iTunes Folder Structure Issues (Again)

[Moosbrugger]

Can someone tell me what the folder structure for iTunes (Music) should be on Monterey?

 

Mine is:

 

External Drive>

     iTunes

          Audiobooks

          Downloads-Music

          Home Videos

          Media

               Automatically add to Music

               Automatically add to TV

               Downloads-Music

               Media

                    Automatically add to Music

              Music

                    Automatically Add to Music

                    Music

                    Music Library.musiclibrary

               Mobile Applications

               Podcasts

               Tones

               TV Shows

          Movies/TV/Media

[La Cie Files]

 

Within that bottom Music folder (just above Music Library), are the individual folders for each artists.  However, within that Music folder there is a sub-folder, also titled Music, which has about half of the artist folders.  I have no idea when or how this folder was created.  I don't know if I should just copy all of these files into one of the higher-level Music folders, or try to rearrange the whole thing.

 

This structure seems quite messed up.  And the big problem is that I can't get music to locate all of the music files.  when I change the location of the music files, it "Updates", but Music will only play some of the files, and they rest it says it can't locate.    I'd like to get this into a proper structure.  

 

Thanks!

[semente]

2 hours ago, Moosbrugger said:

Can someone tell me what the folder structure for iTunes (Music) should be on Monterey?

 

Mine is:

 

External Drive>

     iTunes

          Audiobooks

          Downloads-Music

          Home Videos

          Media

               Automatically add to Music

               Automatically add to TV

               Downloads-Music

               Media

                    Automatically add to Music

              Music

                    Automatically Add to Music

                    Music

                    Music Library.musiclibrary

               Mobile Applications

               Podcasts

               Tones

               TV Shows

          Movies/TV/Media

[La Cie Files]

 

Within that bottom Music folder (just above Music Library), are the individual folders for each artists.  However, within that Music folder there is a sub-folder, also titled Music, which has about half of the artist folders.  I have no idea when or how this folder was created.  I don't know if I should just copy all of these files into one of the higher-level Music folders, or try to rearrange the whole thing.

 

This structure seems quite messed up.  And the big problem is that I can't get music to locate all of the music files.  when I change the location of the music files, it "Updates", but Music will only play some of the files, and they rest it says it can't locate.    I'd like to get this into a proper structure.  

 

Thanks!

 

iTunes no longer exists in Monterrey, it's been replace by Music since Catalina if I'm not mistaken.

It may have something to do with that.

[semente]

If you have a back up I recomend that you delete the music files from your iTunes and create a new Music library by importing the back up into your LaCie HDD.

[coke]

Yes, with Catalina, that’s when iTunes became Music, and the TV app made its debut. All your video files, i.e., Home Videos, TV Shows, Movies, etc. should falls under TV. However, Music Videos still play in Music. When I upgraded to Catalina, I did a clean install. After the upgrade did its thing, I moved the files associated with the Music app onto an external drive. The only thing I left on the internal drive were songs and videos I downloaded from iTunes years ago.

 

Here are two articles written by Kirk McElhearn. The first talks about the splitting up of iTunes into four distinct apps. 

 

https://kirkville.com/some-thoughts-on-the-app-formerly-known-as-itunes-and-macos-catalina/

 

This one was useful for rebuilding your library. However, I am not sure how it would apply to an external drive. 

 

https://kirkville.com/how-to-rebuild-your-itunes-library/

 

iTunes folder structure issues caused me great pain, helped me migrate to an external drive, and then onto another app to play my music files, including flac ones.

[DavidL]

My experience may be helpful as I have my library on an external drive and am running the Music App under Big Sur OS.

 

The library has grown substantially over the years (now 109k+ tracks) and recently I noticed some anomalies occurring when I edited the meta data for new additions. Posting on the Apple support site produced a suggestion that I set 'Keep Music Media folder organised' in music preferences. I'd never set this before as I was wary that my carefully organised library might get scrambled but I thought I'd give this a try.

 

Before doing so I backed up 2 copies of my library to external drives. My library file structure was very similar to yours, but I did not have the extra 'Music' subfolder under 'Music'. After setting 'Keep Music Media folder organised' it took 5 days to complete! I then closed the music app which took a further 31/2 days to complete! Examining the resultant new file structure I found I now had the extra 'Music' subfolder. Nearly all my music tracks (~98%) were identified there - I ran the Doug Script 'List MIAs' to identify what was missing. Some tracks were not 'connected' in the new Music subfolder but others were left in the original Music folder. I also cross-checked in my library backup to find the others. To replace these I copied the tracks from the backup to the desktop and then imported them to the new Music library. As far as I can tell nothing is missing now.

 

Interestingly the original Music folder contained practically all the album art I had accumulated and stored as files at the album level i.e. not embedded with the corresponding tracks. It took me several days to embed the album art in the music library tracks in the new Music subfolder.

 

I've been using the 'organised' library for a couple of weeks without any issues. The library loads noticeably faster than before.