Getting a New Mac: What to do instead of iTunes? Besides cry.
March 21, 2023 10:44 AM Subscribe
I need to get a new Mac desktop (Mini), for unrelated reasons. It will be on Ventura, so no more iTunes. I'm worried about how this will impact my music, and what my options are. Questions inside.
My music consists of ~20gigs of ripped MP3s and DRM-free tracks purchased mostly from Amazon. A few with DRM purchased from iTunes store. Lots of precious playlists. I don't listen to any streaming music. I'm willing to pay a one-time fee like an app purchase to get migrated, but not subscriptions that I have to keep indefinitely just to access my music.
Current setup is Mac Mini on High Sierra running iTunes, syncing to iPhone 11 using Music app, no subscription.
On Ventura, it seems like the options will be:
1. Pay for Apple Music subscription ($10/month, forever, just to listen to my own music that I already own? Don't think so.)
2. iTunes Match? They'll discontinue that soon I'm sure.
3. Third Party music app that syncs across devices?
4. Keep old computer just for itunes?
5. Something something icloud music library?
Can this somehow be easy maybe? Pleeeeeese? Having a hard time understanding the articles google is serving me.
My music consists of ~20gigs of ripped MP3s and DRM-free tracks purchased mostly from Amazon. A few with DRM purchased from iTunes store. Lots of precious playlists. I don't listen to any streaming music. I'm willing to pay a one-time fee like an app purchase to get migrated, but not subscriptions that I have to keep indefinitely just to access my music.
Current setup is Mac Mini on High Sierra running iTunes, syncing to iPhone 11 using Music app, no subscription.
On Ventura, it seems like the options will be:
1. Pay for Apple Music subscription ($10/month, forever, just to listen to my own music that I already own? Don't think so.)
2. iTunes Match? They'll discontinue that soon I'm sure.
3. Third Party music app that syncs across devices?
4. Keep old computer just for itunes?
5. Something something icloud music library?
Can this somehow be easy maybe? Pleeeeeese? Having a hard time understanding the articles google is serving me.
Response by poster: Hallelujah! Thank you AndrewInDC!
posted by bluesky78987 at 10:49 AM on March 21, 2023
posted by bluesky78987 at 10:49 AM on March 21, 2023
Best answer: When you open your iTunes library in the Music app it converts to a Music library almost instantaneously.
The app itself functions almost exactly like iTunes. Visually it's only slightly different, with some additions you may or may not appreciate. I think the cover art full-screen viewer is a little clunky and you have to jump through a couple of minor hoops in the menu settings if you want everything to look like it did in iTunes (if you want to use the column browser for example), but everything in iTunes should be possible in the Music app. If you don't want to see any Apple Music (the service) content you can disable that in the settings.
posted by theory at 11:05 AM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
The app itself functions almost exactly like iTunes. Visually it's only slightly different, with some additions you may or may not appreciate. I think the cover art full-screen viewer is a little clunky and you have to jump through a couple of minor hoops in the menu settings if you want everything to look like it did in iTunes (if you want to use the column browser for example), but everything in iTunes should be possible in the Music app. If you don't want to see any Apple Music (the service) content you can disable that in the settings.
posted by theory at 11:05 AM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: As AndrewInDC says, the Music app doesn't require a subscription. When Apple discontinued iTunes, they separated its functions into separate successor apps. Music handles audio recordings and music video, TV handles movies and TV shows, Books handles books and audiobooks, and iPhone sync and backup is now handled by the Finder.
You don't need subscriptions to any Apple services to use media that you've already paid for or ripped from CDs.
posted by brianogilvie at 11:09 AM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
You don't need subscriptions to any Apple services to use media that you've already paid for or ripped from CDs.
posted by brianogilvie at 11:09 AM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: You can also use third party apps to play the music you own: Audirvana, for example, offers very high quality playback, and has a nice interface. I'm sure there are many others.....
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 11:15 AM on March 21, 2023
posted by Bigbootay. Tay! Tay! Blam! Aargh... at 11:15 AM on March 21, 2023
Best answer: > you have to jump through a couple of minor hoops in the menu settings if you want everything to look like it did in iTunes (if you want to use the column browser for example)
Not to hijack, but I was going to point out that while Music is fine, it's not iTunes, and this is one of the biggest reasons why. How do you enable column browser in Music?
