Export Playlist To Music App Not Syncing To iCloud Library

Questions
1

I am attempting to share a playlist between two of my Macs. Since DJay does not allow. me to easily export a playlist from one machine to another I am doing the following as the forum search has recommended. Here is my process.

  1. Mixing through one of my playlist
  2. Navigate to the history
  3. Click on the “Export To Music App” option to copy the playlist to my Apple Music Library
  4. It creates a “Current Session” playlist in my Apple Music Library on the local laptop. Great!!
  5. I look at my Music Library on the second laptop (synched to my iCloud Library)
  6. I see the “Current Session” pop up on the second laptop Music Library for 10 seconds
  7. Then it disappears (see attached video)
  8. I have Re-synched the Library several times - but the new playlist on the first laptop “Current Session” will not show up on the second laptop Library.

Why is Apple Music treating the DJay exported playlist “Current Session” differently on the local laptop and not syncing to other laptops. Adding Music and Playlists Manually syncs just fine across laptops.

This seems to be the only way to copy a playlist from one laptop to another based on my search on the forum…but it is not working. It sis very frustrating - as playing through all my playlists to copy the key important playlist over to another laptop is very laborious and even worse when it doesn’t work. Please help.

Thanks
OSX Sonoma 14.7 on Both Laptops
DJay 5.4 on Both Laptops
Macbook Air M2, 16GB 1TB SSD
Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB, 4TB SSD

4

Hi @DJAceMoney, thanks for the details about your setup and the issue. I believe the reason for this is that the Music app is treating the exported djay playlist as a temporary playlist and not a user-created playlist that it should preserve. This explains why it briefly appears then vanishes. I think the Music app treats it as temporary and eventually discards it. Per the Apple Music rules, only playlists you manually create or edit in Music App are treated as primaries for iCloud sync. Third-party-generated playlists often get ignored.

If you’re looking for a flexible way to manage your music in djay, we recommend using the native “My Collection” library source in combination with the My Files library source.

To get started:

  1. In the My Files source , use the “+” icon to select the files or folders you’d like to make available in djay.
  2. Create a playlist within “My Collection” where you’d like these tracks to live.
  3. Drag and drop your selected tracks from the My Files source into your new playlist in “My Collection.”
  • “My Collection” allows you to create custom playlists and folders that automatically index tracks from various sources within djay, including streaming services, djay Music, locally stored files, and files from external devices/locations.
  • A byproduct of this approach is that it lets you work directly with your file sources, bypassing the need to use the Music app altogether. Since djay links to your files rather than importing them, it’s essential to ensure that your file paths remain consistent.
  • It is also important to note that if you add new tracks to a source folder (like an external drive), those files will appear in the My Files source within djay. However, they won’t automatically show up in your custom playlists in “My Collection” as you’ll need to manually drag them into the appropriate playlist to keep everything in sync.
  • If you use this setup and make sure that your local music files are stored in the same file paths on both Macs, then you can simply manually copy your djayMediaLibrary database file from one Mac to the other Mac to copy over all of the playlists you’ve created in the My Collection Source of djay.

Here’s how the process works. First, make sure you close djay on both devices first.

  1. I recommend that you regularly backup your djayMediaLibrary database to an external drive or to iCloud drive. This way if you make a mistake or something happens to your device, you can still recover your database and playlists.
  2. On Mac #1 (with your latest playlists) navigate to ~/Music>djay and copy the djayMediaLibrary file to your iCloud Drive.
  3. On Mac #2 copy the djayMediaLibrary file from your iCloud Drive to the same ~/Music>djay location.
  4. When prompted, choose Replace to overwrite your old database with the new one. It’s important to use the replace option so that the database file name remains exactly the same as this is what djay will be looking for.
  5. Now all of your djay playlists from My Collection on Mac #1 should be available on Mac #2

I hope that helps!

5

Thanks for the comprehensive response @slak_jaw. Appreciate it. I will give this a shot. Hopefully automated syncing across devices will be implemented in the near future :smile:

1 Like
6

You’re welcome @DJAceMoney

7

Hello! It’s been a week since my last reply. I’m going to consider this topic completed for now so I can focus on others. However, please feel free to respond and we can definitely revisit this. Thanks!