As probably most of you already know it, at least by name, Plex is a very powerful solution for multimedia library management (movies, tv shows, documentaries, pictures but also radio, live TV, DVR,etc…). If you are not aware of it, we are official Plex Pro Installer, so we are in best position to offer you best advices for setup and configuration of Plex solutions, according to your needs and budget.
During migration or first install of a Plex server for a customer, a problem is pretty common:: import music tracks and playlists from customer iTunes. Some customers use that software to handle their music library and so wish to be able to use them in Plex. The explanations below will apply both at iTunes on Windows and on Mac and whatever platform is used for Plex server (if there are some differences they’ll be listed).
Here are the differents steps to follow:
- Start iTunes program on customer computer. Once started, right click on any music track in the library and select to display Properties. Properties popup will show up that indicates among lot of other things where file is stored in the system (should be something like that: userlogin/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Artist/Album/Track). Important point here is what is in bold, write it down somewhere.
- You have to close now all iTunes windows/processes on the computer before continuing with next step.
- You can now copy the whole content of the Music folder (found at first step) to your Plex Music Folder (don’t modify the three of folders/files into it or you’ll prevent the proper import of playlists).
- You can now take a coffee while folders/files are copied and while Plex indexes all the new files.
- Now you are going to duplicate the “iTunes Music Library.xml” that is in the iTunes folder. Careful: it’s mandatory to do a copy of it before editing it or you are going to destroy iTunes library of your customer….
- Once duplicated you can now edit the duplicate file with pure text editor or XML editor MANDATORY !! A very good open-source text editor avalaible on all platforms:Atom.
- You’ll need now to do a find/replace of all paths to music files (that are the paths on the customer computer) and replace it with the new filepath (once copied on the Plex server !
- Once all modifications done in the XML file, you copy it somewhere on your Plex server (place doesn’t care much so long it’s reachable by the Plex server, as we won’t keep the file once import has completed !).
- You can now go in Settings of Plex server: Settings -> Server -> Channels. You activate now Advanced mode, you tick the iTunes channel and you feel the path to the modified XML file you stored at previous step on the server.
- Once completed, you go in Playlist Library of Plex, and a little clic on the wheel at top right will give you access at iTunes import.
- If you need to restart the import of the same Playlists, you can select the option to overwrite, in other case, you just click ok.
- Import is then going to start and take a time that can fluctuate a lot (depends of size of iTunes library and playlists). Once finished, your playlists will show up in Plex.
- You can now delete the xml file you copied on the Plex server.
Feel free to use comments if you have any questions or ideas about the process 😉
Recent Comments