Adding an iTunes Library in 2020

Server Version#: 1.16.5.1552
Player Version#:

Hi all,

I do have Plex running on my Synology NAS. My iTunes library is as well located on this NAS because SONOS accesses it perfectly from there.

Everything I found on the Internet regarding importing from iTunes seems to refer to former versions of Plex. The official FAQ page refers to “channels” - something that I can’t find on my settingins page. Instead there is an iTunes Plugin under “Plugins” which I activated along with the XML path. Still I had to Import the library by providing the path to the iTunes Media Folder. There was no option in that Import process to make this an “iTunes Import”.

I restarted my NAS and stopped/restarted Plex with no difference (or do I have to restart Plex in a specific way??)

Plex was able to Import all my Music but it’s my Playlists that I’m desperatly missing…

Thanks! Gregor

2 Likes

Got a similar issue and also hoping for some help.

I need to get my playlists across (just a one way transfer). I can export them from iTunes as .m3u but then I don’t know how to import that to Plex.

I did find something called Soundiiz that looks like it can take an .m3u and send it to Plex. But when I tried it, there were so many errors that it wasn’t worth it… I’m going to give it another go, pay for the Premium subscription, and see how it goes.

In the meantime, if you have found a way, please let me know.

plex itunes support is primarily for when you have both itunes and plex server on the same computer.

you can try to copy the itunes.xml file (the one that is your itunes library) to your nas, then put the applicable path into the plex server settings, and see if you can import it then.

unfortunately, there just has not been much work or information provided about itunes support in a long time.

here is an old support article

Well, that’s an old article just as you said. At least in my Settings I can’t find “channels” anymore.

And iTunes is actually located on my nas - including the active XML file. I provided a path below that iTunes plugin setting. As I mentioned earlier - didn’t make a difference.

“Channels” are gone. Plug-ins were removed in 2018.

Specifically, streaming plug-ins are gone.
There are some metadata retrieval plug-ins which might work in addition to those metadata retrieval ones Plex provides.

Ref: https://www.plex.tv/blog/subtitles-and-sunsets-big-improvements-little-housekeeping/?_ga=2.75833621.1406158227.1578109879-2061669170.1578109879

And is there anything in the Pipeline now for iTunes users??

1 Like

It sure would be nice if Plex developers would respond to this.

1 Like

From the Linux perspective? No. Never was supported.
It only worked on Windows hosts.

It worked ONLY because

  1. The iTunes pathnames matched the PMS pathnames on the SAME host.
  2. iTunes only runs on Windows
  3. There is no mapping from Windows -> Linux without jumping through serious hoops.

Apparently you should be able to import playlists and music over to Plex from iTunes. The music part works fine but not playlists at this time Imported iTunes playlists are not showing in UI.

To augment the above, I have verified only Simple playlists are imported. “Smart Playlists” are not imported.

to get my play history into plex a few years ago, I followed the convoluted path of

mediamonkey > exported to itunes xml > manually fix paths > import into plex (on linux).

smart playlist have never imported from itunes to plex.

Hi, can you explain how to do this? I have downloaded Plex on my Mac which is where my iTunes music library is. This is all so I can play my iTunes Music on my Sonos Connect. Thanks.

Hi @mattwjj,
Funny enough this my ultimate goal as well (except with server on FreeBSD or FreeNAS).

Please have a look at my linked post, Imported iTunes playlists are not showing in UI.

Firstly, note carefully where iTunes is storing it’s media files especially in the iTunes XML file.
A file stored in /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/username/Music/iTunes/ is not the same as a file stored in /Users/username/Music/iTunes/.

Then, make sure your Plex Music library location exactly matches this path otherwise the files will not be found.

After creating a manual playlist you should be able to do an import of iTunes playlists. This brings over play counts and ratings as well.

1 Like

Hi @terfex, this is slightly off-topic but you seem to know more about this than most of us so I wanted to ask you if you know of a way of exporting iTunes playlists and other information (ratings, the date the music was added, play and skip counts etc) to a Plex server that is not running on a Mac. Specifically, I would love to get all of this information on the Plex Server on my NVIDIA Shield. Thanks!

Hi all! I’d like to ask, if I only have the mp3 files from my itunes, will I st have a way to get Plex to recognize the files or am I in trouble? I placed it into the music library, but plex does not recognize it. Anyone can help me with it? Thanks!

Thanks @Trumpy81! If I placed a copy of itunes again into my machine and maybe import it from there, would that make sense, because organizing 40k worth of music would take ages. Thanks!

Hi Trumpy81! Thanks again for the assistance. My PMSis currently being run from a windows machine. I’m actually feeling my way through so I have all my media files ready once I get the synology NAS. Thus the many things I’m trying to figure out on PMS setup and building

I do not actually run iTunes on my Synology NAS. It’s just where iTunes stores all my media files. This is how I configured it years ago (And this works just fine with Sonos). But I can’t influence the way iTunes organizes that library. PMS finds all files, artwork, metadata… It just doesn’t find the Playlists. It dosn’t make a difference if I tick the “Import from iTunes” Checkbox.

Ok. Thanks @trumpy81! I just realized I have to do a clean up on the files anyways. A tedious work for sure.

One other thing I dont quite get as well is the plug-in for itunes. It only has a enable check mark and a XML path input area. I’m wondering what exactly does it do or help with? Thanks!

Itunes program no, but DSM can handle Itunes Server package. and in this one you can add or create a list. This package is deffinitly not used by plex directly but in another point of aproach you can activate Plex to find other Dlna server and use the DSM Dlna server (another DSM package) with again list fonctionnalities. Maybe this will help