If you updated your Mac to macOS Catalina and above and having issues with the new Music app getting stuck or freezing, we’ve got the fixes and answers to get it working again!
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Quick tips
Follow these quick tips to fix issues with the Music app not working in macOS Catalina and above
- Try restarting your Mac
- For Apple Music subscribers, check that you turned on Sync Library in Music > Preferences > Sync Library
- Update your macOS to the latest version and any iPhones, iPads, or iPods that you connect your MacBook to (or that use the same Apple Music subscription)
Recommended Reading
- How to Sync Music across Devices Using iCloud Music Library
- How to Manually Manage Music on Your iPhone in macOS Catalina
- Can’t sign in into Music or TV app on macOS Catalina? Here’s why
- How To Copy Music from Your Mac to Your New iPhone
One of the largest changes comes in the form of iTunes as the app has officially been “killed off” in favor of Apple Music. This is thanks to Catalyst which essentially turns mobile apps into desktop applications in macOS.
This means that iTunes has been split into three different apps – Apple Music, Podcasts, and TV. Apple has decided this is the best way to integrate apps into future iterations of its operating system, but there have been some major issues.
“Loading Music Library” stuck on macOS Catalina
I think we can all agree that it was time for a change in regards to iTunes. The app has been around for quite some time and has become more and more bloated over the years.
Those who don’t care about the streaming service side of things have been running into issues with their music library. This is because Apple changed how its Music app handles “hard copies” of music, whether that’s in mp3, mp4 or other formats.
Unfortunately, a recurring issue seems to be that the Music application on Catalina has been getting stuck. When this happens, Music continues to show the “Loading Music Library” message without ever actually loading the music.
How to Fix Apple Music Stuck on MacBook
Thanks to the awesome Apple community, there has been a fix that requires you to dive a bit deeper. Here are the steps to fix that error message and get your music back:
- Create a folder on the desktop for your Music
- Move all of your music from the dedicated Music folder and delete everything else in the folder
- Go to ~/Library and remove any folders that have “Music” or “iTunes” in the name
- Go to ~/Library/Caches and delete any folders with “Music” or “iTunes” in the name
- Reboot your Mac
After you have rebooted your Mac, you’ll want to head over to the folder that you created on your desktop. Copy all of the music out of that folder, and move it back to where you had them before.
On you move them back, we recommend using the import option within the Apple Music app. This gives the Apple Music application the ability to organize everything the way that it needs to.
What next?
Now that ou imported your music, it should show up in the local storage of Apple Music, along with the Apple Music library via the app. It’s apparent that there are some issues with old music folders keeping the iTunes data which conflicts with the new Music app.
If you heavily relied on iTunes, then you’ll definitely want to make sure that your music is still accessible with Apple Music. Thankfully, the community is fantastic at finding fixes to even the smallest problems, and they have come in the clutch yet again.
For those who continue to have issues, please sound off in the comments below and we’ll be sure to help you with any problems. In the meantime, let us know what you think about macOS Catalina and if you are excited to see more Catalyst apps launched in the future.
Andrew Myrick is a freelance writer based on the East Coast of the US. He enjoys everything to do with technology, including tablets, smartphones, and everything in between. Perhaps his favorite past-time is having a never-ending supply of different keyboards and gaming handhelds that end up collecting more dust than the consoles that are being emulated.
alan robertson says
Thanks for this insight. I have a very large iTunes library stored on an external drive. I never had an issue with booting, importing, saving until Apple ditched iTunes. I do have a series of problems that I think are related to this and have brought them to Apple’s attention but am getting nowhere and frustrated at the time this is taking to resolve. First off, I am running a 2020 MacBook Pro with the M1 chip. I have 16GB of memory and I upgrade the unit to have 1TB of internal storage. I also have a 16 TB external RAID drive which stores all of my music, home movies, pictures etc. Storing things externally has never been an issue in the past. I do not plan on using any of the streaming services and have these turned off in my settings.
