Serato Software Feature Suggestions

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 Serato Software Feature Suggestions
I want to say goodbye to apple music app
What features would you like to see in Serato software?

I want to say goodbye to apple music app

mikesoops 12:44 PM - 19 November, 2025
ever since they dumped itunes for music app its been pretty useless for folks that play off their own files and purely only using itunes for import and organizational tool.

so if serato could allow me to drag my tracks in and then copy/organize them the same way itunes does and convert them with some option settings the same way itunes does. like 320 kbps mp3. or leave as original format. wav or what have you. also include all the options for track metadata input. the same way itunes does. that would be a game changer. serato should take over the import and organization step. this way we can just say bye to the music app. and then everything would be more seamless and efficient. a one stop shop.

you think you guys can do this?? youve already mastered everything a dj software could do. but youre seriously lacking in track handling and organization.

like why get rid of the browse feature in 4.0?? makes no sense to remove something that was already there. thats going backwards guys... is this gonna become a new paywall feature? play your own files for 20$ per month? otherwise play our partnered streaming files for 10$ per month? hrmmmmm..... cmon guys.
DJ Surda 1:53 AM - 20 November, 2025
You are asking too much to Serato.

Every time Serato answered to me that they suggest to manage the library on their software & not on iTunes I answered NO WAY!
& That happened much before realizing the 4.0.

Unfortunately Serato as a management library software is still so much away than iTunes.
The big real problem with Music app is the lost of the search functionality missed on the MacOs Sonoma (& assume beyond that because I haven't tested, when I saw I could no search on Music app in Sonoma I did a downgrade before the weekend gigs & I still remain at Ventura; previously they missed the filters on the search title/artist/album but I could handle it with Cmd+B view but not be able to search was too much).

This happened on september 23. 2 years took Serato to did his first move to improve library management.

What you are asking will take them 10 years & probably will never get because the next dj generation will not know what iTunes mean & just a few guys like you and me will request to improve the management features.

Which Music app version are you using?
mikesoops 9:33 AM - 20 November, 2025
Yo Surda, Yea you know what im talking about. it shouldnt be too difficult for them to implement the mentioned features since the code already exists. i dont know why they are lagging on this essential part of DJ prep.

I am using apple music app for track organization and importing. Its the most convenient since serato reads the library file. but i think at this point serato should implement their own more updated and cleaner library data.
DJ Surda 1:49 AM - 21 November, 2025
TOtally agree
Do you know you can expand iTunes functionalities with scripts made by Doug? dougscripts.com

For example, with one of her scripts you can append data to a field that already has data without deleting this data just appending the new one.

This is an essential feature iTunes natively do not include but it is basic when you manage a lot of music files. Serato do not include too.
mikesoops 3:38 AM - 21 November, 2025
ah yes i love doug scripts. ive been using those for a long time! yea if serato included those features into the organization options it would be a game changer.

- convert and replace i use most.
- sundry info into comments helped me restore my original order in which the date of the files were created. or added.
- i just ran the script music files in music folder that are not added and found 701 tracks!! amazing.

there are so many DJs these days that this essential part in track prep and organization could make the difference in chosing serato over recordbox or traktor or DJay.
DJ Surda 11:43 AM - 21 November, 2025
Nice

so which itunes version are u using?
mikesoops 11:51 AM - 21 November, 2025
its not called itunes anymore. its been switched over to apple music.

im currently using 1.6.1.144
dj_soo 8:12 PM - 21 November, 2025
Quote:
The big real problem with Music app is the lost of the search functionality missed on the MacOs Sonoma


are you talking about searching in song listing mode?

you know you can get that old search bar back with cmd-opt-F?
mikesoops 6:38 AM - 22 November, 2025
yea surda.

soo is right.

there are now two search fields you can use and also you can bring back column browser view. it hasn't lost any of the functions of the old iTunes.
DJ Surda 12:21 AM - 24 November, 2025
Yeah, I can use the old search box, but it does not make any change on the library, it does not modify the lists of songs I see in the main window.
Consider my library is an iTunes converted to Apple Music library (not a Apple Music native library).
DJ Surda 12:23 AM - 24 November, 2025
Also, before that search box has a filter list for just searching on title, artist, album, etc.

Searching works fine for you?

With filters too?

Please, tell me which mac os version you use.

