Import Apple Music Playlists into Roon - Is Roon's 'iTunes' article wrong? Or am I?

Support
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Read only the bold text below for the shorter executive summary version.

Roon Core Machine

2017 iMac (4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7; 16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4; Ventura 13.4.1 22F770820d)

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Physically I’m in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Fiber into house: initial router from Telmex (phone company) is Huawei EchoLife HG8245H
Ethernet into Asus RT-AC56R router with ExpressVPN firmware in it. (ExpVPN server set to Dallas, TX)
Ethernet to TP-Link Deco X20 Mesh WiFi network (3 of these to cover my house)
I can easily run Ethernet from my iMac (or its nearby 100M Ethernet switch) if needed, but for now it’s on the Wifi Mesh Deco network.

Connected Audio Devices

In order of use, most common first:

  1. iMac analog headphone port to Genelec loudspeakers (or to in-ear monitor DSP processor/headphone amp’s Beyerdynamic DT 770 headphones)
  2. USB to Sennheiser HDVD 800 to HD 800 headphones
  3. iMac’s ‘local file’ Apple Music library (physically on an external USB hard drive) simultaneously to both the iMac headphone jack to Genelecs and Airplay to four AirPod Minis (two as a stereo pair, two as mono).
  4. Ethernet from iMac to Linksys switch, to Denon AVR-X3500H & Ethernet to Oppo BDP-105D to M&K 5.1 loudspeakers (I don’t use these often - mostly with my JRiver Media Center, 3,000 file surround & high rez library. But I do use this set up for the critical outdoor pool movie night with neighbors and different networking setup - but that’s another use case and perhaps future post.)
    5 - AirPlay from my iMac Apple Music library to combinations of my three Apple TVs (sometimes I push to them, other times I pull from them).

Number of Tracks in Library

80,421 audio tracks (all on external USB drive)

Description of Issue

I have been trying to import my Apple Music Playlists. But this article:

suggests Exporting your LIBRARY to an XML (File>Library>Export Library) NOT exporting Playlists. At first I thought the library would (of course) contain all the playlists; yet, Roon isn’t importing any playlists when I follow the article’s procedures carefully.

[Obviously, our collective pals at Apple have perhaps altered their software’s behavior - as if it’s their full time job! This causes us all headaches. More music would help us, I think.]

I followed the Roon procedure (many times), but no Playlists ever appear in Roon. I tried many things - and no go: renaming the file ‘itunes library.xml’, ‘library.xml’; placing it in the subfolder off the music watch folder, toggling the Import Settings in Roon; restarting all the Apps and restarting the computer; rescanning… Nada.

In Apple Music, only after selecting a single Playlist (to view it) then selected File>Library>Export Playlist [Repeat PLAYLIST - not library] and saving the file to the folder Roon watches with one of the above two xml filenames, was Roon able to import a single Apple Music playlist.

The trouble is, I have hundreds of playlists and I’d like to not repeat the above for each one. I’m obviously doing something wrong. The article does not seem to be correct. I have repeated the article’s steps: Library (not playlist) export at least a dozen times. No playlists appear in Roon.

Can anyone clarify? Do I really need to export each and every playlist, one at a time?

I am using Apple Music for MacOS version 1.3.5.8

Help me Obiwan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.

Thanks in advance!

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Shhh! Listen to them… …the crickets… :laughing:

1 Like
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OK. With no replies besides the crickets and frog calls, I’ll accept the reality that the only way to get Apple Music Playlists into Roon is one at a time. Namely, Select a playlist in Apple Music, Export the Playlist (NOT export library) and this single playlist can be imported into Roon. Repeat for all playlists. Oy.

New question (I know, I should start a new thread): Is there a concept of Playlist folders?? And subfolders? <I’ll search around too>

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Support is somewhat behind on responding to requests so you might need some more patience…

Unfortunately I have no experience importing playlists. But I do have one question: do you have purchased (or imported) music on Apple Music? Or at all tracks from an Apple Music subscription. Although the latter would allow a local download to Apple Music, I believe it is not accessible for Roon. The same is true if you have downloaded an atmos or hi-res version of AAC tracks you might have purchased.

As for you question on playlist folders: there is no support for this in Roon at this time. There is a feature suggestion for this:

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Hi SvenM,

Thanks for the reply! I’ll show more patience. Sorry about that. No harm or ill-will intended, ever.

All of my music is imported from my own CDs (local files). I have only, say, 100 purchased files that are not a concern for me, and I don’t stream files (via Apple Music or whatever). At least no streaming yet (I’m working on getting Roon ARC going - private streaming is in my near future). I may re-join Tidal for streaming since Roon’s integration with it looks great!

For now, I am only interested in stereo tracks. (I have a large surround file library in JRiver).

I’ll import the playlists one at a time.

Thanks again. Have a great day (or evening)! :+1: :v:

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