Need guidance - replace entire iTunes Match library with new library
Been using iTunes as my music manager/player since 2003. Currently have about 5,000 songs which are a mix of selective CD song rips, iTunes purchases and Amazon Mp3 downloads. Lots of missing artwork, incomplete albums, wrong genres, etc. I use iTunes Match to sync across multiple Macs and iOS devices, including 3 Apple TVs. It all works OK, but I recently undertook a major project to re-rip all of my CDs/Box Sets in their entirety – about 20,000 tracks. I performed the new rips on a Mac Mini running Windows 7 in BootCamp using Roxio Creator to get a 'universal' Mp3 (256kbs) format and keep everything separate and apart from my current iTunes/Match libraries. Total library size came out around 80-85GB, saved on an external USB HDD.
Recently had my iMac 1TB HDD replaced under Apple’s recall program and looked at it as an opportunity to totally rebuild my iTunes library from scratch using the new, complete album rips. I’ve loaded the new 80GB library onto the iMac and am currently using TuneUp Media to ‘clean up’ metadata and album artwork on the new library. I've turned off iTunes Match to isolate the iMac during this stage of the process.
When cleanup is complete, I would like to totally replace my current iTunes Match library with the new larger library. I think the songs will sync OK, but I’ve put a lot if effort into cleaning up the album artwork and am afraid that, if I don't take some precautions, iTunes Match will overrule and mess up my new artwork when I activate it.
My plan is to
From the iMac, first copy (or should I export) the entire rebuilt library to an external drive as a backup, hopefully preserving all of the artwork and metadata corrections in the process (true?).
On my MacBook Pro, copy my current Match library to a different external drive to ensure preservation of any unique tracks I may have missed in building the new library. Then delete the entire library – both local and Cloud. I should then have an empty iTunes Match library, correct?
Then, on my iMac, activate iTunes Match and let it upload/match all the new songs/data to create a new Cloud library with all the new albums, descriptors and artwork.
Do I need to individually deactivate Match and delete local libraries on all my other devices also, or does the total Cloud library delete I perform on my MacBook Pro then transfer to all my other registered iOS and OSX devices that have Match activated?
Thanks bmw249. I have good news and bad news. Good news: Apple very quickly deauthorized my computers so I was able to drop the lost computer that was taking up a slot and (I suspected) confusing iTunes Match.
The bad news is that this didn't make any difference. Nearly all the songs in my iTunes library have an iCloud status of "error" and when I turn on iTunes Match, it churns for a while before telling me that I already have 25,000 songs in the cloud and can't add any more. What I expected is for it to recognize that most of the 25K songs are the very same ones sitting in this local iTunes library. It should be substantially fewer than 25K because I also deleted 1000+ classical music pieces that I have sitting in Amazon Cloud, in hopes of freeing up space for my recently purchased and created music to be uploaded to iCloud. But no dice.
I am now downloading ~800 songs that iTunes thinks I have only on iCloud. I then plan to figure out how to deactivate iCloud and iTunes Match on this PC so that nothing will be deleted locally when I cancel my iCloud account (it runs out in March 2013 but I assume I can cancel and deactivate the account sooner). The "convenience" of this service isn't worth the many dozens of hours of hours I have spent trying to get it to work the way Apple says it works. Amazon Cloud (also costing ~$25 a year) has a limit of something like 20 GB and no specific limit on number of songs. I buy most music there anyway and have already uploaded most of the rest, so this makes the most sense. I really like the way iTunes Match can (in theory) keep all my music sync'd and smoothly stream to my iPhone even over 3G. Amazon Cloud takes a bit more effort but does much the same thing.
Thanks for listening. I'm assuming this is a "moderated" forum and that this post will soon be removed for my Amazon comments.
Similar Messages
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How to replace Match library with new library
Been using iTunes as my music manager/player since 2003. Currently have about 5,000 songs which are a mix of selective CD song rips, iTunes purchases and Amazon Mp3 downloads. Lots of missing artwork, incomplete albums, wrong genres, etc. I use iTunes Match to sync across multiple Macs and iOS devices, including 3 Apple TVs. It all works OK, but I recently undertook a major project to re-rip all of my CDs/Box Sets in their entirety – about 20,000 tracks. I performed the new rips on a Mac Mini running Windows 7 in BootCamp using Roxio Creator to get a 'universal' Mp3 (256kbs) format and keep everything separate and apart from my current iTunes/Match libraries. Total library size came out around 80-85GB, saved on an external USB HDD.
