I've put off updating my MacOS (High Sierra 10.13.6) for yrs because I'm worried about what'll happen when doing so forces me from iTunes to Apple Music. Now apps like Slack & Chrome are ending High Sierra support. Will updating nuke my local music files? Is that preventable? I'm open to other apps. I've heard good things about Swinsian for years, but it doesn't support syncing local files to iPhone, which is a must for me. Anyone have solutions, either within Apple's ecosystem or outside of it?
(Might start posting to Mastodon more going forward, mainly doing here because a) Twitter has throttled me in the algo and b) many of the smartest people on Twitter have already migrated here!)

@erb Take a good backup of your music files off machine so you have untouched files to use with another music app. Because something happens in the transition to “music” files. Not sure what but it took forever and metadata changed among a few other oddities.

And the music app is inferior to the much hated iTunes.

Sadly I still have not found a replacement I like yet.

And the move to make MacOS more IOS is just as crappy as it sounds.

You are right to be wary. Good luck✌️

@erb Obviously always have a backup of your library, but the change was seamless for me.
@Mdphunk This is reassuring to hear! Just going to make sure all my backups are up to date and take the plunge I suppose. (And hi! Hadn't realized until now that you deactivated on Twitter)
@erb Yeah, had to leave that place behind. It's much nicer over here!