Apple Music App

[John L]

I imagine that there must be other people here in the same boat as me, with large digital music collections that they managed through iTunes, external hard drives, and iPods.   I own five iPod classics that I paid over 1000 dollars for, and use to listen to music.   

I upgraded my Mac to Catalina last week.   iTunes is automatically replaced with the new Apple Music App.   The Apple Music App is no longer compatible with iPod classics or even iPod Touch other than the very last generation.   Game ended.   I can no longer use my music system.  I called Apple and they just said, yea, sorry, you have obsolete technology that is no longer a part of the Apple system. :(((((

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Sharepod has worked for me on my Windows machines for many years. I use Sharepod 3.9.8 for Windows. It runs on my Windows 10 machine still. That said, I downloaded my version many years ago so I don't know if 3.9.8 is still available or how well it will work for you or if there is a version that works on a Mac.

Sharepod allows me to drag & drop my mp3 files onto and off of my iPods without having to use iTunes, which is an app I always hated. Turns out I knew there would be a reason to hate iTunes someday.

[Late]

Maybe this is of some help?

 

[Bluesnik]

On 03/06/2020 at 9:44 PM, bresna said:

Sharepod allows me to drag & drop my mp3 files onto and off of my iPods without having to use iTunes

I am in a similar situation with a Win Vista machine I have owned for 10 years, but which I will substitute for another Win machine but with Win10. I have always used Itunes for Win, with excellent results, although in an old state, with Itunes 10.1 from 2010, version with which I stalled in 2010 because I didn't like what was coming next. Specially sightwise.

Now I am in a situation where i'm going to change to the new machine (maybe tomorrow), but I don't want to lose my whole library, which is more than 61 Gb big. I assume I'll have to install the latest version of Itunes because mine doesn't work in some things anymore. Like for example updating podcasts, where I always get a Couldn't establish a network connection message, although there IS that connection. So how is Sharepod? I'm not particularly worried about Ipod compatibility, because though I had one, I don't use it anymore.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Sharepod is a straight drag & drop tool for your iPod. Your iPod shows up with the content on one side and your computer file system shows up on the other. You just click the files on your PC that you want on your iPod and drag them over. To bring them onto your PC from the iPod, just drag in the other direction.

FWIW, I still use the old Windows Media Player for playback on my Windows 10 machine. I like the interface better than the Windows 10 tool that comes preloaded (Groove Music).

[psu_13]

The device syncing UI is in the Finder now in the new OS, I think ... as shown in that video above.

That said I have not tried it and don't know how well it works.

[mjzee]

I've recently upgraded to the latest macOS version (Catalina 10.15.5) and can confirm that the information in the above video is still correct.  I just synced my iPod Classic (the 120 GB version) through Finder, and it all went smoothly.

[John L]

Somehow, I am just now seeing these responses to my post.   Thank you all. 

This does not solve my problem.   I cannot completely sinc my iPods with iTunes because my iTunes has 3 tb of music.  So I need to manage things manually.  If I drag music from finder to my iTunes, it doesn't really work.  The iPod creates a separate album for each track that is dragged.   So, yes, I can technically have the music on my iPod.  But I will have to search for each track as a single album, not really a workable option with 160 gb of music.   

[mjzee]

2 hours ago, John L said:

Somehow, I am just now seeing these responses to my post.   Thank you all. 

This does not solve my problem.   I cannot completely sinc my iPods with iTunes because my iTunes has 3 tb of music.  So I need to manage things manually.  If I drag music from finder to my iTunes, it doesn't really work.  The iPod creates a separate album for each track that is dragged.   So, yes, I can technically have the music on my iPod.  But I will have to search for each track as a single album, not really a workable option with 160 gb of music.   

In iTunes, create a new playlist.  Drag into this playlist everything you want on your iPod.  Then sync only that playlist with your iPod.  I believe that will solve your problem.

[John L]

22 minutes ago, mjzee said:

In iTunes, create a new playlist.  Drag into this playlist everything you want on your iPod.  Then sync only that playlist with your iPod.  I believe that will solve your problem.

So there is a way in Finder to sync only with a given playlist?  If so, I will try it. 

[mjzee]

21 minutes ago, John L said:

So there is a way in Finder to sync only with a given playlist?  If so, I will try it. 

Yes.  Once you see your iPod in Finder and select it, click "Music" in the top row (should be to the right of "General").  Then, under "Sync:", choose "Selected artists, albums, genres, and playlists".  Then click "Playlists" (to the right of "Artists," "Albums," "Genres") and check the playlist you want to sync.

[John L]

OK, thanks.  That won't erase the rest of the music on my iPod, I hope.  

[mjzee]

47 minutes ago, John L said:

OK, thanks.  That won't erase the rest of the music on my iPod, I hope.  

I don't know; it might.

[bertrand]

Just the Monk in Palo Alto tunes.

[John L]

OK, I have had it.  After struggling now for years with Apple Music after having been a very happy iTunes customer, I have reached the end of my tolerance.   I was tolerating Apple Music because I had made such a large multi-year investment into my iTunes/Apple library that is about 4 tetrabytes in size.   But Apple Music is now denying me access to listen to much of my own music collection, including to MP3s of CDs that I had added to my library years ago.  So that is obviously intolerable. 

