the key is when you transfer your library to the new mac, they must be in the same directory as your old mac,

if your old macs "Music" folder contained all your music,
then you need to put all your music into the "Music" folder on your new Mac.

this is why its important to put all your music library into 1 folder.

the 2 main folders you need to transfer as well is the
_Serato_ and _Serato_Backup folders

this must be placed in your Music folder as well.

you must move them into the same directory as your old mac, if you don't do this then serato will not load all your library

But surely the Relocate Lost Files feature would help there? And it's physically impossible to have my music files in the same directory as there were on my old laptop as it had a 2nd internal drive, whilst my new mabook doesn't.

And that doesn't explain why the crate data is in the _Serato_ folder but the crate structure doesn't show in SDJ correctly

there's your problem right there, your music needs to be in the one folder on the one hard drive,

you can achieve this by having all your music on an external drive.

I'm just telling you why Serato can not load all your music, you have to adjust your collection for serato to work for you without issues

This should've been done from day one to save you the stress,

also If all your music was all on an external drive then moving from one laptop to another will be stress free, easy as plug and play.

It was in one folder one drive. My MBP had an HDD and an SSD so I kept my music on the ssd.

Still doesn't explain at all why the crates aren't showing. Or why the Locate Files isn't working

once you set everything up and all your music is in one drve then you can drag that whole folder into relocate files,

if serato still cant find your songs on that drive then your missing songs are somewhere else.

Your crate info is stored on the _Serato_Backup_ folder this folder must be in the "Music" folder on your new Mac

watch youtube tutorials too to get more in depth info Watchwww.youtube.com

once you set everything up and all your music is in one drve then you can drag that whole folder into relocate files,

if serato still cant find your songs on that drive then your missing songs are somewhere else.

Done that and they're not showing

Cheers, I'll have a look

Also, the crates don't even show the tracks in orange (ie they don't even know what should be in there)

I find using Serato file browser and an external drive the easiest way to transfer the library

1. On old laptop open serato
2. Open the file section (top panel)
3. Navigate to your drives and Drag your file folder to the external drive
4. It will ask if you want to copy or move? Choose copy
5. When you are done copying all the folders
6. Unplug the external
7. Plug into new laptop
8. Start serato and you should see all tracks and all your crates.
9. Now open the files section on new laptop and drag (copy) them into Music folder on new laptop.

Extra tip make one Main folder in new laptop, next time you want to migrate, you only need to drag a single folder

This method is straightforward and you don’t need to copy any serato or _serato_ folder

Serato will create a new one and transfer everything accordingly

Smart crates - you will need to copy the folder and paste into the new laptop

Most of what you said I have mentioned above,

But.... ( _serato_ & _Serato_Backup folders_ ) these folders are important cause they store all your grid info and cue points. without these 2 folders Serato cant reference what music is missing from your library which are highlighted in orange.
these folders also house your "database_V2" file an important file for your music library

if you don't move these 2 folders over then you'll have to re-analyze your whole library,

like I mentioned its important to group all your music onto one folder then onto one drive, I suggested a external drive.

so once you've directed Serato to the one external drive than moving from one laptop to another is stress free.

I use a tool called "Itch sync" to convert all my folders into crates. this tool makes sure that all your tracks are recognized by Serato, its free and simple to use.

Google it and YouTube it, best Serato library management tool to have and not many DJs know about this.

Thanks for the help guys. I've sorted it. It turns out that SDJ on my old macbook wasn't backing up to the Music folder but was backing up somewhere else. So when I was copying the _Serato_ folder, the data in it was years old

Correction on one item, Cue points are stored in the metadata of the music file (mp3 or whatever). So some one else can get a file you already prepared and will see the cue points you set. Gridding I never followed up with to quote with certainty that it is in the metadata.

The Serato Folders hold your Crate preferences and set up as well as history among a few other things directly related to crate structure in Serato.

See below article.

support.serato.com

How do u explain not seeing these cuepoints and Grid info on DJay Pro?

this is after adding library using crates functions?



Good to hear carnage:)

your _Serato_ folders are so important when your using Serato,

make sure you go ti files tab in serato and run an "iD3 Tag scan" this will highlight songs that no longer exist in your serato library in orange, then you can ctrl+del them from your library, or use relocate missing tracks.

This saves you hassles in searching for songs and when you add these tracks to a deck they turn orange, if your in a rush to load these songs it will save you time and stress to highlight these tracks in orange,

Could be something with how the program interprets the metadata much like how you need Third Party programs for Rekordbox DJ maybe. But this storing in metadata is as per Serato themselves saying it (Referenced in the article: support.serato.com). Haven't messed with DJay Pro enough to see how it treats my files, but in Recordbox I used to have to use DJCU to get everything across. Haven'y messed with that as well in a bit.

cool thanks, WildcardX,