Reply To: Let’s talk collections and listening habits!
Interesting that you still refer to “iTunes”. Is it still called that on Windows and is it still developed. As you probably know on Mac it is now just named “Music”. They deoupled a few things that were added like some video or else stuff in recent macOS versions.
‘Custom tags’ was perhaps the wrong word to use. I mean all the changes I’ve done to the album – creating playlists (which are not independent of the album, they are the albums with tracks taken out or in a different order), editing the covers, correcting the track names and so on. All of this is lost, too, when my hard drive crashes. And it’s not information that’s on the external backup either. It must all be added back manually when I re-import.
itunes/Music on Mac at least did/does store that info in a separate library file it must know about. I had to learn on my switch to a Mac Mini and my music is on an external harddrive. Music found all music and all playlists where there. But since I was on an older Mac previously which iTunes and now Music I lost nearly all cover. If they are not in the files itself but just added to the album they got lost. Some I could re-import via a script I bought for a few euros. But many I had to manually re-asign.
On macOS that libraly file is within a folder of the user account on the main harddrive (the equivalent to C on Windows) formerly called “iTunes” containing a file named ike “itunes library” and now “music” with a file called “Music Library”. Maybe there is a equivalent n Windows somewhere, too.
You have to backup that as well and re-transfer that first. Then do not re-import the file by dragging them on the fresh install. Instead use the options to point to the folder wher ethe music is. At least on Mac you choose a central media folder but you can choose if Music/iTunes should manage all and even re-group files by artist/album. Or if you like control about the folder structure disabled that (option called “Automatically manage media folder” or similar). Then Music/itunes will leave files and folder untouched and were they are. You can even import files from outside the main media folder without them being moved or copied there.