Similar problems to @geedubyapee but not quite the same. I was happy using Itunes (I know – I’m an amateur). Then Apple decided to do me over – crash Itunes saying it needed updating, but would not let me (because Windows 11) and made me update to 3 new apps (music, Tv, sync). which are rubbish.
The music app is set up for Apple Music streaming, which I dont want to do – I want to play my extensive library of downloaded MP3s and FLACs. I liked being able to have playcounts, and a list of files not a mosaic, so I could sort by bit rate/play count/ etc. etc.
This new impossibly slow app deliberately pushes you towards streaming. I just dont want to.
Does anyone on the massive have recommendations for a piece of software that would let me do what I could do on Itunes (and ideally retrieve my carefully curated playlists)?
Just been through this. I’m using Media Monkey. Haven’t quite been able to face trying to get the iPod to co-operate yet though.
You’re probably better off dumping itunes altogether, if you’re using Win 11 you’ll be much better served with Windows Media Player. I know it doesn’t get a lot of love but it’s a good tool, far better for library management than either Media Monkey or VLC. Having said that, the version that ships with Win 11 is pants and it would be a good idea to get WMP Legacy from the Microsoft store instead.
I would agree but I wanted the iPod integration which you get with MM. Mind you, my new car I just stuck it all on a memory stick and play it from there. No playlists etc but WTF.
Unfortunately in the Apple ecosystem you play their way or you don’t play, which is why I’m steadily getting off their kit.
I feel your pain. I said goodbye to iTunes about two years ago. I decided to do a complete rebuild of my digital files so cleaned up and deduped all the files and folders before uploading into musicbee. Playcounts, smart playlists etc musicbee does pretty much everything iTunes did and doesn’t try and sell you anything.
I escaped iTunes hell several years ago – these days I use Media Monkey instead – but I only ever used these things for Podcasts anyway.
I keep a VM with iTunes installed so that I can savagely delete the thing over and over again whenever I feel the irrational, visceral hate I had for it beginning to surge again.
A long-time user of MediaMonkey here, though being completely uninterested in video collecting, I’ve stuck with v3.2.5 which is audio-only and works fine with Windows 11 so far.
I paid for the Lifetime Gold version years ago which gives, as suggested by the name, free updates to any new versions for life. Current latest version is v5.0.5.
Personally, I like the v3 interface better than the newer versions, purely on a cosmetic level, and it does all that I require it to without any problems.
OTOH, I have not got on well with MM’s Android app. Tried it for a while then ditched it for Musicolet. But I very rarely (almost never) play music on my phone these days.
I had a look at Musicbee a few years back and it seems very good indeed. Very similar high level of functionality to MM. If for some reason I became unhappy with MM, then that’s probably where I would go.
I’m a Musicolet guy on the phone which transfers to the car via Android Auto now. This is rather handy and I might add more music to my phone. I’d need a much bigger SD card though. I wonder if there’s a PC app for Musicolet?
I mainly use Plex (and Plexamp) these days, it can also make your music collection accessible worldwide as long as you have an internet connection
I went through exactly this hell a few months back when I stupidly decided that I might as well replace iTunes on my PC with the new Apple Music app. What could go wrong (I should have asked myself)?
Pretty much everything! The main issue is that something Apple don’t tell you is that you effectively can’t use the Apple Music app if all you want to do is manage your own music library, held locally (mine is on a Synology NAS).The app really doesn’t work without a £10 a month subscription and will then try to mix your library with the online Apple Music with all sorts of random and negative consequences. I even paid for a month’s sub to see if it then worked better – it didn’t (and Apple did, in fairness, refund that fee). After much back and forth with Apple support, these restrictions finally came to light only to then be told that now I’d “upgraded” from iTunes, there was no going back as there was no route to reinstalling an iTunes version that would work the work it had just a week before. Reinstalling iTunes would only give access to Podcasts and not a local library, they said, and initially this looked to be correct.