Recently had my iMac 1TB HDD replaced under Apple’s recall program and looked at it as an opportunity to totally rebuild my iTunes library from scratch using the new, complete album rips. I’ve loaded the new 80GB library onto the iMac and am currently using TuneUp Media to ‘clean up’ metadata and album artwork on the new library. I've turned off iTunes Match to isolate the iMac during this stage of the process.
When cleanup is complete, I would like to totally replace my current iTunes Match library with the new larger library. I think the songs will sync OK, but I’ve put a lot if effort into cleaning up the album artwork and am afraid that, if I don't take some precautions, iTunes Match will overrule and mess up my new artwork when I activate it.
My plan is to
From the iMac, first copy (or should I export) the entire rebuilt library to an external drive as a backup, hopefully preserving all of the artwork and metadata corrections in the process (true?).
On my MacBook Pro, copy my current Match library to a different external drive to ensure preservation of any unique tracks I may have missed in building the new library. Then delete the entire library – both local and Cloud. I should then have an empty iTunes Match library, correct?
Then, on my iMac, activate iTunes Match and let it upload/match all the new songs/data to create a new Cloud library with all the new albums, descriptors and artwork.
Do I need to individually deactivate Match and delete local libraries on all my other devices also, or does the total Cloud library delete I perform on my MacBook Pro then transfer to all my other registered iOS and OSX devices that have Match activated?Quick question, Michael
When I copy the iTunes folder to an external drive, does all the iTunes metadata and associated album artwork travel together with the raw music file? -
After latest update itunes match crashed with empy library
After being a little late i finally updated itunes to the latest version (on windows 8.1), now itunes keeps crashing when it connects to itunes match (from an empty library all music is in cloud)
Tried a lot of solutions here like:
hold shift and create new library
delete all itunes related files and re install
disable firewall and anti virus
I cant look for corrupted files, since there arent any songs on this laptop.
Anyone has any idea what solution i might be missing? Problem starts seconds after syncing an empy library to itunes matchHi there clydezxr,
You may find the troubleshooting steps in the article below helpful.
iTunes for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8: Fix unexpected quits or launch issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1717
-Griff W. -
ITunes Match problems with new PC
I have around 25,000 songs that were mostly matched, some uploaded, when I first signed up for iCloud on my previous laptop (64 bit Windows 7 Pro). My iTunes library resided on an external USB drive and iCloud/iTunes Match was mostly working, though I still had some problems with duplicate songs that I had hoped iTunes Match would be smart enough to help me eliminate (it's not). Duplicates came mostly from several earlier attempts to move and clean up my iTunes library, but that's another story...
Anyway, I got a new laptop (previous one died, hard disk failed), on which I installed iTunes, which I set up with the same external hard drive holding the iTunes library. So the music files were the same. Had to import all the songs from the hard drive which was set up to hold my iTunes Library. The trouble is, iTunes Match apparently thinks I am trying to add 25,000 more songs, when in fact they are the same songs as before. How can I tell it this? When I run iTunes match it says I already have the maximum 25,000 songs, and all the songs in iTunes show up as an error. I can't delete them from iCloud because I can't see them in iTunes! The other laptop is gone. There is apparently no independent way to access iCloud-based music except through iTunes.
I just realized that this is probably the problem: since the previous laptop hard drive died, whatever secret info Apple stores to identify it as authorized for my iTunes account was lost, and I had no chance to deauthorize it. So it thinks I am trying to match a new set of 25,000 songs (though these are almost all the same songs as before, so I would think iTunes Match could figure this out, but I guess not). I decided to deauthorize all 5 PC's on my account - but I can't do this until March 13, 2013, because I apparently did this last March, no doubt to solve another iTunes problem (seems to happen at least once a year that something in iTunes gets screwed up).
I sent Apple a request to deauthorize the dead PC (or all of them if they will), but does anyone have any alternate suggestions? I would like to be able to remove non-needed and/or duplicate songs from iCloud, and apparently the only way to do this is to delete them from iTunes (locally), in which case you are supposed to get a prompt to remove from iCloud or not. But all my songs are flagged as "error" in the iCloud status column, so I have no way to see or modify what's out there, since the associated PC is dead.
I also have most of these ~25K songs on Google Music and in Amazon Cloud. So I'm considering just dumping iCloud and using iTunes locally only (though I'm afraid if I do that it will delete all my local iTunes songs - guess I would have to reinstall from a backup in that case). When iTunes Match works, it's very nice and automatic and convenient since I listen to music on iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad (yes, I drank Steve's Kool-ade). But as with many things Apple, when it DOESN'T work, it makes you want to slit your wrists. LOL (not).