-I do experience the delay in opening the program which is the source of your post
-I also find that it takes an inordinate amount of time for the program to save the files and close
-Sometimes playlists which I have created are not there when I reopen the program although sometimes they appear (but not always) in the recently added folder within the music app
-When I plug my phone in to add some songs or a playlist, it will show up in the sidebar of the music app as well as in the sidebar of my finder. Either way, I cannot add any playlists. I should also tell you that on occasion, things from my phone will show up in the music app but I can’t really progress and add anything. this is also affecting my ability to create iMovies and within photos as they music app takes forever to load.
Should I proceed with the suggestions you have made above? or is there something else I need to do. All insights are greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Nancy Faraday says
Thank you so much!!! I have tried so many different fixes and this one finally worked. I’m running Monterey 12.4 on a 2017 MacBook Air.
Brian Grant says
I used I tune match to transfer all my music etc from my Macbook Pro to my Macbook Air but not everything has transferred, whole CDs and odd tracks of my CDs have not. My Macbook Air runs on Monterey version 12.3.1 (21E258) can anybody help, please?
Brian Grant.
Dave Williams says
My Mac mini is running Catalina and my Apple Music is stuck on”Add music to your library” and underneath it has “browse apple music” I can’t get it to get off this page all my music is not showing and I don’ know what to do
Nigel says
This looks very useful: Music just refuses to boot at present. However, could you please clarify some of the directions? Your instructions contain the following 2 paragraphs:
“After you have rebooted your Mac, you’ll want to head over to the folder that you created on your desktop. Copy all of the music out of that folder, and move it back to where you had them before.
“On you move them back, we recommend using the import option within the Apple Music app. This gives the Apple Music application the ability to organize everything the way that it needs to.”
When you say “Copy all of the music out of that folder, and move it back to where you had them before,” do you mean copying in the Finder, or simply drag and drop?
What is meant by “On you move them back”?
Many thanks.
A says
Wow the advice really worked for me on high Sierra in Nov 2020
Thanks a lot!
Ivan Grbović says
Hello all,
After trying everything above, I am still having issues with Apple Music on my MacBook Pro 2012 running the latest version of Catalina MacOS . My hard copy mp3 files are available and playable from the app, but I don’t see any of the music obtained through their service, and neither can I access curated playlists. Apple Music works fine on my iPhone 7 though. Please help.
Eukodal says
Hey,
I just wanted to say, that my Apple Music library worked just fine shortly after my last message here. It failed for some time and luckily I delayed the action I planned to do, because suddenly it just and I had nothing done. I guess it was a server error. Since that time everything is running very smooth!
Thank you anyway.
This really works. Thanks
I would like to second the first comment from the thirty-plus year apple person. I had an Apple II, went to Windows for business, and came back when apple went unix. The itunes to Apple Music forced relocation is abominable.
Hope someone out there in apple market research reads our comments. You’re screwing with your best customers….. The music ‘app’ will play for hours in my mini, then I need to force quit when it hangs. Not to mention the horrors it wreaked on my music library.
At the moment, you suck Apple!
Since I purchased my first Mac in 1982 I have been a faithful mac fan.
I must have bought no less than 50 items between laptops, G5 s for my office, ipads, ipods, iphones,you name it…
For the first time since I feel robbed. Apple has hijacked everything I put in iTunes for over 35 years.
Some I got from the apple store, most from CDs I imported, music I have personally recorded (I am a musician) and many audio items I have downloaded from other providers through the internet.
Since I upgraded my last MacBook pro to Catalina, I frankly feel like walking away. I, my family and friends share the feeling that Apple is acting like a cheap scam company, forcing us to enroll in Apple Music with significant monthly payments for the rest of our lives…
So now my own music becomes an apple service I must pay to access.
Well, it happens I don’t like it, Apple guys, and if you needed to make system changes that screw up libraries with decades of accumulated music, books and video libraries in our devices, the least you could do is apologize, give us decent customer service to guide us through the traumatic experience, make sure we don’t lose anything and do it for free.
At this point I can only hope enough costumers rally, the way New-yorkers did when Apple sold us an expensive iPod in the 90ies with a nonreplaceable battery and you were forced to take the hundreds of thousands of iPods back and had to replace them with a far better machine that still works.
I hope Apple fixes the issues Apple Music is creating and does it soon.
