Macbook Pro alternative to Apple's Music app? Won't play my music

January 26, 2024 10:50 AM

I have over 160 GB of music (mostly mp3s) from ~35 years of buying and ripping CDs. Apple's Music app doesn't allow us to import anything ripped from a CD to the music library without paying them more money. What alternative software is out there for me to play and manage my music?

That's basically it - I literally cannot access my own, purchased music through Apple's Music app. I guess I need something that will mimic iTunes? What are my options?

Oh, and I can host the music library either on my laptop's drive or an external SSD. Not sure which would be smarter/better.

posted by tzikeh to Computers & Internet (28 answers total)

The macOS Music app absolutely allows you to import personal MP3s or CDs into your local music library on your Mac without paying for a subscription. I just tested the most recent version in macOS Sonoma, not logged into any sort of pay service. I dragged a new MP3 into the list of songs, it became part of the local library, searched for it, played it back, no problem at all. We may need more info on the specific problem you're having.

In the meantime, VLC will play music in virtually any format from any local library or SSD and is truly free and open source, but it's not really used to "manage a library" like Apple Music or iTunes.
posted by eschatfische at 11:08 AM on January 26 [9 favorites]

Foobar 2000 used to be a classic recommendation for Windows, and as of the last few years, they've added Mac support, but can confirm that. I haven't used it very extensively on MacOS or recently, but I sure have used it a buttload in the past, on Windows, and found it the least obnoxious media player UI I've seen (I spent a few years back in the early 2000's making media players with obnoxious UIs so I know a thing or two about that part of it).

The one thing I might be worried with is if you're hosting the music on an external drive, how does it manage having a library become unavailable when the drive is disconnected. I can try this with a comparable sized library tonight, if you want, or you can just give it a whirl, it's not like it's hard to set up or anything.
posted by aubilenon at 11:16 AM on January 26

Response by poster: We may need more info on the specific problem you're having.

I was on the phone with Apple trying to figure out how to get the Music app to use my old iTunes folder as its library. When the Music app asked me to "choose Library" and I clicked on my old iTunes folder, the option to choose it was greyed out. When they asked if I had bought all of the music in the folder, I said yes I bought it all on CD and ripped it over dozens of years. They told me they couldn't help me unless I paid for a service on Apple Music because Apple can't verify that I didn't steal the music, so the app won't play it.
posted by tzikeh at 11:17 AM on January 26

Or, you can continue to use iTunes with a program called Retroactive. I used it to install my preferred version of iTunes (in my case v10 before all the add-ons) on my MacBook Air. It works perfectly, even allowing syncing to iPods. Currently, it looks like it is supported on Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, and Catalina.
posted by Don_K at 11:31 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Something else seems to be going wrong; I’ve done exactly what you’re trying to do (with legit and non-legit files) without trouble.

…is the folder “owned” by a different user (not necessarily a different human, just a slightly different username)?
posted by aramaic at 11:32 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Apple is telling you they won't support you by phone with your issue - likely because you don't subscribe to a service that gets you phone support, like a current AppleCare subscription or Apple Music. They're not saying that macOS Music doesn't support playing personal MP3s, it definitely still does.

Are you able to navigate to, with either Quicktime Player or VLC, the folders with the actual MP3s and play those MP3s?

If so, can you drag the folders with those MP3 files into the "Song" list in Apple music or point File -> Add to Library in macOS Music to those folders to get them to import?

The "iTunes Library" file is just an index, likely an outdated one, not the actual music. Is it possible you only copied the "iTunes Library" file (again, not actually the music and just an index) and not the full folders of MP3s to this computer or drive?
posted by eschatfische at 11:37 AM on January 26 [3 favorites]

Plex might be a solution here. You could set up your Macbook as the server (just in Plex, no extra installs beyond the Plex software) and then use the Plex app to play that music on most any device, including the Macbook.

I also agree something else is going on here and Apple Music isn’t able to see the mp3s for some other reason.
posted by soelo at 11:50 AM on January 26

For the sake of reference, my music folder looks something like this

[home directory]
  Music
    Media
      Music
        Art Tatum
        Bill Evans
        Charles Mingus
        ...
    Music Library
    Previous Libraries

Yours might be structured differently, but if you select-all and copy everything inside the inner Music folder and drag that into the Music app, it'll import your files.
posted by adamrice at 11:50 AM on January 26

Response by poster: Apple is telling you they won't support you by phone with your issue - likely because you don't subscribe to a service that gets you phone support, like a current AppleCare subscription or Apple Music.

No, they weren't.
posted by tzikeh at 11:51 AM on January 26

[I should clarify, my "something else is wrong" remark was intended to suggest that simply using another app may not fix anything as the root cause lies elsewhere.]
posted by aramaic at 11:53 AM on January 26

If that's what happened, tzikeh, and you had AppleCare, I'm sorry, the tech told you something wildly incorrect. While Apple's support is usually very good, it sounds like they let you down here. I might consider contacting Apple again to try a different tech, and escalating if need be.

Apple still has official documentation on how to import personal music files into macOS Music. I personally tested it. Importing personal MP3 files is certainly still supported.
posted by eschatfische at 11:55 AM on January 26 [4 favorites]

Apple declining to help you doesn't mean it can't be done; they will push you to subscribe to their products and services. I found they won't accept some music that may have come from another itunes user. I am not an Apple user, generally, have had itunes as different ids. I have had trouble using my own music on my iphone.
posted by theora55 at 11:56 AM on January 26

My wife uses VLC for Mac because MacOS music sucks so bad. She's mostly using it for playing back recordings she's made, and I don't know a thing about its playlist management or randomization, but it's a basic "plays files" tool.

