Can't import iTunes playlist

Mac Mini (mid 2011) OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 2.3 GHz Intel Core 1.5 8 GB Memory – l just downloaded Room last week Machine

I am running iTunes 12.6.2.20

I have a PS audio Direct Stream DAC connected

I can’t get room to import my iTunes playlist - please note that I have a 5 terabyte external hard drive connected to my mac mini where i store all my music files. When i go to iTunes preferences -advanced it identifies my its media folder location as “/Volumes/Music Files” Also note that the name of my hard drive is “Music Files” I wanted to to try to put the xml file in that folder but I can’t seem to locate the “volumes/Music Files” folder on my computer.

Also I have a question, assuming that I can get my iTunes playlists imported, many of my playlists have folders and subfolders within them. For example- Beethoven - Symphonies - Symphony No 9 - Furtwangler Will Roon preserve the folder/subfolder structure of my playlists?? or will it just give me all the files within the Top folder? ?

Here is an example of how the location for particular files is identified on iTunes:

/Volumes/Music Files/Claudio Abbado_ London Symphony Orchestra/Mendelssohn_ 5 Symphonies, 7 Overtures [Disc 1]/1-07 Mendelssohn_ The Hebrides Overture, Op.26, Fingal’s Cave.m4a

Hi Jack,

Did you get this sorted?

If not, could you post a screenshot of your Settings > Storage tab?

Volumes indicates that it’s your external hard drive. So, Volumes/Music Files is your Music Files drive.

In Roon, you should have storage location that shows: Your Computer Name > Music Files.

I’ve done some testing on my Mac Mini. I have a similar setup to you, however I don’t use iTunes (but I have it). I moved the iTunes Music Library.xml file to my external drive and it worked, but the next time I opened iTunes, it created a new one in the old location.

Also, for your other question, Roon will include sub folders, not just the top tier folder.

I’ll have to tag @support for some assistance with this.

Cheers, Greg

Thank you for your response. I was able to import the playlist by copying and then pasting the entire iTunes file into my hard drive. Unfortunately, it not only imported my playlist, which is very long and has an extensive folder/subfolder structure, but it also created/imported a bunch of other “playlists” that are not among my iTunes playlists and that seem to be related to how the files were stored on the folders on my hard drive. Also, it did NOT preserve the folder/subfolder structure of my playlist, at least not in the sense that is important to me. It displays each folder and subfolder separately and shows every file in each folder and subfolder. So, for example, the “Beethoven” folder does not show the subfolders under it, for example, “Symphonies”. It shows every file that is in the “Symphonies” subfolders and also every file in any of the other subfolders.

So basically the playlist, as it is, is useless to me. I need to be able browse it by going through the folder/subfolder structure. Can this be done? Also, can I get rid of all the other weird “playlists” that it generated?

Since I made my first post I have been reading various topics here. I see that issues regarding “folders” seems to be hot topics. I am only semi-computer literate, if that, and I really don’t understand all the issues. I don’t have a bone to pick here, as I am on a free trial. Whatever Room does or doesn’t do is fine with me. But if I can’t solve the issues above, Roon really isn’t for me. I don’t care about artwork, metadata etc etc I have a huge library that I want to be able to browse and navigate quickly. So please let me know if this can be done. Thanks

Hi @Jack_Cobetto,

Can I please ask you to share a few screenshots of the “other” playlists that show up that are not part of your iTunes playlists, and the expected iTunes playlists? You can share screenshots on this community site by using these instructions.

Roon does not support folder browsing in the typical sense, but there are some tools which may be of use for this case. You can use Roon’s Focus feature to sort files that have already been added to your library by path like so:

Thanks, but I have a huge playlist of classical music that I have developed over many years in iTunes. I really need to be able to browse by folders. Roon is not what I am looking for at this time. Thanks for the response.

Hi @Jack_Cobetto,

One of the big reasons we started Roon was because we were sick of music applications that present our precious music collections as spreadsheets of text. If you’re a music fan like us, you remember the joy you felt not just listening to the music you added to your collection, but also the joy of reading the liner notes, seeing who wrote your favorite cuts and who played guitar on them, and exploring your collection for under-appreciated albums you bought years ago and forgot about.