Thanks,for any advice.
-BruceThanks bmw249. I have good news and bad news. Good news: Apple very quickly deauthorized my computers so I was able to drop the lost computer that was taking up a slot and (I suspected) confusing iTunes Match.
The bad news is that this didn't make any difference. Nearly all the songs in my iTunes library have an iCloud status of "error" and when I turn on iTunes Match, it churns for a while before telling me that I already have 25,000 songs in the cloud and can't add any more. What I expected is for it to recognize that most of the 25K songs are the very same ones sitting in this local iTunes library. It should be substantially fewer than 25K because I also deleted 1000+ classical music pieces that I have sitting in Amazon Cloud, in hopes of freeing up space for my recently purchased and created music to be uploaded to iCloud. But no dice.
I am now downloading ~800 songs that iTunes thinks I have only on iCloud. I then plan to figure out how to deactivate iCloud and iTunes Match on this PC so that nothing will be deleted locally when I cancel my iCloud account (it runs out in March 2013 but I assume I can cancel and deactivate the account sooner). The "convenience" of this service isn't worth the many dozens of hours of hours I have spent trying to get it to work the way Apple says it works. Amazon Cloud (also costing ~$25 a year) has a limit of something like 20 GB and no specific limit on number of songs. I buy most music there anyway and have already uploaded most of the rest, so this makes the most sense. I really like the way iTunes Match can (in theory) keep all my music sync'd and smoothly stream to my iPhone even over 3G. Amazon Cloud takes a bit more effort but does much the same thing.
Thanks for listening. I'm assuming this is a "moderated" forum and that this post will soon be removed for my Amazon comments. -
Can't get iTunes to work with new library
I've outgrown my internal hard drive (The original home of iTunes), 1.) I've "conslidated" (copied) the iTunes music files to my external hard drive, 2.) this is now the iTunes library that iTunes is referencing Result - still getting messages that original files can't be found??????????
After telling iTunes where your iTunes Music folder is in Preferences > Advanced > General, click on Consolidate Library... in the Advanced menu.
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Replacing iTunes library with iPod library?
replacing iTunes library with iPod library?
Can anyone tell me how I can replace my entire iTunes music library with my iPod music?The transfer of purchased content to authorised computers has been introduced with iTunes 7, look under under File>"Transfer Purchases from iPod". A paragraph on it has been added to this article: How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer
The transfer of non iTMS content is designed by default to be one way from iTunes to iPod. However there's a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to your Mac at this link: Two-way Street: Moving Music Off the iPod
If you prefer something more automated there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve music files and playlists from your iPod, this is just a selection. I use Senuti but have a look at the web pages and documentation for the others as well, they are generally quite straightforward. You can read reviews of some of them here: Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Senuti Mac Only
iPodRip Mac Only
PodWorks Mac Only
iPod.iTunes Mac Only
PodView Mac Only
iPodAccess Mac & Windows
YamiPod Mac & Windows
PodUtil Mac & Windows
iPodCopy Mac & Windows
If your library is currently empty and your iPod is set to update automatically take care when connecting to iTunes. You can use a keyboard command to prevent your iPod auto-syncing with iTunes. While connecting the iPod to the computer on a Mac hold down the Option and Command (⌥ and ⌘ Apple) keys. This will stop the iPod from auto-syncing with iTunes and it will appear in the source list. Wait until you are sure the iPod has mounted, and that it will not auto sync and then you can let the keys go. This may take between 20 to 30 seconds depending on your computer. For the duration of the transfer change your update setting to manual so you can use your iPod without the risk of accidentally erasing it: iTunes Keyboard Shortcuts for OSX
Whichever of these transfer methods you choose, keep your iPod in manual mode until you have reloaded your iTunes and you are happy with your playlists etc then it will be safe to return it auto-sync again. -
Does iTunes Match work with library in Dropbox?
Getting ready to drag and drop my iTunes music library files to Dropbox for backup reasons. Will then of course point iTunes to the new location. Before I make the move, I'd like to first hear from users who, like me, are on iTunes Match but who, unlike me, have their library stored in Dropbox. What has the iTunes Match experience been once library is up in the cloud? Any concerns or dangers with this scheme? Anything I should be aware about?
My situation is simple. Not intending to share iTunes library with several computers, etc. That's why I signed up for Match in the first place. Only copying library to Dropbox as a backup. But need, no require, iTunes Match to continue working seamlessly for me.
Thank you for your feedback. Soon please.Confirming that my disk space is mostly occupied by my music collection. And after spending $99 for extra Dropbox storage, I am not about to purchase additional disk capacity for my MacBook. How can I get out of this hole and is there a viable solution?
