One of the biggest changes that will come with macOS Catalina is the replacement of the iTunes app. The new Music app will take over management of your existing iTunes music library and it has pretty much all of the functions that iTunes had. Preview what it looks like and see what the Mac Music app can do. Catalina will be released in the fall.
Related Subjects: iTunes (73 videos), Music (14 videos)
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Comments: 49 Responses to “A Look At the New Music App In macOS Catalina”
Howard Brazee
5 years ago
I'm looking forward for the future podcast you mentioned. iTunes is by far, the most buggy software that I use, but a lot of that is with synchronizing my devices. I remember when iTunes dropped iDevice app support. Apple did not clean up the apps on my Mac, and it did not replace the feature that allowed me to arrange my apps from my mac. I really miss that feature. Will my current iTunes settings automatically get copied to Music?
Howard: Not sure which settings you mean, specifically, but things like playlists and such will move over to the Music app.
Denise Tirone
5 years ago
Will the music videos I purchased appear with the songs I purchased. I did not see any music videos in your video. Also can I still mix songs and music videos in my playlist
Adam
5 years ago
Very good early look at the new Music App Gary. I appreciate your efforts on this video.
I've always loved the iTunes App, despite some people's negative reviews of being too bloated. I've never purchased Apple Music (other than a free 90 day trial version) because I have over 8,000 songs in my library. I have subscribed for years to the "iTunes Music Match" service. Where I can stream all of my music in Apple quality.
Do we know if this function will join the Music App as well?
Thank You
Gregory Rand
5 years ago
Will all detailed PLAYLISTS automatically/accurately transfer over to Music in Catalina? I spent a 100 hours creating Playlists, TAGS to other favorite Playlists ('Focus Music,' 'Dinner Music', '100 favorite break-up songs',), stars ratings and I don't know how this flow over to the new Music. Advice?
Tony
5 years ago
One thing I have not seen is what happens to Macs that are not on Catalina. I have a Mac Mini (2011) that's stuck at High Sierra and is my primary desktop computer. I have extensive iTunes libraries and I use iTunes to feed media to my iOS devices. Will iTunes continue to run on HS (or earlier) and/or will the new Music app work on these earlier machines?
Gregory: All of my playlists came over naturally in Catalina. As a matter of fact, I have devices running Catalina (Music) and Mojave (iTunes) and they both show the same playlists and stay in sync.
Tony: macOS Mojave and earlier have iTunes and you would continue to use iTunes there. The Music app is part of Catalina so you will only see it on Catalina.
Robin: I'm need more information to be able to help you there. Are you using the Music app in Catalina? Are you using Apple Music? Are you signed in to your Apple Music account or iCloud account? What have you done to troubleshoot? If these were your "own uploaded music" then are how are you syncing them to your iPhone? Did you try other options?
Denise Tirone
5 years ago
Gary. You are the best. Thank you so much for answering my question so quickly. I appreciate it. I have learned so much from the courses I have purchased from you.
Tom Gifford
5 years ago
Great info - thanks! I am looking forward to this new version. My iTunes library is presently messed up with duplicates, partial albums, bad labels, and similar issues - this new release will motivate me to undertake the unpleasant cleanup task...
Paris James
5 years ago
what about the "sync Photo albums", sync Ring Tones, etc, features that I use a lot, where are they going ?
Ross: It remains the same. There is no "import." Music just picks up the same media library from iTunes.
Lee N
5 years ago
In iTunes on Mac and iOS you can only create folders for your own playlists, but not Apple playlists that you add to your library. Will the new Apple Music allow us to create folders for Apple playlists?
Lee: No. I'm thinking that it has to do with the nature of those playlists (shared, updatable by someone else) and how folders allow you to view all the songs in all of the playlists in that folder.
Mathew
5 years ago
Is the browser gone? The way you could see columns on top of the songs?
Mathew: Do you mean the old Column Browser feature? I know that was in iTunes a while back, but not sure when they removed it -- or maybe it was in iTunes until the end. But there is no such function in Music. You can go to Artist view and then you see Artists on the left, and pick one and then you get albums on the right with songs in order for each album. Genres works in the same way.
ism
5 years ago
try COMMAND-B for column view
Peter
5 years ago
Column-View was til the end of iTunes available. Back then it was triggerd with COMMAND-B.
Roger
5 years ago
Great intro to Music in Catalina. I upgraded yesterday. But I really miss the Browser viewer mentioned by Mathew yesterday. I get the Artist view and all, but I have a very large collection (all ripped CDs, no bootlegs), and consequently I have artists with a lot of albums. The Artist view sorts the albums alphabetically, and to get to an album with a title in the latter half of the alphabet takes a ridiculous amount of scrolling. That's where the old Browser view came in very handy.