Because we feel cheated, hijacked and robbed by a company that had managed to keep a better face over the years
Hello,.. my Music does not sync on my Mac book air.. and it’s running the newest version of Catalina ..
Please help ..
Hallo Aziz Vela Chávez!
Did you try the method in the article is mentioned? What kind of MacBook Air are we talking about? From which year is it? Which version of the MacOS is installed?
You didn’t explain your problem very accurate. The synchronization of Music didn’t work. Aha? The synchronization between MacBook and your iPhone? Do you use Apple Music? Did Music and Cloudmusiclibrary stopped syncing? What are the consequences?
Can you only listen to music, that is saved local on your Mac, because your Cloudmusiclibrary won’t get loaded after you closed and opened your Music app? Did you reboot your MacBook?
We need more informations from you. And what did you do. Did you tried in the article mentioned solution?
Kind regards,
Eukodal
Hey there!
I’m about to this now – I now I will be already through with it when you read it, but I think that doesn’t matter so much. Before I’m going to start that recommendation I switch my WiFi and 4G of my iPhone SE off – I also disabled the auto-synchronization between iTunes and iPhone. Excuse me, iTunes was working perfectly. I mean „Music“, the successor of iTunes that feels like an app in beta status – not working well, no support and most annoying to me is the fact that Apple is forcing the not finally programmed Music app to us user. They should’ve waited until the app is actually ready – but the date seemed to be more important than the quality. That’s a disappointment. I read the same happened with the new 16“ MacBook Pro, which is very expensive and a lot of users are very unhappy about the battery and fan-management. Is that the new Apple Corporation?
However, back to the topic. I wrote a short instruction which may be better understandable for some user:
– Do I need to turn off the WiFi of the MacBook?
– I made a backup via TimeMachine and an iPhone backup via the Music app
– I copied the music files onto my external HDD. So I backed the whole music files up.
– I will turn my WiFi and 4G of my iPhone off to disable the synchronization of the online musiclibrary.
– I will close Music.
– I will move the content of Macintosh/User/…/Music/ —> to the desktop or trash? A short question regarding the folders: GarageBand, iTunes, Music and the content. The playlist will be lost, right? Can someone confirm or deny, please?
Garageband isn’t important, I could delete/deinstall the whole app.
However, the content of „Music“ are two Musicmediathek files, one is currently used from Music. That’s it.
iTunes contains all the apple & local music, artwork, and there are mixed iTunes/Music-folders.
—> Macintosh/User/…/Music/ I’ll leave a blank folder – Like the recommendation of @Elizabeth Jones said I should leave it blank.
– Then I will head to the cache: There I am going to delete (or move those files if you are afraid of failures and need them temporarily for a possible backup) these three folders there: Macintosh/User/Library/Caches/com.apple.itunes & com.apple.music & Macintosh/User/Library/iTunes
– I will reboot my MacBook Air, move the Apple music and local music back to the music folder
– I will start Music, the Apple Music & local music should be recognized. If not, I would try to import those folders into the Music app…I’m absolutely not concerned about the local music files, I’m sure these files will be added into Music easily. But the Apple Music as well?
I’m writing this message because of one particular reason, because I’m asking you what I’d do, if this – kind of „resetting feature“ – won’t work, worse, what if destroy my whole musiclibrary? What should I do to save my music library? I mean how could I undo those actions then and how can I get my old library back? IF the steps I just wrote would fail. I’m going to write a message if I had been successful and everything is working. Or If I had failed which would be horrible, because I’m listening often to very much to music.
And I hope you can understand it, that I want to be prepared for a possible failure and I wanna – I need – to have some kind of security option, or Plan B, if Plan A would fail. And @ Elizabeth Jones: You wrote I should press CMD + R during the starting process and I should reinstall Catalina to repair.
Is there any other measure which would be working as Pan B?
How to repair the Music app after the first repair method failed, if total reinstall of Catalina seems as an not necessary, or too harsh measure. And if I would install a new Operating System, I dare to install the same unfinished product! But my MacBook Air has no disc reader and I don’t have the predecessor – do you know where it can be legally downloaded? I would put it on an USB-Stick an install MacOS Mojave from it – but only as a last measure. Mojave was very stable.
