Transferring music files (Windows Media Player) to Apple Music

[mjzee]

Here's a start: Open Finder and locate your music files on your EHD.  Then open iTunes (aka Music).  In the column on the left side of the iTunes window, under Library, click on Songs.  This will list all the individual tracks that iTunes recognizes.  Go back to Finder, and drag one folder (one album, say) onto the iTunes window.  See if the music is copied into the iTunes library.  See if those tunes play, and see what metadata transferred along with it.

[tranemonk]

I would recommend a different method. Assuming you have your library organized the way you want it (on your Windows PC)... in Itunes, go to File and Import. It will ask you for a destination (e.g., where is the library you're moving it from) and just let it do its thing. How extensive is your library? As I mentioned previously I would screenshot it before your import so you know exactly what you have.

[mjzee]

The reason I recommended he start with one album is this: iTunes (aka Music) will copy the files and place them in a folder of its own choosing.  This location can be seen by going to Music/Settings.../Files, and see what is listed under "Music Media folder location."  My assumption is that Milestones has a large music collection (he belongs to the Organissimo boards, right?).  If he transfers all his music to his computer's hard drive, he'll probably fill it up.  If he changes the location to the EHD where he currently houses his collection, because iTunes copies the music, creating a second copy of each file, he'll fill up that EHD.

The best solution would be: if his EHD has space to duplicate his entire collection, then he should change the "Music Media folder location" to that EHD.  If his EHD cannot hold an entire duplicate of his collection, his best bet is to purchase a second EHD and change the location to that EHD.

[Milestones]

I'm now thinking the problem is with the old computer--an HP.  It always seemed eccentric with storage.  As I look at the external HD, I often find no tracks under an album folder; or if the tracks do appear, they don't play. There is a message something about Quick Time Player, and I really know nothing about that.

Some tracks came over with methods that have been described here on the forum.  On the external HD the list starts with seemingly stray tracks (not in folders).  These transfer; the others do not.  At least I think this is the case!

I need to really look at the external HD to see what is going on.

My collection runs about 3,000 hours.  I think I can reproduce it through various means, though it will take time--possibly years. 

My old HP is dead, so there is no more use of that.   

 

[JSngry]

Quik Time?

Check you file types and their associations. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Quicktime used to be an app on Apple PCs that was used to play video files. It can also play .mp3 files. If it's saying that .mp3 files open with QuickTime, I would guess that Apple Music is not your default music player.

When you ripped your music to this external hard drive, what file format did you use? If you used Windows Media Player as a ripper, the resulting .wma files will not play on an Apple (that I am aware of). You might have to download something like VLC Player (https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html) to play them.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I would also suggest taking your external hard drive over to a friends house that has a Windows PC just to see what that hard drive looks like on it. It may have gotten corrupted/damaged when your old PC went down.

[mjzee]

4 hours ago, bresna said:

I would also suggest taking your external hard drive over to a friends house that has a Windows PC just to see what that hard drive looks like on it. It may have gotten corrupted/damaged when your old PC went down.

I second this.

[Milestones]

On another issue, it looks like that on Apple one needs to create a playlist in order to burn an album or set of songs. I can work with that, but it just seems odd.  Why not burn straight from the album? 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

If there is a lesson for those reading this, it's that everyone should be making multiple backups of their music library. I have 4 backups, with one stored at my daughters' house. I even have a partial backup at work but that one is useless as once I attach it to my work PC, it gets encrypted. The only way I could get anything off of the encrypted drive would be to write the mp3 files to a bunch of DVD-R discs, which would take a very long time.

Edited May 2, 2023 by bresna

[Milestones]

I had one backup, but it has largely failed me with music.  On other things, it was invaluable.  

[Kevin Bresnahan]

7 hours ago, rostasi said:

I’m wondering just how your audio was saved.
Maybe they were Mac-incompatible .wav files?

VLC can play wav files on a Mac. VLC can play practically anything.

[Milestones]

I am working on rebuilding from scratch (or nearly so).  Any more effort to recover what I had on the external HD just seems like wasted energy.

I blame HP more than Apple, and there is the fact that I had a virus and maybe that affected the external HD.

Sometime in the near future I will start a thread on using Apple Music.

 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I would not recommend re-using that old external HD unless you run some memory tests on it first. Files can also get corrupted if the drive starts to fail. Not all drives fail catastrophically.

I've bought 4 Samsung T7 1TB SSD drives over the years and not had any problems (fingers crossed as I type this): https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Portable-SSD-1TB-MU-PC1T0T/dp/B0874XN4D8

[Steve Gray]

Just a general note about the Music app...

 

It's terrible compared to iTunes!. They really screwed up in the transition from iTunes to Music.

If you just want to play your music I guess it's ok (although there are some weird peculiarities to do with the 'up next' queue)

I suspect most users just download music from Apple Music and play it. They will probably be satisfied.

If, like me though, you transferred music from iTunes and do a lot of metadata and playlist editing, it is truly awful.

It is as slow as molasses and full of bugs.

 

 

[Milestones]

Ir is peculiar in several ways, but I am managing it OK so far.