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I have a large music library (200GB/14.000 tracks), with files spanning well over a decade. I'm on a temporary Mac for the next month or two, so I'm keeping the files and library on an extremely fast external SSD (Sandisk Extreme Pro - Thunderbolt 3).

When I quit the Music app on macOS, a popup alert window that reads "Saving Music Library..." appears, and then just... doesn't go away. The program is not unresponsive according to the Finder/the Force Quit dialogue. It's just trying to save, and it's taking forever.

I don't know if this is an SSD issue or not.

The library contains thousands of hours of work, so I'm apprehensive about cutting down the library.

Setup:

  • MacBook Pro M1 Max
  • 64GB memory
  • Music Version 1.2.4.

As a layman, I would hope I could look at logs or something, to see what may be causing these delays. Is there a way to isolate or troubleshoot this sort of problem?

bmike
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Sveinbjörn Pálsson
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2 Answers2

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I would probably try to separate the data (music and video) files from your library (playlist / ratings / index of tracks database) files.

  • put the database files that need fast access on the fast disk (so saves and changes to playlists are fast)
  • put the files that play the music on slow access. You won’t notice slowness as they rarely get written, can be buffered for seamless playback and won’t slow down launch or quitting the app one bit.

Would a process like this work for you?

The idea is to move just the itl and metadata files back into the internal drive / your hoke folder and keep the data files on the external drive.

Also, before you start this - have you backed up your entire external drive so you are protected if it crashes or is failing to write which could cause that large slowdown.

bmike
  • 235,889
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Update: This is a confirmed bug in Music.app and is fixed on the current Ventura 13.5 betas.

I believe this is a bug in music that I'm trying to track down.

Try the following. Open Music in "Safe Mode". Hold Option and Command when launching it. Then, turn off "Keep Music Folder Organized" in Music -> Settings -> Files.

Quit Music. Does it still happen?

When you open Music again, re-check the "Keep Music Folder Organized" as I find that it keeps re-enabling itself.

Rusty H
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