From personal experience, it will convert your iTunes library over just fine. You do have to enable rating by stars if you want to continue doing that (instead of just "love" and "dislike").
I've upgraded twice from pre-Apple Silicon devices (one running 10.13.6, one running 11.7), twice tried to have it migrate data for me, and twice ended up with unusable machines. (The first one wouldn't run Intel binaries; it refused to download Rosetta Stone 2. No idea what was wrong. Formatting & setting up as new fixed it immediately. The second one had major crashing issues.) I'd suggest setting the machine up as new, then manually transferring any documents and the like that you want, including your iTunes library. Assuming you haven't moved it, it should be in your /Users/[username]/Music folder.
posted by tubedogg at 11:27 AM on March 21, 2023
Not to hijack, but I was going to point out that while Music is fine, it's not iTunes, and this is one of the biggest reasons why. How do you enable column browser in Music?
From personal experience, it will convert your iTunes library over just fine. You do have to enable rating by stars if you want to continue doing that (instead of just "love" and "dislike").
I've upgraded twice from pre-Apple Silicon devices (one running 10.13.6, one running 11.7), twice tried to have it migrate data for me, and twice ended up with unusable machines. (The first one wouldn't run Intel binaries; it refused to download Rosetta Stone 2. No idea what was wrong. Formatting & setting up as new fixed it immediately. The second one had major crashing issues.) I'd suggest setting the machine up as new, then manually transferring any documents and the like that you want, including your iTunes library. Assuming you haven't moved it, it should be in your /Users/[username]/Music folder.
posted by tubedogg at 11:27 AM on March 21, 2023
Best answer: If you view your library as 'songs', you'll see everything in columns. I believe this is the column browser tubedogg is looking for.
posted by hydra77 at 11:53 AM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by hydra77 at 11:53 AM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Column browser was removed from the earliest versions of Music but added back in later releases of MacOS Catalina (10.15). From Apple: Find a song with the column browser in Music on Mac.
posted by AndrewInDC at 12:54 PM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by AndrewInDC at 12:54 PM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: As somebody who is trying after a full month to get a music collection from a 2018 iMac to a 2023 MacBook Pro, I'd like to point out some caveats. It's possible that not all of your music will come across. For the most part, if your purchases are no longer available at all on the Music Store, you might need to manually migrate the song file from the first machine to the other.
I would suggest on the source machine that you turn on as many View --> Show View Options as you can imagine wanting to document, then doing a Select All and copying all of your music info into a spreadsheet so you can tease through what might not come across. You can also try File --> Library --> Export Library (although that will be in XML format, where the previous instance should be tab delimited or csv).
At the very least, pay attention to how many songs you have on the source machine before wiping it. Best of luck!
posted by kimota at 2:45 PM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I would suggest on the source machine that you turn on as many View --> Show View Options as you can imagine wanting to document, then doing a Select All and copying all of your music info into a spreadsheet so you can tease through what might not come across. You can also try File --> Library --> Export Library (although that will be in XML format, where the previous instance should be tab delimited or csv).
At the very least, pay attention to how many songs you have on the source machine before wiping it. Best of luck!
posted by kimota at 2:45 PM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: My one suggestion is: make a backup of your music in its current state, as just files/folders, and keep it separate from anything you're importing into the new system. Once you know everything has moved over, you can relax, but having a known-good backup of all the files is invaluable to future troubleshooting, should you need it.
posted by griffey at 6:02 AM on March 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by griffey at 6:02 AM on March 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Just in case you would really prefer to keep using iTunes. I used Retroactive. I was able to install an older version of iTunes on my MacBook running Monterrey, and keep all my playlists. I've been using it now for many months with no issue. I can't say whether your DRM stuff will transfer properly, as I didn't buy music from Apple.
posted by Don_K at 7:15 AM on March 22, 2023
posted by Don_K at 7:15 AM on March 22, 2023
You can also export Playlists from (lld Mac's) iTunes, and then re-import them on the new machine.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:04 PM on March 22, 2023
posted by wenestvedt at 12:04 PM on March 22, 2023
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posted by AndrewInDC at 10:48 AM on March 21, 2023 [14 favorites]