After the 24 hours it took for Migration Assistant to do a botched migration, I found I would have to manually move just about ALL my files from the old iMac to the new one. I have moved the contents of my documents & downloads folders over using a 256GB flash drive and next is my iTunes content on the old iMac to the Music content on the new one.
On the old iMac I have, according to iTunes:
Ca. 7,500 songs
Ca. 590 albums
4 music videos
59 Playlists
According to Music on the new iMac of the above, here is what was migrated:
3 music videos
120 albums
Only about 900 songs
So how do I copy the missing items over?
The ~/Music/iTunes Music/Music folder on the old iMac is only about 72 GB so can I copy it onto the flash drive then import everything in it into Music? Of course I’ll have at least 900 duplicates to weed out.
What about the Playlists? Is there a file I can also copy to the drive?
I’d delete the partial set of files related to Music that were migrated and then instead manually copy over the entire ~/Music/iTunes/. Launch iTunes/Music holding option. Select Choose Library… and select the folder you manually copied over. Then once iTunes/Music has launched and you see that all your songs and playlists are once again there, check iTunes’/Music’s Settings > Files and make sure that media organization and copying over files are selected the way you’d like your files managed.
To migrate, if you copy the right files over to the new Mac and put them in the same place as they were before, when you open Music it will perform the conversion. You may need to remove or rename the current Music files first.
Music stores the media somewhere and the library is at ~/Music/Music/Music Library. iTunes stores the media somewhere and the library is iTunes Library.itl. There’s also an iTunes Music Library.xml, but you don’t need that.
Monterey will come with Music to replace iTunes (that started with Catalina). But it will import all your iTunes songs and playlists that you have copied over.
I believe there are ways to use iTunes under Monterey, but I have no experience with that myself.
There appear to be decent alternatives to Music.app on both macOS and iOS, see this recent discussion.
Re modifying iTunes to work with latest versions of Apple Silicon and the Mac OS…
I found this in my archives. I did not write it:
iTunes 12.6.5.3 partially works on Apple Silicon.
You can’t log into the Store, but it plays local files, including 4K video, and still has Internet Radio
AppleScript that extracts iTunes.app from the dmg, modifies Info.plist with 13.9.9 instead of 12.6.5.3 so that the app will be allowed to start, copies the app into Applications and starts the app.
Code:
set theDMG to choose file with prompt “Please select iTunes dmg file:” of type {“dmg”}
do shell script "hdiutil mount " & quoted form of POSIX path of theDMG
do shell script “pkgutil --expand /Volumes/iTunes/Install\ iTunes.pkg ~/tmp”
do shell script “hdiutil unmount /Volumes/iTunes/”
do shell script “cd ~/tmp/iTunesX.pkg; cat Payload | gunzip -dc |cpio -i; ditto ~/tmp/iTunesX.pkg/Applications/iTunes.app ~/tmp/iTunes.app;”
do shell script “plutil -replace CFBundleGetInfoString -string ‘iTunes 13.9.9’ ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist”
do shell script “plutil -replace CFBundleShortVersionString -string 13.9.9 ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist”
do shell script “plutil -replace CFBundleVersion -string 13.9.9 ~/tmp/iTunes.app/Contents/Info.plist”
do shell script “touch ~/tmp/iTunes.app”
do shell script “ditto ~/tmp/iTunes.app /Applications/iTunes.app”
do shell script “rm -r ~/tmp”
do shell script “open /Applications/iTunes.app”
I would suggest opening Preferences – Restrictions, disabling iTunes Store and restarting the app.
The same script can be used for other versions of iTunes, I’ve tested it on 12.7.5.9 and 12.8.3.1.
Links from Apple for the dmg files https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/ITunes
If you don’t need the old Mac to still be able to run iTunes you should consider updating it to Monterey and letting Monterey do the conversion to Music (and maybe other apps such as Photos, Mail etc). Then try Migration Assistant again. It is suspicious that the previous migration took so long and messed up your music library so maybe migrating from Mojave (?) to a modern macOS was not optimal.
Of course, make sure the old Mac is backed (eg Time Machine) before upgrading to a newer macOS.
The old iMac is maxxed out at High Sierra. My MacBook Pro is maxxed out at Monterey. The new iMac (Apple refurb) I expected to come with Catalina but was surprised when it had Monterey. Hmmm, I wonder if I could reinstall Catalina on it, then start over. Nope, Catalina also has the Music abortion. Why Apple replaces good applications with inferior ones is a mystery. They did it with iWorks replacing AppleWorks, too.
The new iMac is Intel. I only have one Apple Silicon unit, a MacBook Air because I required a Mac that ran Ventura for only 1 piece of tax software. When the tax software requires a newer OS than the MBA can run, then I’ll replace it with the cheapest MBA that will run the software.
I bought it a couple of years ago; think it might have been the last one they had.
The current version of the tax software requires Sonoma, I expect the next requirement change will be to Sequoia then in a couple of more years to require Tahoe as the minimum, so the MBA has at least 4 to 6 or 7 more years of use. Then IF I can ever get the new iMac up to speed, it should still handle to at least Tahoe.
