[TECH TIP] How to Back Up Your Music Library in macOS Catalina

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With the Music app on your Mac, you can sync your library to save your tunes, but you should also do a dedicated backup.

To sync your music library:

Launch the app
Select Preferences at the top left side of your screen
Select Sync Library

Mac Music app preferences — Syncing your music allows it to be accessible from all your devices

This will show all the music you’ve added, bought, and uploaded. The music on the Mac you’re using will appear on your other Apple devices (and PCs) after syncing with iCloud.

I would also suggest selecting the Automatic Downloads option so that when you add music to your library, it will automatically be downloaded to your Mac (as opposed to simply being stored in the “cloud”) so you can play it when you’re offline. Of course, make sure you’ve got plenty of room on your Mac’s hard drive to store all your tunes. Otherwise, move your Music library to an external drive.

Now let’s back up your music…

Here’s how:

Launch the Music app
Find the Artist, Albums, or Songs you want to download
Click the … button to bring up a pop-up menu
Select Download to initiate the download.

Downloading all of your music ensures everything is included in your backup

Okay, so now we’ve got your tunes stored in iCloud and on your Mac. But let’s make sure we’re safe by having a third “hard” copy saved. If you’re using Apple’s Time Machine backup system and an external drive (and if you’re not, you should), your Music library and other important data should be backed up.

You can also back up your files to an external drive. First, consolidate your Music folder files. Why? Depending on how you imported items into Music, some items in your library might be stored in different locations (for example, in another folder or on another storage device).

You can consolidate all the files in your library in the Music folder—for example, to make it easier to move your library to a new computer or back it up.

Consolidate Music Files

Launch Music
Choose File > Library > Organize Library
Select Consolidate files

Files remain in their original locations, and copies are placed in the default folder.

Now you can locate your Music folder on your Mac’s hard drive and drag and drop it to an external hard drive.

Voila! Now you’ve got multiple copies of all your music.

These instructions apply, for the most part, to other versions of macOS besides Catalina. However, I’m using Catalina on a 16-inch MacBook Pro for this tutorial.

6 Comments

CHRIS FLOWERS says:

October 20, 2020 at 9:29 am

The option to SYNC library is greyed out on my machine. I have checked all my settings in system preferences but cannot find a potential cause for this issue.
Thomas says:

October 17, 2020 at 8:27 am

This only works on music you have purchased from Apple.
Not music that you have purchased in stores and uploaded to you computer for you personal use.
Stepen Jordan says:

October 15, 2020 at 4:38 pm

I backed up all the music from a 2014 MacBook Pro running Sierra to an external drive.
NOW,
How do I restore the music backed up on the external drive to the SSD of my new Macbook Pro running Catalina????

All the articles seem to be about backing up Catalina music to an external drive. What about all of us who only recently bought a machine using Catalina and all our backups are from iTunes?
- Abel says:
  
  October 17, 2020 at 10:15 am
  
  Just place in a new folder onto your new drive… and open the Music app from the library file that’s inside the folder you backup.
- Jeff says:
  
  October 17, 2020 at 10:50 am
  
  Just leave the music on the external drive. Point iTunes to the data location and play it from there. I keep all my music and movies on a NAS drive so I can access it from anywhere and I never have to move it.
- Anon E Mous says:
  
  October 17, 2020 at 12:37 pm
  
  Open Music
  Click on “File”, then “Import”, then navigate to your backup folder on whatever drive it is on, select it. Then I am sure you can figure it out from there.