MusicLibrarian Quick Start Guide

The app automatically scans your Apple Music library. The Dashboard shows your total tracks, ratings distribution, and a quick health overview. Take a moment to see the big picture before diving in.

• Unavailable — Track removed from Apple Music. Can't play anymore.
• DRM Protected — Old protected AAC files from the iTunes Store era.
• Wrong Metadata — Shazam detected a different song than what the tags say.

• Matched Degraded — Apple matched your track to a 256kbps AAC version.
• Not Downloadable — Track lost download eligibility.

• Corrupted Metadata — Duration = 0 or suspiciously small file.
• Uploaded in Catalog — You uploaded a file that exists in Apple Music's catalog.
• Apple Music Not Lossless — Downloaded in AAC when lossless is available.

The scan runs through your entire library and calculates a health score (0-100). Filter by severity to focus on the worst issues first.

MusicLibrarian searches the Apple Music catalog for replacement tracks. You'll see a progress bar with Found / Not Found counts.

For each fixable track: the app adds the catalog version, transfers your rating, and removes the broken track. This can take a while for large libraries — let it run.

• Exact — Identical metadata (title, artist, album, duration)
• Probable — Very similar, minor differences
• Similar — Close match, worth reviewing
• Quality Variant — Same track, different bitrate/format

Choose "All Library" or a specific playlist. Optionally check "Local Only" to exclude streaming-only tracks. The scanner groups tracks by normalized title + artist.

This uses audio fingerprinting to confirm whether tracks are truly identical recordings. Tracks with matching ISRC codes are real duplicates. This step is optional but recommended for accuracy.

Click a group to see the comparison table: bitrate, file size, format, rating. Click "Keep Best" to auto-select the highest quality version, or manually mark your keeper with the checkmark icon.

If the track you're deleting has a rating, transfer it to the keeper first using the transfer button. Then click "Delete Flagged Tracks" to remove all non-keepers in batch.

Finds all Apple Music tracks still in compressed AAC format that have lossless versions available.

Use the dropdown to focus on a specific playlist if you don't want to upgrade everything at once.

MusicLibrarian removes the local AAC download. Apple Music automatically re-downloads in lossless (ALAC) format. Make sure lossless is enabled in Music > Settings > Playback.

Detects albums with missing artwork, very low quality (<300px), low quality (<600px), or generic compilation covers.

Searches the Apple Music catalog for high-resolution artwork for each album.

Downloads and applies HD artwork to all matched albums in one click.

Detects three types of issues: non-Latin characters (e.g., Chinese/Arabic titles), misspelled artist names, and garbled/corrupted text.

Cross-references each issue with the Apple Music catalog to find the correct metadata.

Updates track metadata with verified corrections.

Apple Music gives every track on an album the same rating when you rate just a few tracks. These "gray" ratings pollute your smart playlists. MusicLibrarian finds them all.

Resets all inherited (gray) ratings to unrated. Your personal (red) ratings are preserved.