Okay, I know you have an idea. I wanted to tell you. I maintained my iTunes library on my iPhone. The maintenance contains a lot of albums which were deleted, new bands and albums which were added. But the time I spent to change my library happened only on the iPhone, none of things I altered actually happened appeared on my MacBook Air. I hope that the MacBook Air library will be changed by the iPhone Music app …
However, I have another horrible problem. Maybe you remember that I had that Music issue some time ago. Since that breakdown, every single title in my Music app is … well, right-click on it, then „add to Musiclibrary“! I have only the downloaded files available currently, that’s why it’s very weird why such thing would appear. It even appears by the records if have bought from Apple and and all files I checked, I clicked and went to information and hit the last button in the row and looked at the information when I added it to library – and voila. It is in the library. No idea why that information is always there…
That’s it. Thank you. I hope I don’t need to you ask you anything anymore and I my next message will be „It was a success!“ – hopefully. I keep you informed.
Greetings,
Eukadal
Hi my friends!
Thank you for your great help. As a person who is no Mac expert and with a massive lack of experience of altering system relevant data of my MacBook, I felt left behind (from Apple), an overwhelming feeling of insecurity and anxiety to do something wrong. Also I felt lonesome and like I wouldn’t be able to dig deep into the Mac file structures.
I wanted to thank you all for your help, but especially Elizabeth Jones, who helped me really a lot with here lot’s of very helpful comments/answers. I don’t find it so easy with the originals comments in the article. I mean they helped a lot – but for the people who use the MacBook as their first computer or a certain amount of men and women, who have no idea or who to afraid to go on, I have an alternative. Or for the people who don’t know what to do then.
I replied to comment of myself, where I explained everything step by step. If you like to edit it a little bit and add that steps to the original article above, I don’t mind. Some users need to be taken by the hand. Like I said, I needed the help of Elizabeth Jones. Thank you very much for your time and help.
My iTunes is working again. I’m sorry, Music is the name. It’s started to work around three and half or three weeks ago. Everything works fine, synchronization between Apple Music, iPhone & MacBook, adding to the library…It works nearly perfectly. There are two minor things that are sort of weird.
But THANK YOU VERY MUCH! THANK YOU ELIZABETH JONES!
Hi there!
I guess there’s no alternative. And I find it as a very good and reasonable explanation that the twisted file system is reason for that dissatisfaction. However, I just have a few quick questions:
– My music on my iPhone remains untouched, right? Until it’s done and syncing again.
– I looked inside the library and found an iTunes folder and inside the cache folder two folders named com.apple.itunes & com.apple.music. Those three folders need to be erased, right? I didn’t found more.
– However, under the Music folder is Garage Band, Music with a single file in it (my actually used music library – do I delete it too?) and the iTunes folder, which stores Apple Music, local music album art, downloads and downloads-music. Could I transfer the Apple Music and local music directly in the new music folder? I guess not.
– My first problem: I have only a small SSD in my MacBook Air. It’s size is 256 GB and full. I can transfer the 140 GB of music (Apple & local) to my desktop or I may delete smth on my external HDD and bring my old music backup with the recent music files together. I guess I don’t have to copy them back, after I’m finished? Moving is probably as good as copying.
– After I brought my music out of the music folder I erase everything else, so the new structure sounds like Music/Music/Apple Music, Music. The rest will be made by the Music app after the first start.
– Will it recognize the folders? Or how do I import my music and the Apple Music? I didn’t use the import function for eight years and totally forgot how I should do it.
Thank you for being so helpful and kind.
BTW, I have a second major issue: I logged out in the Music app and now I cannot start it again.
I mean it starts and tries to load and control the music library.
The normal library checks and it’s hanging and stuck now.
The program Music needs to be ended because of stock shots (?)… I restarted the MacBook several times but it didn’t work.
Catalina is really annoying if I had known I would have stayed at Mojave.
Sometimes I think going back is the best option until they improved it on a suitable basis. That’s not acceptable, I mean I wonder if they could fix it with an update.
I didn’t read anywhere that they actually working on a patch for that mess.
HI Eukodal,
We are so sorry you have continuing problems with the Apple Music app and macOS Catalina.
