Music app only shows an outdated music library after I've retrieved it from backup

Question

I made a clean reinstallation of my Mac a few days ago due to a problem that had been bugging me for a while now. And, among other things, I tried to retrieve my music library from my backup via Time Machine back to the music app. It was the folder „iTunes“.

To get all the settings back I’ve opened the file “iTunes Library.itl“. But unfortunately, it seems to be completely outdated (it’s from late 2019!) which also shows in the music app. There are only songs and playlists listed up to that date, even though the songs in the iTunes Media folder (or to be more specific, in username/music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music) are all up to date. I suspect that this happened because of the outdated .itl-file.

How can I get back the settings I’ve had a few days back with all my playlists and songs?

Answer 1

Thanks to Apple Support I was able to solve it. If you haven't saved your music library in iCloud, you need to retrieve the iTunes folder from your backup (or generally the one where all your songs are saved) and another folder in the same directory, Music, which should contain a single file, Music Library, that's up to date.

Close the Music app (if it was open) and reopen it while pressing the option key (alt). Navigate to the above-mentioned file Music Library and you've got your latest library back.