# Moving iTunes library -- without losing playlists, metadata, artist information etc.



## JohnG (Mar 6, 2021)

Hi guys,

So I'm still getting there...little by little.

What's the best way to move one's iTunes library over. Mine's over 200 GB so iCloud is not an option. Is there some way to do it? The old computer is Mojave and uses iTunes, the new one is Catalina and Music.

I've looked and followed directions online but really -- it just doesn't work. I have hundreds, maybe thousands of tracks with no composer, no artist information, dozens of duplicates -- all that.

Any ideas?

Otherwise the computer is very fast.

Cheers,

John


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## jbuhler (Mar 6, 2021)

Let me know if you figure it out. My iTunes library ended up a mess when I tried to transfer it from an iMac on Mojave to a new iMac on Catalina. Like you I have a very large iTunes library. I also have a lot of movies stored on a separate drive. The new iTunes seemed to not know how to handle it. i lost the metadata on about half my music library and nearly all the saved album art. The movies are an even bigger mess. I still have the other machine so I can try to reinstall it if I can just figure out what to do.


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## Technostica (Mar 6, 2021)

I copy my music folder to a new PC, install iTunes and then import the root music folder into iTunes.
Still works on Windows 10 last time I tried.
As the meta data is within the files themselves nothing is lost as I don't use iTunes to tag stuff.
I use 3rd party tools to tag so that I can import my library into any player of choice on any platform of choice.
Sounds as if you need to move the actual iTunes database which is a different thing.
I think it's a risk to rely on one app to manage everything as you become dependent on it and it becomes a single point of failure.
Good luck with your venture.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

Amateurs 😂 lol my iTunes library is 2tb wav.
I dread the day I have to move to Catalina or beyond 😱


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## jbuhler (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> Amateurs 😂 lol my iTunes library is 2tb wav.
> I dread the day I have to move to Catalina or beyond 😱


Yes, now that you mention it, the wav files are responsible for most of the music app issues.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

Why does Catalina or Apple Music not use wav?


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## JohnG (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> Why does Catalina or Apple Music not use wav?


You can tell it to use 16 44.1 WAV if you want. It's in the preferences.


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## jbuhler (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> Why does Apple Music not use wav?


it uses wav, and the files are there, but they lost almost all of their metadata. Some other files did as well but all the wavs did.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

@jbuhler 
That’s not what I want to hear 👂 😱
How did you fix this?


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## Technostica (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> Why does Catalina or Apple Music not use wav?


The issue is the meta-data.
One issue is that WAV files don't have a standardised internal meta-data system, meaning that apps often use their own database for tagging.
That can create issues when moving media.
You can create custom meta-data tags within WAV files but I'm not sure how portable that is.
So it may limit your choices when it comes to choosing a media player.






WAV - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

Technostica said:


> The issue is the meta-data.
> One issue is that WAV files don't have a standardised internal meta-data system, meaning that apps often use their own database for tagging.
> That can create issues when moving media.
> You can create custom meta-data tags within WAV files but I'm not sure how portable that is.
> So it may limit your choices when it comes to choosing a media player.


What format that doesn’t sound like ass have “a standardised internal meta-data system” ?

I hate Apple lossless and mp3 is horrid 🤮


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## jbuhler (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> @jbuhler
> That’s not what I want to hear 👂 😱
> How did you fix this?


I haven’t yet! I still have the old iMac on Mojave with the iTunes library and mostly I use it when I need to find something. But I haven’t yet successfully transferred the library, and I’ve tried three times.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

I guess eventually my Mac Pro or my MacBook Pro will be a dedicated music server


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## JohnG (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> What format that doesn’t sound like ass have “a standardised internal meta-data system” ?


I wonder if AIFF is better? They used to prefer that at ABC for their libraries.


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## Technostica (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> What format that doesn’t sound like ass have “a standardised internal meta-data system” ?


FLAC should be fine and there are others.
You can do it with WAV and AIFF with the later being a better option I suspect.

An ID3v2 tag chunk can also be embedded in AIFF files:





Audio Interchange File Format - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





Creating the meta-data isn't so much the issue, as making sure you use a format that is commonly supported.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

The funny thing I originally used AIFF but I assumed WAV was more universal,can the file format be changed to FLAC or AIFF easily all in one shot?