Before proceeding, a couple of things that might help. Please make sure you backed up your Mac before doing any of these troubleshooting measures–it’s critical to have a backup available in case something goes wrong.
1) After backing up, restart your computer into Recovery Mode (press Command+R at startup)
2) Choose to reinstall macOS Catalina–if there are any problems with your current install, reinstalling macOS should repair those
If you are uncertain about performing any of these steps, we suggest you call Apple Support instead of doing it yourself. They can access your system remotely with your permission and take a look as well as walk you through the process.
Answers to questions
It is not normally a problem to temporarily move your Music to an external HD rather than your Desktop–we’ve never done this (or heard reader reports) for this particular Music app issue with Catalina so we can’t be 100% sure.
Following these procedures should not impact your iPhone–but for added safety, we suggest you turn off your iPhone while following the steps–that way your iPhone’s Music app cannot sync during the time you work to clean up your Mac’s music app
Regarding the iTunes folder’s com.apple.itunes & com.apple.music, you can place these in the trash or if you feel uncomfortable with that, you can also isolate them in another folder (like creating a quarantine folder on your desktop, your external drive or elsewhere)
For Garage Band folder, is there any music inside it? If so, move that file (not the folder) as well. Same holds true for the iTunes folder–if it stores music files, then you want to move those.
To import music into the Music app is really easy, open the Music app, choose File > Import, then select your music.
We hope you are able to sort out the Music app, and we apologize if this is not as helpful or easy as it should be!
liz
Thank you for the help: Because my music library is huge and at the limit I wanna ask if I understood it correctly:
– I create a folder on my desktop and move the folders Apple Music and Music (my added music) into the folder on my desktop
– then I’m going to delete everything in the original folder?
– I’m going to library and caches and I’ll delete any folder which has „iTunes“ or „Music“ in it
– Rebooting my MacBook
– moving the music back to the original „Music“ folder
– starting Music…I guess the music is missing and I shall import it again.
– Playlists and music tracks saved in the next tracks – will they be deleted too? I have backups and genre as well as time related playlists and don’t want them to lose, in the next track section are 8000 songs saved. I guess that’ll be deleted because it is saved in the cache. That’d okay instead of the playlists.
My iCloud musiclibrary isn’t working for nearly two weeks and I don’t know what else to do. I’ll try logging out and in again, but I have no hope that’ll be working. It looks like a radical way and I’m afraid of doing something wrong, that afterwards is nothing working anymore. That’s why I asked if I understood it right or not. Or if I could try smth else first? I wish Apple wouldn’t have changed it at or waited if it worked properly. There are quite many with that problem, obviously.
I hope someone can write something regarding my message. Thank you very much, guys!
Hi Eukodal,
Yes, we agree that this is a drastic measure. So it’s a good idea to try other things before attempting these steps.
Please tell us what model Mac/MacBook you use and what the current macOS or Mac OS X version it uses. Also, are you an Apple Music subscription member or iTunes Match? This information helps us help you!
If you don’t normally back up your Mac, we suggest you start now before making any changes. Use Time Machine or a third-party product–it’s important that you do this backup step before proceeding to any advanced troubleshooting.
It’s also a good idea to update your Mac to the latest macOS version available–this is particularly true for macOS Catalina. So if you run Catalina, backup and then update to its latest offering. Then see if your Music app works as expected. It really might be that simple!
Excuse me for forgetting this:
– I’m using an Apple Music subscription and was highly satisfied with it. Until three weeks ago. The iCloud library is trying to load, but stucks ultimately. On my Mac of course, on my iPhone is everything working properly.
– I found a little trick: bands I’d like to hear, but which couldn’t had been loaded because it’s stored online at the iCloud-musiclibrary. I click on top of the right site on „Apple Music“ – where I can finally see and download it and finally listen to it, cause it is stored locally. I hope an update from Apple will fix those issues soon.
– Im using a MacBook Air from 2012 with the latest macOS 10.15.4 Catalina.
The „Music“ and former „iTunes“ application are twisted within and I think I don’t get it done properly – the fixing. I’m afraid of doing smth wrong.