Anna
5 years ago
Hi! This might be a dumb question, but when syncing music to my iPod in the Music app under Albums there is no option to see what artist that album is by. So I want to sync only selected music to my iPod and I have some albums that are all named the exact same thing, but are by different artists and unless I am missing something, there is no way to tell which album is by which artist. I would have to just sync that artist, but then I would have all albums by that artist, which I don't want...
Anna: Perhaps consider making a playlist then instead?
M^2
5 years ago
It appears that all support for organizing the hundreds of CDs (especially boxed sets like all 104 symphonies of Haydn: 1 album, >100 works) that I imported is gone. iTunes for years permitted arbitrary groupings of tracks via a little used mp3 tag. Recent versions kind of introduced support for classical music concept of works and movements, but implementation was clumsy, and transitioning harder. All that seems to be gone now, even the clumsy work/movement.
Judith
5 years ago
Just tried to make a personal imovie of photo's and I can't use any songs from apple music, not even the ones I originally purchased through itunes because itunes doesn't seem to exist any more in Catalina. Will one of those Apple music convertors work? Any recommendations? Thanks
Judith: I just tried it and I was definitely able to use the iTunes purchased music and music I had ripped from CDs years ago. The trick is you need to download the song first. So go to the Music app, find the song, Control+click it and Download. Once a copy is stored locally you can use it in iMovie.
Marco
5 years ago
I cannot get Music to import new MP3 files. Is this a known issue? Can't find any mention on any forum.
Marco: What are you trying? When I drag and drop an mp3 file into the Music app into the Library section it works for me.
Maish
5 years ago
Gary,
I am really struggling with the new music app. It's a breeze to add music onto any of my devices but it looks impossible to edit, delete or playback from the device whilst connected to Mac. Help!!!
Many thanks.
Maish.
Maish
5 years ago
Gary,
I did neglect to mention that I have selected "Manually Manage......" in preferences. From a different post of yours I now know how to delete songs or multiple songs from my devices. I still have no idea on how to edit or playback a song while my device is connected to Music. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Maish: Not sure what you mean by "edit or playback." Edit in what way? If you want to play the song on your Mac, just go to the Library and find the song there.
Mark
5 years ago
I like to make playlists of podcasts for extensive driving. I have a lot of saved playlists (music and podcasts). With the new app, unless I have missed something, they have taken away the ability to make a playlist of podcast episodes from different shows. Now I can only use older iPods and iTunes as the podcasts playlists won’t transfer to the podcast app on newer iOS devices. As popular as podcasts have become, I am surprised that more people don’t want to make podcast playlists.
Malcolm
5 years ago
I had several playlist in iTunes but only one has come across to the music app. I have the same playlists on my ipod touch but can't see them or add new songs. I can drag songs across in the music app window but the ipod can't see them. How do I recover my playlists
Malcolm: Perhaps there is an item in those playlists that won't work. I can't guess what that could be, but just an idea.
Malcolm
5 years ago
Interest thought Gary. Guess there's no way to find out. To clarify it's only the playlists that's missing I'm sure the music is all there. Is it possible to recreate the lists from the ipod touch. Cheers
Maish
5 years ago
Hello Gary - In the "old days" when for instance an iPod was connected to the Mac it was possible to double click on a song in the iPod library it would play back on iTunes. Sadly this does not happen now with the new Music app. In "old" iTunes it was possible to right click on a song or batch of songs and edit information whilst the device was connected to the computer.I find this impossible to do in the new app. My iPods are 320Gb, iPhone 250 Gb songs not on Mac library nor iCloud
Maish: No, I don't believe you can do that in the Music app. But you can play the song from your Music library instead of your iPod (without even having the iPod connected). Why do you have music on your iPod but not on your Mac? Whatever the reason, doing it that way simply won't work anymore.
Maish
5 years ago
My music library is too vast to store on my Mac. I keep multiple external hard drives of store bought CDs as well as music purchased from the iTunes library. I like to connect a iPod or iPhone to the computer on occasion and listen whilst the device is charging etc. I hope that my "problem" is better understood? Thank you for your time.Appreciated.
Maish
5 years ago
Thanks for your answer. No it does not work anymore and I'm sad about that. I cannot understand why not though. All best and many thanks for the great service that you provide. All best.
Maish: If you have the the media on external drives, then there is no need to have them on your Mac too. Just set the Music app to NOT "Copy Files to Music Media Folder" and those files remain on the external drives.
SUNNY
4 years ago
where do the playlists created on an external device like iphone or ipod appear when connected to the new music app ?
If you created the playlists on the device and you are syncing manually, then that doesn't work anymore. You'll need to sync the regular way, creating the playlists on your Mac, or using iCloud.
Stephen Elmore
4 years ago
How do I change album rating in Music? When one song gets rated, the whole album gets rated. I used a macro before.