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## Technostica (Mar 6, 2021)

A good 2nd option alongside meta-data is to name your files in meaningful ways.
That way you can use tools to parse the file name and create meta-data from that automatically in batches.

Artist - Album - Track No - Title.WAV for example.


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## Technostica (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> The funny thing I originally used AIFF but I assumed WAV was more universal, can the file format be changed to FLAC or AIFF easily all in one shot?


There are batch tools to do that and if you are converting from one uncompressed format to another it should be very quick.
About the same speed as just reading and writing the file as you are only changing the header/meta-data.


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## jbuhler (Mar 6, 2021)

Technostica said:


> A good 2nd option alongside meta-data is to name your files in meaningful ways.
> That way you can use tools to parse the file name and create meta-data from that automatically in batches.
> 
> Artist - Album - Track No - Title.WAV for example.


Is there a tool to take iTunes metadata associated with wavs and mass convert them while retaining metadata or write metadata to titles? Since the metadata doesn’t exist in the wav file it seems like any batch converter would have to be able to look inside the iTunes database file.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

Technostica said:


> A good 2nd option alongside meta-data is to name your files in meaningful ways.
> That way you can use tools to parse the file name and create meta-data from that automatically in batches.
> 
> Artist - Album - Track No - Title.WAV for example.


Yeah but with thousands of albums this sound like a total time suck of a nightmare.


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## Technostica (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> Yeah but with thousands of albums this sound like a total time suck of a nightmare.


When I ripped my CDs most of them were in the online metadata databases so it was done automatically.


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## Technostica (Mar 6, 2021)

jbuhler said:


> Is there a tool to take iTunes metadata associated with wavs and mass convert them while retaining metadata or write metadata to titles? Since the metadata doesn’t exist in the wav file it seems like any batch converter would have to be able to look inside the iTunes database file.


I don’t know as I decided very early on not to solely rely on an app to handle the metadata in its internal database.
If Apple expose the database or someone has hacked it then there will be tools out there.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

Technostica said:


> When I ripped my CDs most of them were in the online metadata databases so it was done automatically.


I always import direct from CD’s I’ve never downloaded music,so I guess I might be a ok?


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## JohnG (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> I always import direct from CD’s I’ve never downloaded music,so I guess I might be a ok?


I'm 99% CD imports too, but my own tracks have the same problem and there are plenty of those. 

Re-importing would be horrendous. My new computer hasn't got a DVD tray so it would be an external drive.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

I have everything on hard drives I don’t even have lots of the CD’s anymore.
I guess one of my legacy Macs will be a jukebox one day 🎶 🎵 🎶


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## Technostica (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> I always import direct from CD’s I’ve never downloaded music,so I guess I might be a ok?


Ripping is importing direct from a CD but the metadata is taken from an online database automatically for most commercial releases.
With the right tools it will automatically name the files using the metadata.


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## jbuhler (Mar 6, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> I always import direct from CD’s I’ve never downloaded music,so I guess I might be a ok?


i have a mix of ripped and downloaded. As you might expect, everything purchased and downloaded from Apple translated fine so long as it’s still available in the store. If I ripped it as wav, and the metadata was automatically downloaded when I ripped it, I still lost the metadata on conversion to Catalina and the Music app. All that’s retained is the title of the track. I lost almost all of the images on everything, even non-wavs, and even ones I made or attached myself. As far as I can tell, the only images retained were from titles I bought from Apple, and many of those were changed (if the album cover changed from the current version being offered).


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Mar 6, 2021)

Not a Mac/iTunes user but here we store our *large* music lib in FLAC format. 50% of size of wav, 100% lossless. The math is essentially:

1min stereo wav = 10MB ; 1min FLAC (same quality) = 5MB ; 1min MP3 = 1MB but scrappy sound

MP3 @320bps is kinda "ok" for tracks which are not too dense musically. If full orchestral or heavy fusion jazz or other complex program then it's poo(r) for the ears. 

We use JRiver Media Center mostly because it supports VST plugins. (A _few_ others do too.) So we can insert param EQs, Izotope Ozone, Sonarworks and other goodies and control everything with a Windows Surface Pro touch tablet via RDP. Don't like the sound of this track? Just EQ it to our taste with your finger on FabFilter  Makes listening really fun!