Thank you!
mikesoops 4:19 AM - 24 November, 2025
yea im not really sure what you are talking about because i can get everything working the same way i always have been. you just have to turn the options on and enable the features since they hid them under the hood in music app.

if i understand you correctly. you will need to turn on filter option and also turn on column browser. then also control click the column title to toggle on and off categories and filters.

you should see the hidden filter search input in the top right corner. its much different than then search bar input on the top left side.

wish we could upload screenshots to show you.
DJ Surda 1:01 PM - 24 November, 2025
I suspect that you are talking about the column browser feature (command+B). This is fine, by default is always hide & you need to activate (furthermore, you can activate/disactivate when you need it or not, the same in playslists).

If not, are you suggesting that you need to activate the search filter list feature? Search box is there in the top right corner but the magnifying glass used to have a filter search list that now does not exist.
If I have to activate the filter list feature can you explain how?

Furthermore, the search box do not filter in the main view. For example my library has 32k songs but no one is called "itunessearch" or has a "itunessearch" metadata value. So if I write down in the search box "itunessearch" I should not see any song in the main list as the search result should be 0.
When I have upgrade to Sonoma macOS, Apple Music whatever I write down on the search makes no difference, I always see my full 32k music files.
If I have to activate the search function can you explain how?

If this 2 features are fine for you, would you mind to tell me which apple music version are you using?

Thank you!
mikesoops 3:34 AM - 25 November, 2025
yes the filter bar on the top right. i did a lil research and discovered that the new music app changed the wording to "sort options" instead of "filter by". just type your search and sort it by the category you want to filter. theres is a round hamburger button next to the search bar. it actually has a lot more options than it did previously in iTunes.

I'm on the latest apple music 1.6.1.144
DJ Surda 6:37 AM - 25 November, 2025
The "sort option" has allways been there, it is the same sort that you choose for the main view, for example if I choose to sort my files by title, the search results will also be sorted by title. Was not necessary to add the sort option next to the search box as it really means nothing new.

Not really sure that you can do a search on your library by the word "beatle" in the title field (so any beatles songs should be at the search results list). Can you?
mikesoops 12:42 PM - 25 November, 2025
we must be miscommunicating because i am able to type in beatle and everything beatle related will show up.
so youre saying you type in the word beatle and you dont get the search results??
DJ Surda 11:08 PM - 25 November, 2025
Yess, that happened with sonoma. Apple care report the bug & I requested a downgrade. Few months later when I comment this they told me they were aware that new iTunes version could not share in the local library.

So your library was an iTunes library converted to Apple Music library?
in which ios you did the conversation?
& from there you updated ios to what version?

Since my first missage i'm trying to understand in which version you are if search feature works fine, if you have tested the apple music on sonoma, etc.

Thank you!
mikesoops 11:19 AM - 26 November, 2025
im on os tahoe 26.1.
im in the latest updates on all softwares.
DJ Surda 11:43 AM - 26 November, 2025
yup, you already sayd that.
Just wondering if you started the library on tahoe or created on itunes version & then you converted to apple music (in which version you did that) etc. to compare with my experience & have more info, maybe I should test again to upgrade my macOS.
mikesoops 6:42 PM - 26 November, 2025
i had already been using iTunes from the very beginning. Apple iMac G3.
Although i did run into an issue in os Monterey version 12 where the library data got messed up and i had to re-add all the music back in. but then it created an issue for the date added data that was no longer the original and so I had to use a Doug script to add in the date file created to comments filed so that i can somewhat get back the order in which i had added all the files. This was my workaround solution which essentially worked for 98% of the files. the other 2% all have the same time stamp of 1970-01-01 9:00.

i just discovered a strange action that is different from how iTunes used to work. if you drag a file off music to desktop. it moves the original file to desktop. it no longer makes a copy. so you will need to drag it bag into music app to copy it over again back to its original location. so be careful in accidentally deleting files dragged from music app.
DJ Surda 8:49 PM - 26 November, 2025
Ouh, luckily all worked for me except until the upgrade to Sonoma that search feature on local files did not work & was forced to downgrade.

Also, that in Apple Music AMPLibrayAgent process that is necessary to be finnished for Serato to use the library that in my 32k library took it 4 days to end when I did the conversion iTunes to Apple Music. I suppose you also deal with the AMPLibrayAgent process, don't you?

The strange action you mention does not exist on macOS ventura (my macOS).

Thank you for the advise!