It says Show: then the menu offers two options: All Items or Items Not In My Library. 

 

Just a suggestion for the future; when you run into issues like this, take screenshots. If you press Command-Shift-3, your Mac takes a screenshot of the full screen. If you press Command-Shift-4, then press the spacebar, you can click the window you want to capture. In both cases, screenshots are saved to the Desktop. 

[kirkmc]

Hank, you want to hover over Library in the sidebar; when the arrow displays, click where it says Library and you'll see your other libraries. 

[kirkmc]

So across all your Macs, there are only 7 tracks not on all of them? That's pretty good. 

 

Remember, you can always use this to compare libraries and import tracks that aren't on one of your Macs. 

[kirkmc]

Just a wild guess, but on the Mac in the top screenshot, in the View menu, is All Music or Only Downloaded Music selected? 

[kirkmc]

Hmm... I'm stumped here. Could the Mac with more files have files purchased from the iTunes Store with another Apple ID? In that case, they might not be compared. 

[kirkmc]

1 hour ago, cambridgehank said:

If you're stumped, imagine how I feel?  lol

 

 

🙂

 

You might want to look at the two libraries by genre; see if both have all the same genres, then select each genre and compare the number of tracks. That might give you some clues.