(For playing music in the house I wrote a little bit of JavaScript that plays folders served up on a standard web server, and we use that with our phones or a Fire tablet. DM me if that's interesting and I'll point you to the git repo.)
posted by straw at 12:07 PM on January 26

Response by poster: aubilenon: The one thing I might be worried with is if you're hosting the music on an external drive, how does it manage having a library become unavailable when the drive is disconnected.

If I host all the music files on an external drive, I wouldn't be playing music if I disconnected the external drive, so Music wouldn't be doing anything at that point -- it would be closed.
posted by tzikeh at 12:14 PM on January 26

If you have access to the MP3s you can drag and drop them to the Music app and create a new library, but you will lose your playlists and play counts.

If you want to use an existing library, I think we'll need some more info on how/where you have saved your existing library XML file and MP3 because it sounds like something got corrupted...currently are your files on an external drive or a computer?
posted by girlmightlive at 12:16 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]

What version of Music are you using? They've changed up how they do library management over the years and it will help clarify things to know what you're working with. (

You can find it in the "Music" menu, under "About Music"

Here's someone with a very similar problem, including AppleCare offering some dubious analysis. There's some interesting possible avenues to explore, though I can't vouch for it at all.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:39 PM on January 26

If I host all the music files on an external drive, I wouldn't be playing music if I disconnected the external drive, so Music wouldn't be doing anything at that point -- it would be closed.

My concern would be that foobar2k might have to rescan the whole drive every time you reconnect it. Probably it wouldn't if you quit before disconnecting and waited to reconnect to re-start it, but that's an annoying thing to have to remember. OTOH if you're actually playing music off the drive, you wouldn't be able to properly disconnect it, so regardless of player software you probably wouldn't want to just ignore music playback entirely, close up your computer, unplug everything, and go.
posted by aubilenon at 12:43 PM on January 26

Just to clarify, are your ripped files actually, in fact, MP3s? Or are they another format like FLAC or WAV or something?
posted by BlackPebble at 1:09 PM on January 26

Response by poster: What version of Music are you using?

The most recent one. 1.4.1.29. This is a brand-new MacBook Pro.

Just to clarify, are your ripped files actually, in fact, MP3s? Or are they another format like FLAC or WAV or something?

mp3.
posted by tzikeh at 1:44 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Looks like in Foobar2k you can have multiple "media libraries" and it rescans them for changes in the background. This creates a fast local index of all your music files, and you can then browse/search and drag files/folders to your playlists. So you'd want to add each of your external devices as a media library, I guess. Seems to work for me so far.
posted by credulous at 2:49 PM on January 26

Don’t try to import you old iTunes library. That is apparently not working. But if you just locate all the actual MP3 files and drag them to Apple Music app, it should work.

Or you can locate the MP3 files and play them with VLC or QuickTime.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 2:57 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]

Swinsian is a good replacement for Apple music but you still need to figure out where the Mp3 files are. On your old machine iTunes would have had an option to "Copy tunes to iTunes media folder when adding to library" if that was ticked then all the MP3 files will be organised under that one folder (like the adamrice example above), if not they will be elsewhere on the hard drive.

Advice about importing a library.
posted by Lanark at 3:59 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]

Strawberry is a great music player, although it looks like it's not free for Mac. Thought I'd mention it anyway though.

FWIW I have my music on an external drive, Strawberry has no issues with that.
posted by equalpants at 7:06 PM on January 26

Response by poster: Swinsian is a good replacement for Apple music but you still need to figure out where the Mp3 files are.

I know where they are. They're all in the folder they've always been in.

Does Swinsian allow for storing your music library on an external hard drive?
posted by tzikeh at 9:33 AM on January 27

I am you: I have my library on an external SSD, it’s full of personal mp3s (ripped CDs, label promos, etc) but they absolutely still work in the Music app. Apple support are BSing you, but that doesn’t change the fact you’re having a problem with your specific set-up.

Since the library structure, etc changed over time with the switch from iTunes to Music, perhaps you could try the ‘consolidate library’ option, making sure you’ve set the default home folder to the location of your choice?

From my experience, external works (I only open the desktop app when the drive is plugged in) BUT it still has a habit of just forgetting where the library is and rebuilding it (metadata like ratings may be lost this way; I never used them so it’s nothing to me but it may be to you). This could be weirdness that’s unique to me, or related to the fact I subscribe to Apple Music and use the cloud sync (which works with all my personal mp3s too) but I thought it worth mentioning anyway.
posted by macdara at 10:18 AM on January 27

I can now confirm what foobar2k does if you disconnect and reconnect the library. If you press "play" on a song that's not available, it will give an error message and move on to the next song, which if you are listening by albums means you'll get an error a second until it stops trying to play or until you reconnect the drive. My test case is a library on a 320GB network share, and instead of physically disconnecting the drive, I turned off my wifi, but I think it's pretty equivalent. Over the network it did take the better part of an evening to scan library, but that should go a lot faster on a USB drive, unless it's just USB2.
posted by aubilenon at 10:36 AM on January 27

Does Swinsian allow for storing your music library on an external hard drive?

Yes, Swinsian gives you a choice of keeping the files where they are or importing and organising them into a library (which is just a folder with all the files). It can also automatically disable files in the interface when you unplug the external drive holding them.
posted by Lanark at 3:57 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I'm testing a few suggestions here - I'll report back.
posted by tzikeh at 7:32 AM on January 29 [2 favorites]