Can I confidently trash my iTunes folder, empty trash, connect my Time Capsule to my MacBook, launch/point iTunes to my most recent backup there, and then follow the steps given in
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
without deleting the iTunes library/media backup at the end, of course? In other words, copying directly from Time Capsule to my Dropbox. Is this doable? Desirable? Any dangers? -
Main computer with itunes crashed and need to turn on itunes match
Hello,
My computer crashed and I need to turn on Itunes Match on that computer. Is there any other way to turn it on from another computer?You can redownload some itunes purchases in some countries:
Download past purchases - Apple Support -
My PC died and in turn so did my main iTunes library. My iPhone was synced to the library that is gone. Now when I try to connect to another library, it tells me the phone must be wiped clean before I can manage music with new library. Any way around that? I don't want to lose the music that is on my phone. I am looking for a way to tell the phone to "forget" the old library and let me start working with a new library.
It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy of your computer for just such an occasion.
Use your backup copy of your computer to put everything on the new one.
It sounds like you have failed to do this, which is not good at all.
You will have to transfer your itunes purchases from your iphone. Authorize your computer for your itunes account
About iTunes Store authorization and deauthorization
Open itunes, plug in iphone, do NOT sync, click File>Transfer Purchases
When you do sync you will lose your pics ( photo library - synced from your old computer), your itunes content ( music, apps, videos,etc) , your contacts and your calendars. So do NOT sync yet. This is why a backup copy is so important.
Enter one unique contact and calendar entry on your computer.
When you first sync, you should get the option to merger the data. Choose it.
If you want your pics, then you will need to e-mail them to yourself before you sync. They will not be of the original quality as they are reduced when synced to iphone.
When all is as goos as it can be, then backup your computer, and always maintain the backup. -
My computor crashed. I lost my music from my itune library. After I restarted my computor to work again, I started a new itune library with new songs. When I tried to download my new songs to my iphone, itunes said it had to erase all my old songs in order to install the new songs. Is there a way to install new songs without getting rid of my old songs?
That is the way the iphone works.
You need to copy everything from your backup copy of your computer. -
I need to replace firefox 4.0.1 with firefox 3.6 because my add ins don't work with 4.0
Question
i need to replace firefox 4.0.1 with firefox 3.6 because my add ins don't work with 4.0 but will work with 3.6. How do I accomplish this?Any particular add-on? Maybe there's an updated version or substitute?
If you can't find a solution with Firefox 4, here's the process to roll back:
First, I recommend backing up your Firefox settings in case something goes wrong. See [https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Backing+up+your+information Backing up your information]. (You can copy your entire Firefox profile folder somewhere outside of the Mozilla folder.)
Next, download and save Firefox 3.6 to your desktop for future installation. http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older
Close Firefox 4.
You could install Firefox 3.6 over it (many have reported success) or you could uninstall Firefox first. If you uninstall, do not remove your personal data and settings, just the program.
Unless you have installed an incompatible add-on, Firefox 3.6 should pick up where you left off. If there are serious issues, please post back with details.
Note: I haven't actually tried this myself! -
My Mac hardrive Crashed and had to get a new one, sadly my iTunes wasn't on my external hardrive. I have all my songs on my iPhone, will iTunes Match work with my songs on my iPhone then, i download them on to My Mac. Will This work? Thanks
Welcome to the Apple Community.
The easiest thing to do would be to sign into your iTunes account on your computer, connect your phone and sync. iTunes should copy anything from your phone that isn't already in your library on the computer. -
I just got an iPhone 4 as an upgrade from the original iPhone 3. I came home and tried to sync it with my iTunes and it says I need to upgrade my iTunes to work with the 4. The current version of iTunes isn't compatible with my G5 mac????? Help
Return it.
The requirements are on the box and on the website:
Mac system requirements
Mac computer with USB 2.0 port
Mac OS X v10.5.8 or later
iTunes 10.1 or later (free download fromwww.itunes.com/download)
iTunes Store account
Internet access
http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html -
Hi, i have a new number and I'm trying to activate iMessage but i can't. it is only saying waiting for activation, i have tried a lot of times with not success. i'm not sure if i need to replace the old one to this new one, or what do do. can you help
Troubleshooting iMessage activation:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4268 -
Need to replace black back glass cover with the original one and i couldn't find it on Amazon., Need to replace black back glass cover with the original one and i couldn't find it on Amazon.Please help
Apple does not sell parts. There are no legitimate sources for iPhone parts. Take it to your local Apple Store.
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