– I’m using an iPhone SE with iOS 13.3.1 and iTunes inclusive my Apple Music subscription is working properly – everything is working normally. I just saw there is a new update waiting: iOS 13.4.1, with new radio functionality. Nothing more.
Ah, the syncing with the MacBook ain’t working. If I restart my Mac, it syncs Mac with iPhone, but the iCloud library isn’t working though. That’s when I looked online for help.
I think I’ll contact Apple the next days, because Apple Music costs money! But I hope you have an idiot proofed way of resolving that issue. I could have over 100000 songs in the iCloud library, but I had in the past also and it worked also, though I couldn’t add any new music to my library.
Thank you very much for helping!
Kind regards,
Eukodal!
My music app won’t start at all after installing Catalina 10.15.4
Thank you. Thank you. This totally worked.
I was able to put all of my music files back and they are again available when I launch Music, but I have lost all of my Playlists (on my MacBook).
I guess I can recreate them, but is there a way of importing the Playlists from another source (e.g., my iPod)?
I actually still use my 1st gen iPod touch.
When I plan to sync it with my iTunes/Music library on my Mac OS it just freezes on loading and does not even access it.
It says its syncing but does not make any changes on the iPod.
If done on my old HP laptop, there isn’t this issue and syncs without an issue.
Many thanks for any help possible!
Hi Montiel,
What macOS version does your Mac use? Apple does not support many of the earlier models of iPods with the later versions of iTunes–so this is likely the problem
My first install of Catalina was kind of a disaster.
The machine is a 2019 27″ iMac that came with Mojave.
That had some issues from the get-go, but nothing major.
Then I upgrade to Catalina and a whole host of issues started. The kicker was after updating to 10.15.3, that I could no longer log in to my machine.
The solution was to boot from an external drive, erase the internal drive, and reinstall 10.15.3, which seems to have resolved all of my issues.
Now I am trying to import my music from the external drive into the new Music App and it keeps freezing near the end of the import.
The Activity screen shows “Copying 4,551 of 4,553: Song name” and then the spinning beach ball starts and the Force Quit Applications screen pops up stating “Your system has run out of application memory” showing that Music (not responding) with a memory usage of 148.98 GB.
I only have 64 GB of physical RAM, thus the error.
Anyone have an idea as to how to fix this issue.
Importing my music library should be a no brainer. I have rebooted and tried this a couple of times only for it to do the same thing each time. Freeze with only a few files left to copy.
This worked! Thanks
Having issues using VoiceOver in the new Music app.
When using the search box having difficulty navigating to the search box for a second search.
Often can not put text in or VO will not say that she is entering text.
When the search is completed it goes to the apple music homepage not relevant to the search instead of the iTunes store. Then unable to find the iTunes tab.
I also noticed I could be in a search result in the iTunes store but then the screen changes without my input and moves me to somewhere else.
Anyone have any suggestions on navigating the new Music app with VoiceOver to make it more simplified.
I have my iTunes library on an external drive. I’d like to have the new Music recognize and play the music from that location. I did the steps above and it still won’t recognize my music on the external. When I hold option while starting music, I direct it to my external and the Music folder but it wants me to select an album folder. I have over 400 folders and it won’t let me select them all.
Hi Steve,
Is your iTunes Library on the external drive (i.e. in a folder called iTunes) or is it a collection of music files? What you are looking for is a file on the external drive’s iTunes folder called Tunes Library.itl. Choose that file and your music should be recognized.
If you don’t have that file and/or your external drive is just a collection of music, you’ll want to consolidate your iTunes music library onto that external drive so all your music is in the same place.
To do this, select File > Library > Organize Library in iTunes. Then choose to Consolidate files to move all your music files in your iTunes Library to one specific location.
I have problem with “For you”, “Search” and “Radio” in Apple Music of the Music app on my MacBook Air. It is impossible to click on them. When I click on “Radio”, for instance, the “Albums” are selected.
I have the same problem.
Did you find a solution?
Same problem here. In settings>restrictions the checkboxes for music profiles and apple music are checked, but greyed out. I still can listen to my music from apple music, i can search and add it on my phone and everything is showing up on my mac instantly, so iCloudLibrary is perfectly working. But i can’t do the same on my mac. Is there any solution yet?