This is the experience we tried to recreate with Roon. An experience that does more than just playing to your speakers, but one that makes your music collection come alive as you browse it. One of the ways we do that is by going out and licensing lots of data, that tells us exactly when that track was recorded, who played bass, and who else covered it. The metadata is handled by our cloud servers, and updated in your collection automatically.

We understand that some potential customers want a list of files, but at the end of the day that’s not something we’re interested in doing for the reasons above. We’ve created loads of other features to help you quickly navigate your collection – You can filter through your collection just by typing in the album browser, you can use Tags, Focus, and Bookmarks to navigate quickly as well. All that said, we also have a way for you to find file paths in Roon. Just open the Tracks browser, enable the Path column, and filter.

If you wish to give Roon another chance while on trial you may be pleasantly surprised as to how it is an improvement in the way you typically navigate your collection, and once you learn to use these methods of navigation you may consider going back to folder-style browsing a thing of the past.

Noris,

Thanks for your response. I appreciate what Roon is doing, which I understand is really quite impressive. But I have an enormously complex iTunes playlist that I have developed over many years. Because iTunes allowed me to create folders, subfolders and playlists the way I wanted, and best suited to how I thought of my music, and wanted to listen to music, search for performances and browse my collection, it was perfect for me – clearly not best for others, but perfect for me. Maybe I could spend a years trying to find a way to do something similar, with tags, etc, in Roon, but I have no interest in doing that.

Again, I do like what Roon does do and I would certainly keep it, indeed buy a lifetime membership, if it were only able to also give me back a playlist that I carefully developed over more than 10 years. I decided to do the free trial because Roon advertised that it was able to “import iTunes playlists”. Indeed, in Greg Stratton’s first email to me, he seemed to me, and this was my mistake, to be saying in response to my question that I could use Roon to browse by folder and subfolder as in iTunes. I did not understand what he actually said really entailed. I was very disappointed to read/learn that while I could “import my playlist,” in a sense, I could not do so in way that would enable me to use the playlist in the way I wanted when created it.

Regardless of the reasons for not allowing browsing by folders etc, I think it is misleading to people like me for Roon to advertise, without further explanation or qualification, that an iTunes playlist can be imported into Roon. While I now see that that may be technically true, I suspect that many iTunes users will misinterpret that in the same way I did. It may be obvious to many or most the people interested in Roon, but it will not be obvious to people like me, a 63 year old long time iTunes user who is semi-computer literate at best. It doesn’t matter to me because I am on a free trial. But if I had purchased a year’s subscription, or worse - a lifetime membership, before I understood this, I would be very upset about Roon’s advertising on this point.

In any event, I read that Roon has already “made its decision” on this issue, so maybe it is pointless for me for to say the following. But I will anyway. I know nothing about the technical issues. But I must say that given how impressive and advanced Roon is, it would seem to be a very simple task to add a feature that would simply allow a user to browse the iTunes playlists in the same way they did in iTunes. That information must be on the XML file is some form. If it is not an easy thing to do, then I fully understand why Roon would take the approach it has and would have no issue with Roon for doing so - save for my criticism about the advertising above.

But if it is an easy thing to do, it is my opinion that Roon is making a mistake by not adding such a feature. I read some comments on the message board that attacked some posters who wanted to browse by folder as old fashioned and unwilling to see there is a better way. I hope that is not Roon’s view. Refusing to incorporate a feature that would be easy to incorporate because there is a “better way” would be a mistake because ”the customer is always right.” If Roon enabled me to import my playlist and browse it by folders and subfolder as I can I iTunes, you would have had my check for $500. It is a great, really impressive product. But for the reasons I stated above, just not what I want.

But thanks for taking the time to respond. I appreciate it.

Hi @Jack_Cobetto,

Thank you for your feedback here, it is appreciated. The reason we chose not to implement folder browsing is not due to technical constraints, but rather philosophical constraints, as our CTO mentioned here:

I understand that this limitation is the deciding factor for you, but this decision has been one of our core beliefs since the start of Roon, and it is very unlikely to change at this point in time.

Thank you again for the feedback and if you would like to revisit Roon again at any time in the future do feel free to let us know. I wish you a pleasant day!