Stephen: I don't see a way to rate an album in Music, only songs. You select a song and use Command+i where you can rate it. Or, view by Song and then use Command+j to add the rating column and click on that. Both these methods change a single song, but I don't see a way to rate an album.
I'm looking forward for the future podcast you mentioned. iTunes is by far, the most buggy software that I use, but a lot of that is with synchronizing my devices. I remember when iTunes dropped iDevice app support. Apple did not clean up the apps on my Mac, and it did not replace the feature that allowed me to arrange my apps from my mac. I really miss that feature. Will my current iTunes settings automatically get copied to Music?
Howard: Not sure which settings you mean, specifically, but things like playlists and such will move over to the Music app.
Will the music videos I purchased appear with the songs I purchased. I did not see any music videos in your video. Also can I still mix songs and music videos in my playlist
Very good early look at the new Music App Gary. I appreciate your efforts on this video.
I've always loved the iTunes App, despite some people's negative reviews of being too bloated. I've never purchased Apple Music (other than a free 90 day trial version) because I have over 8,000 songs in my library. I have subscribed for years to the "iTunes Music Match" service. Where I can stream all of my music in Apple quality.
Do we know if this function will join the Music App as well?
Thank You
Will all detailed PLAYLISTS automatically/accurately transfer over to Music in Catalina? I spent a 100 hours creating Playlists, TAGS to other favorite Playlists ('Focus Music,' 'Dinner Music', '100 favorite break-up songs',), stars ratings and I don't know how this flow over to the new Music. Advice?
One thing I have not seen is what happens to Macs that are not on Catalina. I have a Mac Mini (2011) that's stuck at High Sierra and is my primary desktop computer. I have extensive iTunes libraries and I use iTunes to feed media to my iOS devices. Will iTunes continue to run on HS (or earlier) and/or will the new Music app work on these earlier machines?
Thanks.
Adam: I see iTunes Match available at the bottom of the iTunes Store in the Music App, yes.
Gregory: All of my playlists came over naturally in Catalina. As a matter of fact, I have devices running Catalina (Music) and Mojave (iTunes) and they both show the same playlists and stay in sync.
Tony: macOS Mojave and earlier have iTunes and you would continue to use iTunes there. The Music app is part of Catalina so you will only see it on Catalina.
Denise: The Music app does handle music videos, yes. I just didn't have any stored on the demo account to show.
Why are my playlists empty, they were made by my own uploaded music ?
Robin: I'm need more information to be able to help you there. Are you using the Music app in Catalina? Are you using Apple Music? Are you signed in to your Apple Music account or iCloud account? What have you done to troubleshoot? If these were your "own uploaded music" then are how are you syncing them to your iPhone? Did you try other options?
Gary. You are the best. Thank you so much for answering my question so quickly. I appreciate it. I have learned so much from the courses I have purchased from you.
Great info - thanks! I am looking forward to this new version. My iTunes library is presently messed up with duplicates, partial albums, bad labels, and similar issues - this new release will motivate me to undertake the unpleasant cleanup task...
what about the "sync Photo albums", sync Ring Tones, etc, features that I use a lot, where are they going ?
Paris: iOS device syncing takes place in the Finder. See https://macmost.com/frequently-asked-questions-about-macos-catalina.html
Gary, Your dedication to contributing to the Apple Fans has inspired me since your first launching the excellent MacMost. Thank you so much! Gregory
Does the 'date added' column remain the same values as the iTunes library or is it updated on import?
My iTunes library is all sorted by date added with newest at the top of playlists.
Ross: It remains the same. There is no "import." Music just picks up the same media library from iTunes.
In iTunes on Mac and iOS you can only create folders for your own playlists, but not Apple playlists that you add to your library. Will the new Apple Music allow us to create folders for Apple playlists?
Lee: No. I'm thinking that it has to do with the nature of those playlists (shared, updatable by someone else) and how folders allow you to view all the songs in all of the playlists in that folder.
Is the browser gone? The way you could see columns on top of the songs?
Mathew: Do you mean the old Column Browser feature? I know that was in iTunes a while back, but not sure when they removed it -- or maybe it was in iTunes until the end. But there is no such function in Music. You can go to Artist view and then you see Artists on the left, and pick one and then you get albums on the right with songs in order for each album. Genres works in the same way.
try COMMAND-B for column view
Column-View was til the end of iTunes available. Back then it was triggerd with COMMAND-B.
Great intro to Music in Catalina. I upgraded yesterday. But I really miss the Browser viewer mentioned by Mathew yesterday. I get the Artist view and all, but I have a very large collection (all ripped CDs, no bootlegs), and consequently I have artists with a lot of albums. The Artist view sorts the albums alphabetically, and to get to an album with a title in the latter half of the alphabet takes a ridiculous amount of scrolling. That's where the old Browser view came in very handy.
