Copy music library from Big Sur to Windows10
Recently I had to copy my music library on Big Sur to Windows10. It seems iTunes on Win10 only supports the import of .itl and .xml so it doesn't go well:
- Big Sur uses a .musiclibrary instead of .itl, so I can't export/import the library via .itl file;
- I've exported .xml on Big Sur and imported it on Win10. iTunes on Win10 says “some songs in the playlist were not imported because they could not be found”. Then nearly all songs got imported but all of them CAN'T be played, they all have a radio icon on the left.
And their "Kind" are Internet Audio Stream or MPEG Audio Stream instead of MPEG Audio File
I can open WindowsExplorer and just double click the mp3 file to play any song on this drive using iTunes, so it's not the drive/file access problem.
And I've tried to rename the folder name to broke the link, but suprisingly I can still open the property window without seeing any warning
- I've tried to open home sharing on Big Sur and access it on Win10, but the amount of songs are 1000 less than in the .xml and the "Import" button is greyed out;
- iCloud? Any 3rd-party backup software that supports both Big Sur and Win10?
Just wonder if anyone can help me with this. Thanks in advance!
Here's what finally worked:
- Press Alt + open iTunes, select the old backup .itl before upgrading from Mojave to Big Sur half a year ago. So I can have all missing entries;
- Copy all music that I have to local drive (I just don't know why iTunes doesn't recognize .xml with directories of external drive);
- Export .xml from Music in Big Sur, replace all directories with new ones on local drive, then import to iTunes in Win10;
- Use DeDuper (http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/scripts.asp by Steve MacGuire) to remove all duplicate entries.
If you have no missing files at all, you can also use the home sharing to import.