Music Library Management/Player

[TightLines]

What has everyone found to be the best overall iTunes replacement? Apple can take their music app and streaming service and sell it to who ever is buying, but I am looking to find a replacement for what they have abandoned… I have a library that i need to manage and would like to continue to grow and utilize as i once did with iTunes… what software is best for that in the home use , and it’s ability to sync with the portable devices, such as iPhone/iPad?

What are people using now that iTunes has gone away?

Surely i am not the only one who is looking for similar solution?

 

[jackoverfull]

Still using iTunes. Following…

 

[TightLines]

Still using iTunes. Following…

How? It’s not supported or installable any longer is it?

 

[Mr.Blacky]

I fail to see, what's so vastly different between iTunes and Music? They seem about the same for organizing music.

 

[TightLines]

I fail to see, what's so vastly different between iTunes and Music? They seem about the same for organizing music.

How is Apple Music different than iTunes?

iTunes is a free app to manage your music library, music video playback, music purchases and device syncing. Apple Music is an ad-free music streaming subscription service that costs $10 per month. It doesn’t function or operate like iTunes did either… Apple Music is just to convoluted by getting all the streaming things in your face all the time. There are a number of other features iTunes had that go away too… like the music visualization, etc…

If this sounds confusing, let's use movies as an example. When you buy a movie from iTunes, you pay a one-time fee and are granted a license to download the film. This resembles the traditional business of buying a movie. Now, if you pay for a Netflix subscription, you pay for access to watch movies but you are not paying to own any single film. If one day Netflix decides to remove a film from their catalog, you do not have any way of reclaiming it because you do not own the license. This is pretty much the same for music.

 

[Mr.Blacky]

How is Apple Music different than iTunes?

iTunes is a free app to manage your music library, music video playback, music purchases and device syncing. Apple Music is an ad-free music streaming subscription service that costs $10 per month. It doesn’t function or operate like iTunes did either… Apple Music is just to convoluted by getting all the streaming things in your face all the time. There are a number of other features iTunes had that go away too… like the music visualization, etc…

If this sounds confusing, let's use movies as an example. When you buy a movie from iTunes, you pay a one-time fee and are granted a license to download the film. This resembles the traditional business of buying a movie. Now, if you pay for a Netflix subscription, you pay for access to watch movies but you are not paying to own any single film. If one day Netflix decides to remove a film from their catalog, you do not have any way of reclaiming it because you do not own the license. This is pretty much the same for music.

Why are talking about Apple Music all of a sudden, if I was clearly talking about the Music app? So what important features for music management do you miss, which are not in the Music app?

 

[iAssimilated]

What are people using now that iTunes has gone away?

Up until recently I was using iTunes in Big Sur, but I needed to move to Music to get my classic 6th gen iPod to sync music correctly. So far, I find Music and iTunes to be pretty similar, although Music is a bit laggy when navigating the iTunes store.

How? It’s not supported or installable any longer is it?

If using Catalina or Big Sur: https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive

How is Apple Music different than iTunes?

Uncheck "Apple Music" in Preferences to remove the streaming stuff:

 

[jackoverfull]

How? It’s not supported or installable any longer is it?

I’m still on Mojave on my main mac. I’ve seen it is possible to install it on more recent systems unofficially, in any case.

I have a quick look around on the music app on my Catalina mac and it didn’t seem that different for what I need…only things I’ve noticed is that the Info window is now really awkward to use (not terrible but not really good either) and that when you copy files over to a device (function now moved to the finder) there is no progress bar or status indicator of any sort, which for big files suck.

 

[lcubed]

it's not free, but i occasionally use Imazing to manage stuff on my various IOS devices

 

[Jack Neill]

On any Intel Mac I use Retroactive and iTunes 12.9 as others have mentioned, since 12.9 won't install on M1 I use the dreaded Music app, but I also just found Strawberry is a semi nice replacement.