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## Monkey Man (Mar 6, 2021)

This is what I've always done moving from High Sierra on the Mac Pro to the laptop (living room stereo system). If you guys are doing this and it's not working, I'll be in a heap of trouble when I upgrade to an AS Mac Pro eventually:

1) In */Users/YourName/Music/iTunes*

Copy the Album Artwork folder and iTunes Library.itl file to the new computer after erasing them on the destination.

I usually ignore the iTunes Library Extras.itdb and iTunes Library Genius.itdb files as I haven't seen them updated in years.


2) In */Users/YourName/Library/Preferences/ByHost*

Copy the com.apple.iTunes.abunchofnumbers file to the new computer.


3) In */Users/YourName/Library/Preferences*

Copy the com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist, com.apple.iTunes.plist & com.apple.iTunesHelper.plist files to the new computer.


4) Fire up iTunes on the destination.

5) Call up Preferences / Advanced

6) Click "Change" for iTunes Media Folder Location

7) Set the destination to your existing physical library

8) Make sure "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organised" is checked.

9) Exit Preferences. A pop-up window will say something like "adding to library" or something like that.

10) A new pop-up will ask if you want to keep things organised - click OK. iTunes scans the lib and updates _something_. Takes at least a few minutes usually.

Done.

If this is what you've done and it doesn't work when moving to "Music" app, I'm royally-screwed.


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## kgdrum (Mar 6, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> This is what I've always done moving from High Sierra on the Mac Pro to the laptop (living room stereo system). If you guys are doing this and it's not working, I'll be in a heap of trouble when I upgrade to an AS Mac Pro eventually:
> 
> 1) In */Users/YourName/Music/iTunes*
> 
> ...


My Oh My,
Monkey Man is coming up in the world! Back in the day it was a tree house,hiding in shrubs while scrounging for fruit. Now Nickey has a living room and a home stereo!!!!
I’m impressed ,lol
Is the song Moving on up or Moving on down? 🎶🎵🎶
Thanks for the tip my simian friend 😘


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## jbuhler (Mar 6, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> This is what I've always done moving from High Sierra on the Mac Pro to the laptop (living room stereo system). If you guys are doing this and it's not working, I'll be in a heap of trouble when I upgrade to an AS Mac Pro eventually:
> 
> 1) In */Users/YourName/Music/iTunes*
> 
> ...


One of the difficulties is iTunes is no more in Catalina. So some of those settings have to be changed for the new music app. I’ll see if I can work through at least some of these tomorrow and determine the extent of the changes.


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## Al Maurice (Mar 7, 2021)

Lots of the software that creates the WAV/MP3 libraries, relies on the titles and meta-data already on the CDS to get the covers and associated information; so as someone mentioned it depends on how comprehensive their database happens to be. Meaning if you have some obscure recording, you might be out of luck.

It seems from experience, as others here have found, it's usually best to keep a log somewhere, and/or ensure each track has a definitive set with required tagging. That way you can always correct it later.


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Mar 7, 2021)

For the music database part the easiest and safest way we found is to keep it _out of any player._ Case in point: we used to keep everything in a very powerful software called CATraxx which then disappeared. Because it had export features we were able to re-import everything (many more fields than mp3 tags would permit, dozens per track, incl. custom ones) in another software from https://www.collectorz.com/music now available for Win & MacOS & web. 

This approach can get CD or track info from multiple databases from the net _and self-correct automatically _by cross-comparing data collected. We also used https://www.dbpoweramp.com/ (Reference version, both Win & Mac) for ripping our CDs using Kodak robot changers.


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## Monkey Man (Mar 7, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> Monkey Man is coming up in the world! Back in the day it was a tree house,hiding in shrubs while scrounging for fruit. Now Nickey has a living room and a home stereo!!!!


