Author Topic: Migrate Itunes dates/plays to Music Bee?  (Read 1953 times)

bruhuff

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 29
I'm a newcomer to Music Bee from the now-abandoned iTunes camp and am very pleased with functionality, and have tweaked my Album/Artist tab to look darn close to my itunes.  The only "pain point" to moving to Music Bee is to preserve (hopefully all) of the Date Added, Date Modified, Last Date Played, and Number of Plays that exist in the current iTunes itl and track files.  

This would be a "standalone" event, as part of any ex-iTuner that is moving to Music Bee.  After scanning the entire iTunes library into Music Bee, the user should be able to specify which field(s) in Music Bee should be updated, and from which location itunes itl/music file directory is to be used (assuming there is a consolidated library).  There would be no selectivity in the update (there could be such as a syncing function, but that is a different scenario).  Updating would only be from iTunes to Music Bee.

As iTunes for Windows dies a slow death, this would be a god-send for the growing population of "orphans" who want to protect the history of their tracks.  I have 350K+ tracks, with dates going back as far as 2008, and don't want to lose this chronology.

Not sure if this is an add-on, or in what form this function could be invoked, but certainly am interested in any ideas!

I've Posted a link below that visually shows the movement of data.


https://imgur.com/AbnnUt6

psychoadept

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10691
If you can still export an iTunes xml file, that should do the trick. Or if you can get the data exported from iTunes in any text format, the Additional Tagging & Reporting Tools plugin ought to be able to import it for you. But I suggest making backups of everything before trying any big operations.

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=21917.0
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

bruhuff

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 29
Thanks for the reply Psychoadept.  I am not a technical person (parsing, coding, etc), but the post you sent me had an option that I could use to start making progress.  File>Library>Import>Import from Itunes in its current state took care of the following:

Rating and Track moved over as expected.

Not only did Count move, but the Date Last Played was updated as well which is one of the what of the new fields requested.  Suggest that "Date Last Played" be added to the top text line of the dialog/instruction dialog box (containing Track, rating and Count), to set total expectations.

My requested Date Modified was untouched by the updating of the MBL file, so effectively the Itunes modified date was untouched which is the desired result.

The only remaining non-fulfilled wish is that the original iTunes Added Date can overwrite the values in the corresponding MBL/Track file(s).  If there is a separate Date Added field in the MBL file that is used for listing purposes, this might be possible programatically.  If the Music Bee Date Added field is the one in the Music/Track file, this might not be possible, as this may be a system function that cannot be over-ridden (as well as maybe treating this as a Modification and changing that corresponding Modified Date as well).  Hopefully this is clear.  Any possibility on this remaining field/behavior?  Again, I know my limitations, so scripting/parsing etc. is not in my toolbag :(

Thanks for your help!  Making progress....

fyi --  I had difficulty getting the Import function to work until I named a copy of the xml file I was using to "Itunes Music Library.xml".  Any other file name would not work and should be stated, or have the program show *all* xml files in the directory and allow any named xml file to be selected/used .....

psychoadept

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10691
Glad that worked for you!

Date added is editable in MusicBee (look at the properties tab of the tag editor), so I suggest seeing if you can get it out of itunes in text form. Maybe if you exported your library as a text-based playlist? Then you could use s program like Excel to get rid of unneeded columns.

You'll have to be careful about having everything in the same order but that should let you use the additional tagging & reporting tools plugin to copy it into your files. Test with individual files first, then I suggest working in batches to make sure the source and target data is what you expect.
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

bruhuff

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 29
I had a friend help with the Date Added field/mapping and the test case looks good, so I've have what I needed.  It's truly a versatile product with really good performance.  Many iTunes folks should move over.  Honestly, I suggest you have a well-publicized tutorial on your main Music Bee site that directs iTune Migrators in how to get into the Music Bee world. 

Again, thanks for all the help!  Cheers