Although Apple support insisted that this was the case, it turned out not to be true and after a few hours of deleting various files on my (Windows) PC I got back to iTunes 12.13.4.4 as this is the last version, I believe, that supports the local library.
Having gone through all this, I then discovered that re-importing my library had left hundreds, if not thousands, of dead file links in iTunes i.e. the files were listed in iTunes but it had forgotten where the actual files were. Sorting this out then took hours more work – just identifying what tracks had broken links was a nightmare with around 50k tracks. To be honest, I’m not 100% convinced even now that absolutely every link is re-established.
The problem with moving away from iTunes for me is that I use the iPhone Apple Music app (without a subscription) to sync with iTunes and hold my library on my iPhone. I’ve tried alternatives but haven’t been able to find software that will manage my library but also manage to transfer that library to my phone so that the phone still holds all the tracks actually on the phone. Plexamp looked promising but you can’t store all the music on the phone with it and it doesn’t import iTunes Playlists, of which I have many, so I’d need to recreate them all individually in Plexamp.
I believe Media Monkey can be configured to do what I need but it’s not as simple as syncing between it’s Windows app and an iPhone MM app (which it doesn’t actually have) and I’m nervous about changing things now given how many issues and how much time I’ve had to put into sorting problems with this. The system also needs to allow me to sync the library to my NAS, which is where a full copy is held to stream to devices in my home.
If anyone has a workable solution to get rid of iTunes but still give a path to sync music to an iPhone, I’d love to hear it.
Oh, and it needs to have a CarPlay compatible front end 😊
I’m just as angry but haven’t put in the same effort you have.
Thanks. Confirms my thoughts/feelings.
And now if I do move to streaming it certainly will NOT be Apple music.
Really annoys me that all the curating I did was wasted with no notice leaving me with an inferior service. They could have warned me, or provided a transition process.
(iTunes for audiobooks and podcasts is horlixed too….attributing Iain M Banks the Algebreist to Terry Pratchett for example)
I’ll have a look at Media Monkey.
A lone voice in favour of Apple Music, which I use both as a “Spotify” search and listen engine and the replacement for I-tunes, homing all my extant files, finding it easy to swap between “apple music” and “my library” , dependent upon whether I am looking for something to try out or a favourite of my own. This works equally when I am beaming from phone or laptop to Sonos, or in/to the car. (Given the lack of cd in the newer model.)
If I were on android, for sure Music Magpie would be my preferred, but I’m not, so that option is unavailable.
No longer a lone voice as this is what I do. I have my iTunes library on a hard drive and also backed up with Apple (costs £21 per year). The Music app allows me to use my library or Apple Music or both. It works on my phone, laptop, car, Sonos and tv. The Sonos bit is flaky but that’s the Sonos app needing some work.
I find it allows me to use both my personal library and the streaming service all at once, wherever I am pretty much seamlessly. Happy camper here.
I might need to look again at this but I can’t remember exactly why this wouldn’t work last time, but the whole thing was a disaster.
It’ll come back to me.
The service I have is iTunes Match. It is both a cloud back up which allows you to download your entire library to laptops etc. but also has your library available in the cloud so you can stream (or selectively download) to your phone.
Doesn’t that replace your versions with ones they hold wherever they have them? I realise that in many cases that may not matter but the file quality may not be the same?
When I tried iTunes Match a few years ago, they managed to really mangle one old jazz album, dating from the mid-1950s and issued in mono. The tracks I got back were sourced from grey-market re-issues, with some in electronically reprocessed stereo, whilst others had been dubbed from a badly scratched vinyl copy.
That may be the case. For me, it upgraded many of my lower res files so possibly a swing and a roundabout. I don’t think I have that many difficult to find recordings. And I still have my original files on a hard drive. Its peace of mind and the ability to listen to my library on the fly that I like. It’s not my ultimate back up but, in the event of a fire, it’s likely to be plenty good enough.