Well, the living room is an extension I built onto the tree house, so there's that. 



kgdrum said:


> I’m impressed ,lol


It's nothing really, just the essentials:

A MonkeyLabs 8bit BS Detector™, MonkeyLabs ReKelvinator™ Supercooling Fridge™, MonkeyLabs Legislation Prefabulator™, a jar of MonkeyLabs Magnetised, Antipoopoolarised Dedefecation Gel™, a pair of MonkeyLabs Kaleidospecs™ for when I hit the disco playlist, a MonkeyLabs 5-Way-Ganged Vacuoso System™ for when the poo hits the fan, a MonkeyLabs Holographic PornGrinder™ for, you know, those moments, a MonkeyLabs HairSplitter Pro™ as a participation aid for sample-rate threads, a MonkeyLabs Debunkulating Reconfabulator™ for understanding said threads and a MonkeyLabs Scatopult Deluxe™ for flingin' poo bombs at the neighbours when they complain that iTunes is too-loud.

But I digress... 



kgdrum said:


> Is the song Moving on up or Moving on down? 🎶🎵🎶


Thanks to the extension to the tree house, it was actually moving sideways. 



kgdrum said:


> Thanks for the tip my simian friend 😘


Be thankful it didn't come with anything on the side, Brother K.


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## kgdrum (Mar 7, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> Well, the living room is an extension I built onto the tree house, so there's that.
> 
> 
> It's nothing really, just the essentials:
> ...


Where’s MLC when we need him! lol 😂


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## JohnG (Mar 8, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> This is what I've always done moving from High Sierra on the Mac Pro to the laptop (living room stereo system). If you guys are doing this and it's not working, I'll be in a heap of trouble when I upgrade to an AS Mac Pro eventually:
> 
> 1) In */Users/YourName/Music/iTunes*
> 
> ...


I tried this; unfortunately it appears that the move from iTunes to Music -- it doesn't work. either that, or I messed up the details.

Thanks though -- really appreciate the effort.


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## Monkey Man (Mar 9, 2021)

Hey no worries, John.

Did you replace all those files _before_ firing iTunes up? This is critical.

Basically you're setting everything up so it thinks there's a new library and the final step of running the app is simply to point to the new folder location, assuming that's changed. Mine changes 'cause I include the modification date in my portable-drive titles. I can't say whether or not I'd have to re-point to the physical-lib folder were I not to employ this M.O.

I'd appreciate it if you could try again. Apple made a song and dance about full compatibility when it launched Music...


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## jbuhler (Mar 9, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> This is what I've always done moving from High Sierra on the Mac Pro to the laptop (living room stereo system). If you guys are doing this and it's not working, I'll be in a heap of trouble when I upgrade to an AS Mac Pro eventually:
> 
> 1) In */Users/YourName/Music/iTunes*


In Catalina this is /Users/Yourname/Music/Music


Monkey Man said:


> Copy the Album Artwork folder and iTunes Library.itl file to the new computer after erasing them on the destination.


iTunes Library.itl seems not to exist. This is perhaps now musiclibrary.musiclibrary? I don't have an Album Artwork in this location.



Monkey Man said:


> I usually ignore the iTunes Library Extras.itdb and iTunes Library Genius.itdb files as I haven't seen them updated in years.
> 
> 
> 2) In */Users/YourName/Library/Preferences/ByHost*
> ...


This is now com.apple.Music.abunchofnumbers


Monkey Man said:


> 3) In */Users/YourName/Library/Preferences*
> 
> Copy the com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist, com.apple.iTunes.plist & com.apple.iTunesHelper.plist files to the new computer.


This is now com.apple.music.eq.plist and com.apple.music.plist. com.apple.musichelper.plist does not exist.



Monkey Man said:


> 4) Fire up iTunes on the destination.
> 
> 5) Call up Preferences / Advanced
> 
> ...


I think I'm going to delete the whole thing and try again this weekend...


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## Monkey Man (Mar 10, 2021)

Thank you for that info, mate.

I was hoping that by placing all those files in the positions they'd naturally have been in if iTunes were installed, albeit in the case of the "Music" folder, the folder's name's being different, the Music app would automatically translate the data and resave it in the appropriate formats and preference files.

A naive thought maybe, but if transition were to be seamless, this is what I'd naturally expect.

Firing up the app and importing the existing lib via menu gives me the shivers 'cause experience tells me that all sorts of little things are likely to be lost, like column widths and layouts, various metadata and artwork missing and so on.


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> Did you replace all those files _before_ firing iTunes up? This is critical.


Yes -- alas, as @jbuhler wrote, the names / files appear to be slightly different. I renamed everything that looked same-but-changed-name (substituting 'Music' for 'iTunes' where it looked obvious) but it still didn't work.