Hi! This might be a dumb question, but when syncing music to my iPod in the Music app under Albums there is no option to see what artist that album is by. So I want to sync only selected music to my iPod and I have some albums that are all named the exact same thing, but are by different artists and unless I am missing something, there is no way to tell which album is by which artist. I would have to just sync that artist, but then I would have all albums by that artist, which I don't want...
Anna: Perhaps consider making a playlist then instead?
It appears that all support for organizing the hundreds of CDs (especially boxed sets like all 104 symphonies of Haydn: 1 album, >100 works) that I imported is gone. iTunes for years permitted arbitrary groupings of tracks via a little used mp3 tag. Recent versions kind of introduced support for classical music concept of works and movements, but implementation was clumsy, and transitioning harder. All that seems to be gone now, even the clumsy work/movement.
Just tried to make a personal imovie of photo's and I can't use any songs from apple music, not even the ones I originally purchased through itunes because itunes doesn't seem to exist any more in Catalina. Will one of those Apple music convertors work? Any recommendations? Thanks
Judith: I just tried it and I was definitely able to use the iTunes purchased music and music I had ripped from CDs years ago. The trick is you need to download the song first. So go to the Music app, find the song, Control+click it and Download. Once a copy is stored locally you can use it in iMovie.
I cannot get Music to import new MP3 files. Is this a known issue? Can't find any mention on any forum.
Marco: What are you trying? When I drag and drop an mp3 file into the Music app into the Library section it works for me.
Gary,
I am really struggling with the new music app. It's a breeze to add music onto any of my devices but it looks impossible to edit, delete or playback from the device whilst connected to Mac. Help!!!
Many thanks.
Maish.
Gary,
I did neglect to mention that I have selected "Manually Manage......" in preferences. From a different post of yours I now know how to delete songs or multiple songs from my devices. I still have no idea on how to edit or playback a song while my device is connected to Music. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Maish: Not sure what you mean by "edit or playback." Edit in what way? If you want to play the song on your Mac, just go to the Library and find the song there.
I like to make playlists of podcasts for extensive driving. I have a lot of saved playlists (music and podcasts). With the new app, unless I have missed something, they have taken away the ability to make a playlist of podcast episodes from different shows. Now I can only use older iPods and iTunes as the podcasts playlists won’t transfer to the podcast app on newer iOS devices. As popular as podcasts have become, I am surprised that more people don’t want to make podcast playlists.
I had several playlist in iTunes but only one has come across to the music app. I have the same playlists on my ipod touch but can't see them or add new songs. I can drag songs across in the music app window but the ipod can't see them. How do I recover my playlists
Malcolm: Perhaps there is an item in those playlists that won't work. I can't guess what that could be, but just an idea.
Interest thought Gary. Guess there's no way to find out. To clarify it's only the playlists that's missing I'm sure the music is all there. Is it possible to recreate the lists from the ipod touch. Cheers
Hello Gary - In the "old days" when for instance an iPod was connected to the Mac it was possible to double click on a song in the iPod library it would play back on iTunes. Sadly this does not happen now with the new Music app. In "old" iTunes it was possible to right click on a song or batch of songs and edit information whilst the device was connected to the computer.I find this impossible to do in the new app. My iPods are 320Gb, iPhone 250 Gb songs not on Mac library nor iCloud
Maish: No, I don't believe you can do that in the Music app. But you can play the song from your Music library instead of your iPod (without even having the iPod connected). Why do you have music on your iPod but not on your Mac? Whatever the reason, doing it that way simply won't work anymore.
My music library is too vast to store on my Mac. I keep multiple external hard drives of store bought CDs as well as music purchased from the iTunes library. I like to connect a iPod or iPhone to the computer on occasion and listen whilst the device is charging etc. I hope that my "problem" is better understood? Thank you for your time.Appreciated.
Thanks for your answer. No it does not work anymore and I'm sad about that. I cannot understand why not though. All best and many thanks for the great service that you provide. All best.
Maish: If you have the the media on external drives, then there is no need to have them on your Mac too. Just set the Music app to NOT "Copy Files to Music Media Folder" and those files remain on the external drives.
where do the playlists created on an external device like iphone or ipod appear when connected to the new music app ?
If you created the playlists on the device and you are syncing manually, then that doesn't work anymore. You'll need to sync the regular way, creating the playlists on your Mac, or using iCloud.
How do I change album rating in Music? When one song gets rated, the whole album gets rated. I used a macro before.
Stephen: I don't see a way to rate an album in Music, only songs. You select a song and use Command+i where you can rate it. Or, view by Song and then use Command+j to add the rating column and click on that. Both these methods change a single song, but I don't see a way to rate an album.