How To Clean Up My Itunes Library

While streaming music seems to be all the rage these days, nothing really beats actually owning your music. Yous may have acquired a vast collection of thousands of songs on your MacBook or iPhone over the years, so you definitely want to brand sure that you dorsum upwards your iTunes Library or Music Library, as information technology'due south chosen now in macOS.

Whether you are still listening to your digitally ripped CD collection from high schoolhouse or streaming the latest hits on Apple Music with iCloud Music Library, you'll want to make certain that everything is backed up and safe. Zippo is worse than losing your favorite tunes because of a mistake. Hither are a few different ways to back up your iTunes library.

First, brand sure your entire library has been locally downloaded

If you use iCloud Music Library or the iTunes Store, you may take some or all of your music stored in the Cloud. But to truly brand sure that your purchased and owned content is backed up, you lot'll desire to download a local copy of all of your music to your Mac.

To download specific items in your iCloud Music Library right now to your Mac's bulldoze, do the following:

Launch Music (or iTunes on Mojave and earlier) on your Mac.

Source: iMore
Notice the Artist, Albums, or Songs that you want to download.

Tip: In any of these views, you can hit ⌘A to select all.
Click the ••• button to bring up a pop-upwards bill of fare. Alternatively, you can Command-click or use the secondary click you have gear up for your mouse or trackpad.
Click Download to initiate the download of these items.

Source: iMore

And if you want to start automatically downloading everything that y'all add to your Apple tree Music library from this point forward, then it'south easy peasy! Hither's how:

Launch Music (or iTunes on macOS Mojave and before) on your Mac.

Source: iMore
Click Music in the carte du jour bar.
Click Preferences (or press ⌘, on the keyboard).
Make sure you're in the Full general tab.

Source: iMore
Click the box for Automatic Downloads to plow it on.

Source: iMore

Once that is turned on, whatever music you add to your Apple Music library will be downloaded automatically to your Mac's hard drive.

How to dorsum up iTunes Library via Time Machine or some other backup service

One of the easiest ways to make certain that your iTunes or Music Library is ever backed upwards is to apply Time Machine, which is already born to your Mac. With this characteristic enabled, you lot can automatically dorsum up and restore your Mac with Time Car and any of the best USB-C external hard drives. The restore functionality lets you leap dorsum in Time Machine'southward history to retrieve information technology.

But Time Machine may not be enough. We too recommend having an offsite backup plan for your Mac likewise, just in case something like a burn down happens, and yous lose your external hard drive.

How to manually back up your iTunes library

If you're not employing a Mac-wide backup service (really, though, you should get on that), or if you want to manually back up your iTunes library separately, here's how to get about doing that:

Consolidate your library

To ensure that all of your iTunes files are in the aforementioned place when you brand a transmission backup, you lot should offset consolidate your iTunes library.

Make sure you've downloaded a local copy of your music to your Mac.
Launch Music (or iTunes in macOS Mojave or before) on your Mac.

Source: iMore
Click File in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen.
Hover your cursor over Library in the drop downwards carte du jour.
Select Organize Library from the secondary menu.

Source: iMore
Tick the box for Consolidate Files when the Organize Library window appears.
Click OK.

Source: iMore

This volition brand a copy of all files in the iTunes media folder, leaving the originals in their current location.

Copy your iTunes library to a backup source

If y'all are using an external hard drive, connect information technology to your Mac using a USB cable.
Click on Finder to open a Finder window.
Select your Mac's Hard drive.

Source: iMore
Click on Music in the sidebar. If Music is not in your sidebar, simply elevate-and-drib the Music folder to the sidebar.
Select the Music binder (or iTunes on macOS Mojave and earlier) and drag that binder to the external hard drive icon on your desktop or copy it to your online fill-in service.

Source: iMore
Click Cosign, if prompted, to requite permission to make a copy of the iTunes folder.
Enter your administrator password.
Click OK.

Source: iMore

The copy procedure will begin. This could take a very long time, depending on how big your Music/iTunes library is. And then, sit dorsum, relax, watch a movie, or whatever yous practise to laissez passer the time.

Desperate times call for drastic measures

If you are about to practice something wild with your Music or iTunes library and don't take a manner to back it upwards on an external hard drive or online fill-in service, you can make a temporary backup that you store right on your Mac by duplicating your library. This is, past no means, a solid backup plan, but it can be useful in a pinch.

Notation: Afterward making a copy, it is a good idea to move the copied folder to an easy-to-find location that is separate from any folder you plan to make changes to (like the Music folder). This copied folder should be deleted immediately after information technology is no longer needed because it takes up extra space on your estimator's hard bulldoze unnecessarily and could cause confusion with your most current Music or iTunes folder.

Click on Finder to open a Finder window.
Select your Mac's Hard bulldoze.

Source: iMore
Click on Music in the sidebar.

Source: iMore
Right-click or control-click on the Music folder (or iTunes folder if yous're still on macOS Mojave or earlier).
Select Duplicate from the popup menu.
- The re-create procedure will brainstorm. This could take a very long time.
  
  Source: iMore
Motion the copied iTunes or Music folder to a new, easy-to-find location.
Delete the copied iTunes or Music binder once yous no longer need the temporary backup.

Get to backing up

If you've got a huge music library, y'all desire to be able to take that with yous when yous upgrade your devices so it's a dandy idea to dorsum information technology up. It'southward also prudent to do so in example of theft, disaster, or mechanical failure. Hopefully the in a higher place guide volition have your music collection backed up in no time.

Updated March 2022: Updated for macOS Monterey.