Admittedly, I may have blundered at one of the steps.

*Somewhat Feeble Solution*

I ended up instead importing from my disk into the new computer's 'Music' folders album-by-album. Everything that was an MP3 came over with data intact. Other formats (like WAV or even the venerable SD2) seemed hit-or-miss, so you have to re-type the composer, artist, album name -- anything like that. For those formats, only the track title and duration came in. 

It was consuming compared with a simple drag-n-drop, but still a lot faster than importing afresh from CDs, since my computer is now in a rack in a separate room, with no built-in DVD tray.

Top Tip: you do have to do this album by album. If instead you drag lots of tracks at once, you risk having 1,000 unlabeled, un-album'd tracks, 40 or more of which have helpful titles like, "End Credits" or "Main Title."


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## kgdrum (Mar 10, 2021)

JohnG said:


> Yes -- alas, as @jbuhler wrote, the names / files appear to be slightly different. I renamed everything that looked same-but-changed-name (substituting 'Music' for 'iTunes' where it looked obvious) but it still didn't work.
> 
> Admittedly, I may have blundered at one of the steps.
> 
> ...


For me this would be a nightmare 😱🤮😱
I have almost 3000 albums as wav files.........
I will keep iTunes on a legacy Mac parked as long as I can keep iTunes working.


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> For me this would be a nightmare


it is indeed.


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## jbuhler (Mar 10, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> For me this would be a nightmare 😱🤮😱
> I have almost 3000 albums as wav files.........
> I will keep iTunes on a legacy Mac parked as long as I can keep iTunes working.


My sense is that no one who is working on iTunes/Music app has large audio libraries. Everything now is focused on streaming, and I don't use any music streaming service, and if I did it would almost certainly not be Apple Music. So my sense is that conversion of large libraries never really got a look by the software development team. 

This is all making me consider again moving to a third party app. The only thing that has kept me with iTunes over the years is that it was the only system that made it relatively easy to move things back and forth to iDevices. But I'm finding that too is becoming increasingly difficult to manage in a simple way.


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## kgdrum (Mar 10, 2021)

lol I’ve never streamed or even downloaded a song or even an album,everything was installed via cd. 😱


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## jbuhler (Mar 10, 2021)

kgdrum said:


> lol I’ve never streamed or even downloaded a song or even an album,everything was installed via cd. 😱


I rarely stream, just occasionally with YouTube if there is something I don't have and need a quick reference. About half of my library is downloaded, half of it ripped from CDs. Not surprisingly the downloaded side fared better than the CDs, at least the stuff purchased from Apple. Though I have a few albums there that are no longer sold by Apple and the cover art for those disappeared.


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## Monkey Man (Mar 10, 2021)

jbuhler said:


> My sense is that no one who is working on iTunes/Music app has large audio libraries. Everything now is focused on streaming, and I don't use any music streaming service, and if I did it would almost certainly not be Apple Music. So my sense is that conversion of large libraries never really got a look by the software development team.


As I've never streamed and don't intend to, everything I've ever bought has been converted to 320kbps MP3 using L.A.M.E. and there's a _lot_. I'd consider it a _large_ library.



kgdrum said:


> lol I’ve never streamed...


Same here Brother K. I wouldn't even know how. 



JohnG said:


> I ended up instead importing from my disk into the new computer's 'Music' folders album-by-album. Everything that was an MP3 came over with data intact. Other formats (like WAV or even the venerable SD2) seemed hit-or-miss, so you have to re-type the composer, artist, album name -- anything like that. For those formats, only the track title and duration came in.
> 
> Top Tip: you do have to do this album by album. If instead you drag lots of tracks at once, you risk having 1,000 unlabeled, un-album'd tracks, 40 or more of which have helpful titles like, "End Credits" or "Main Title."


Thank you, John.

Say mate, have you tried en-masse dragging of MP3-only albums? That was gonna be my 2nd option if the file-copying one didn't work when I get the AS Mac Pro.

One-at-a-time will take forever, but batches sure would be a cool option for me if indeed the method retained the metadata.


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> Say mate, have you tried en-masse dragging of MP3-only albums? That was gonna be my 2nd option if the file-copying one didn't work when I get the AS Mac Pro.
> 
> One-at-a-time will take forever, but batches sure would be a cool option for me if indeed the method retained the metadata.