Hello Noris,

Thanks for that.excerpt/quote regarding file management. But I confess I don’t really understand at all what it means to say - “This is against the philosophical purpose of the product and the presence of this feature creates rigidity that will be harmful as we evolve the product.”

I’m sure it was not intended, but to someone with my limited technical knowledge, this excerpt sounds like someone trying to avoid explaining something rather than to trying provide a clear explanation. Exactly what would be the “harmful rigidity” and how would adversely effect the development of the product? It sure sounds like a technical issue.

If it isn’t and it would be easy technically to provide such a feature and it would not technically impact future software developments, then I don’t see why you wouldn’t do it, unless it’s just against Roon’s “philosophy.” But that is Roon’s call of course.

If providing such a feature really would hinder the future development of the product/software and the features Roon is trying to focus on, then I understand and would agree with Roon’s decision not to provide it. Of course, it really doesn’t matter to me because, for whatever the reason, I can’t use a product that does not enable me to use a playlist is tailored precisely to my needs and that it too me 10 years to create.

I don’t mean to be a pest, so don’t feel any need to reply. I am just trying to point out that you are losing some - or at least one (me) - potential customers over this. It’s too bad, as I really do like the features Roon does provide.

One of the primary design goals in Roon is to get away from managing files and folders and instead focus on the music.

We know that some people have put a lot of time into organizing their files on disk, but ultimately it’s a very limited way to organize music – if you have a folder of your favorite Jazz and a folder of your favorite African music, where does Hugh Masekela go? If you’re “tagging” content in Roon he can go in both, but folders are simply rigid and limited.

Moreover, if we implemented a folder browser, people would have every right to demand that it’s fully functional, and can move files, copy files, create folders, somehow display TIDAL and Qobuz content in a reasonable way, and also properly handle anything else we do in the future, whether that’s mobile “on the go” solutions or whatever.

The point is, how much of our bandwidth going forward ends up devoted to a feature that actively works against the goals of the product, and encourages people to continue managing files on disc, instead of thinking in terms of music – artists, albums, tracks, composers, and compositions.

So we’ve chosen to be clear that is not a direction we intend to take the product, and you’re right – we absolutely lose sales by sticking to our guns here. It’s still the right decision for Roon long term.

All of that said, we are working on some changes that we hope will ease the transition of all sorts of organizational methods into Roon. These changes will likely require a bit of leg work on the part of users who wish to migrate their existing organizational systems into Roon, but the goal is to smooth that transition without negatively impacting the product in an irreversible way.

Hopefully you’re open to new ways of organizing your music but in any event, we really do appreciate the feedback here.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this in more detail. I do not feel “limited” in the least by my current playlist. Moreover I certainly DO think “in terms of music – artists, albums, tracks, composers, and compositions.” I have been listening to and collecting recordings - mostly classical - for 40 years. That is precisely how I have created my playlist - over a 10 year period. It was a wonderful feature of iTunes that it allowed me to do this. If I want to create a new folder, subfolder, playlist I can easily do it. In fact I do it all the time.

I don’t even understand why you would seem to imply that I am not thinking in these terms. Indeed, It is a little offensive for you to suggest that I need to be “open” to changes that YOU think are for the better. I created my playlist for MY needs and based on how I like to categorize my recordings. I am simply not interested in doing “a lot of leg work” to redo what it has taken me 10 years to create and that I continue to add to.

“We know that some people have put a lot of time into organizing their files on disk, but ultimately it’s a very limited way to organize music – if you have a folder of your favorite Jazz and a folder of your favorite African music, where does Hugh Masekela go? If you’re “tagging” content in Roon he can go in both, but folders are simply rigid and limited.”

This is s foolish and really silly remark. It just so happens that I do not organize my music files by what his my “favorite”. But if I did, I could put the same file in numerous folders and playlists within my playlist. In fact the same file appears numerous times in various folders, subfolders and playlists within the master playlist I have created.

You are free to do whatever you like. But you are very close condescending to someone who has a very detailed knowledge of music and how HE likes to conceive and organize it by suggesting that there “is a better way” to do it. You have a great product, I have enjoyed playing with it for a couple of weeks. But it does not do something that I REQUIRE a product to do!

Given the direction you want to go, I do think it would be better if you did not advertise that someone can “import their iTunes playlist” into Room. It is very misleading.

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