Given where I am with a massive collection of digital files, what alternative manager could I use?   Would there be something portable like iPods where I could put music?  I can't stand using my mobile phone in that way.   

Edited May 25, 2022 by John L

[mjzee]

8 minutes ago, John L said:

OK, I have had it.  After struggling now for years with Apple Music after having been a very happy iTunes customer, I have reached the end of my tolerance.   I was tolerating Apple Music because I had made such a large multi-year investment into my iTunes/Apple library that is about 4 tetrabytes in size.   But Apple Music is now denying me access to listen to much of my own music collection, including to MP3s of CDs that I had added to my library years ago.  So that is obviously intolerable. 

Given where I am with a massive collection of digital files, what alternative manager could I use?   Would there be something portable like iPods where I could put music?  I can't stand using my mobile phone in that way.   

What changed - what triggered this, do you think?  Did you recently upgrade your macOS to version 12.4, or was it something else?

[John L]

1 minute ago, mjzee said:

What changed - what triggered this, do you think?  Did you recently upgrade your macOS to version 12.4, or was it something else?

I don't know.  It felt like a slow degradation.  It does seem that the various MAC upgrades always had a negative impact on music management.   Adding albums to my library started to take extremely long times.  I bought new iPod touches because Apple Music refused to recognize all my old iPods, but now I cannot put music on my new iPods either.  Then the links between certain MP3s and Apple Music started to become severed.  I had to continually reload music for hours that somehow had become delinked from the Apple Music App even though the MP3s never changed place in the music directory.   Now Apple Music is not even allowing me to reload some of the MP3s that it threw out of the App.   In sum, it is a nightmare.   I am currently away from home and my CD collection.   

 

 

[Dub Modal]

Man, that sounds like a nightmare. I manage my iTunes from an old Mac that won’t upgrade anymore due to space. So I’m left with an older version of the software but it still rips CDs and syncs my iPod. So maybe an answer is finding an old MacBook that still operates on old software and still has iTunes? Not sure how easy that would be to find or how much that would cost…? 
 

these companies certainly don’t care about preloaded collections on old software and undoubtedly don’t want anyone using them. Streaming gives them real time data which is an asset (the sounds, be they music, podcasts or whatever are only the hook to grab the user for data collection).  

[mjzee]

It could be that something changed the permissions.  This sometimes happens when the external hard drive is in the process of breaking (if it fell to the floor recently, that could be a tipoff).  In a Finder window, go to a track on your EHD that iTunes is now denying you access; right-click it and choose Get Info.  At the bottom of the window that opens, under "Sharing & Permissions," see whether you can read and write.

Do you backup your EHD regularly?  If so, try to open the backup in iTunes, and see if the problem is resolved.  If it is, you should probably move your music collection to a new EHD.  

[John L]

Thanks.  Yes, I have my EHD backed up twice.   I am temporarily away from home with only one EHD.  When I get back home, I will try changing to a new EHD.  But these kind of problems started plaguing me even before I started using the current EHD.  So I am not sure what it will buy me.  

John

[tranemonk]

I'm not quite following the technical problem here. I can also say as a Mac user with a large library (about 800GB) that Itunes/Music App is messed up. I don't know if this will help the original poster, but I keep my music library on the hard drive, backed up to two external drives via Time Machine. The problem I had is that if you have an Apple Music subscription, (in my experience) the app's default is to automatically sync your music to the cloud.

In my case that was a disaster. As you know it takes a ton of time to upload anything that large. Our stuff (esp. things like alternate takes, etc.) get lost and confused by the Itunes upload. As a result, I lost a ton of stuff (including some Mosaic sets). I'm still tracking down my physical discs to try and find what I missed but it's a mess thanks to Apple Music.

[jcam_44]

I didn’t have any issues with Apple Music uploading my library until I surpassed the 10,000 album limit. Then it lost everything and it won’t take everything on one upload. I have to delete any album from Apple Music on my desktop that I want on the cloud and add it back. I’ve made peace with the issue. 

[John L]

I don't mess around with the cloud at all.  I have it turned off on Apple Music.   Before I did that, iTunes started changing back labels (titles, genres, etc.) that I changed on music that I downloaded from iTunes.  

I don't understand my technical problem either, and am now beyond trying to solve it in Apple Music.   I just want an alternative program to manage my MP3s.  

John

[sonnymax]

1 hour ago, jcam_44 said:

I didn’t have any issues with Apple Music uploading my library until I surpassed the 10,000 album limit. Then it lost everything and it won’t take everything on one upload. I have to delete any album from Apple Music on my desktop that I want on the cloud and add it back. I’ve made peace with the issue. 

You're a very forgiving person.

48 minutes ago, John L said:

... I just want an alternative program to manage my MP3s.

Have you considered trying Plex?

[John L]

52 minutes ago, sonnymax said:

Have you considered trying Plex?

No.  Should I?  Do you use it?