Not sure I quite understand, but the MP3s did work and retained their metadata. I didn't try dragging anything at all -- I imported the albums one at a time.

Not everything imported correctly the first time either -- I had to manually drag and drop hundreds of WAV files. I think if I remember the MP3s were much easier. Of course, they sound a lot worse!


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## jbuhler (Mar 10, 2021)

JohnG said:


> Not sure I quite understand, but the MP3s did work and retained their metadata. I didn't try dragging anything at all -- I imported the albums one at a time.
> 
> Not everything imported correctly the first time either -- I had to manually drag and drop hundreds of WAV files. I think if I remember the MP3s were much easier. Of course, they sound a lot worse!


Ny recollection is that normal wavs have no metadata except what's in the title and the file length. So they will pose the most challenges to transferring in this fashion. As I recall, MP3s embed quite a lot of metadata including the artwork, so it's quite possible those could be transferred en masse without issue.


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## rnb_2 (Mar 10, 2021)

My iTunes library still lives on the last Mojave machine in the house - an i3 Mac mini that I use as a media and backup server - and I'm guessing that the likely best way to do this would be to upgrade the iTunes machine to Catalina (with a robust backup in place, of course), in hopes that it will do the necessary conversions during the upgrade. Moving from an OS that still has iTunes to one that has the Music app seems to be something that Apple did not put much engineering time into.


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## jbuhler (Mar 10, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> My iTunes library still lives on the last Mojave machine in the house - an i3 Mac mini that I use as a media and backup server - and I'm guessing that the likely best way to do this would be to upgrade the iTunes machine to Catalina (with a robust backup in place, of course), in hopes that it will do the necessary conversions during the upgrade. Moving from an OS that still has iTunes to one that has the Music app seems to be something that Apple did not put much engineering time into.


My first attempt was to migrate the iTunes library when got the iMac i9 following the instructions from Apple. For various reasons I could not just migrate my iMac i7 system but needed to do a clean install. In any event, that initial attempt was a complete disaster, with much of the iTunes library randomly missing along with missing metadata.

It’s possible, I suppose that things might go easier if i moved my other iMac from Mojave to Catalina or Big Sur. Perhaps that transfer would go smoother, and maybe I’ll try cloning the i7 and moving that to Catalina/Big Sur and see if the conversion to the Music app goes better. (The i7 iMac has remained on Mojave to run 32 bit software.)


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## Monkey Man (Mar 10, 2021)

JohnG said:


> Not sure I quite understand, but the MP3s did work and retained their metadata. I didn't try dragging anything at all -- I imported the albums one at a time.


I meant simply dragging the album folders onto the iTunes main window, John.

I'm old-school-Mac in the way I operate. Everything's drag-and-drop for me; I almost never employ menus for such things - too "PC".  



JohnG said:


> I think if I remember the MP3s were much easier. Of course, they sound a lot worse!


Yeah, I hear that a bit.

Personally I've found 320kpbs conversions made using L.A.M.E. 2.9.7 or later to be almost-indistinguishable from the real thing.

_Never_ use iTunes to convert, even at 320kpbs. Apple biased the time-taken vs quality aspect of the algorithm in favour of impatient, typical domestic users. The stereo image suffers and transients are smeared to the point that it's instantly-recognisable versus a L.A.M.E. conversion, even to someone with bad ears on a crappy playback system.


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## JohnG (Mar 11, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> _Never_ use iTunes to convert,


What do you use?


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## Monkey Man (Mar 11, 2021)

The free Audacity.

You used to have to install L.A.M.E. specifically for it, but these days it's included in the app, so a simple install.

Drag the WAV or AIFF's onto the track window. Select all (COMMAND-A), choose Export Multiple from the File menu.

After choosing your destination folder, choose 320kpbs, Constant Bit Rate (not VBR) and "Stereo" (not Interleaved Stereo - IMPORTANT).

That'll give you about as good as you'll get from MP3, John, and it's pretty-damned-good IMHO.


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## JohnG (Mar 11, 2021)

Monkey Man said:


> The free Audacity.


I'll check it out.


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## Monkey Man (Mar 11, 2021)

You can't go wrong with, mate. Seriously.


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