Apple, AAC, M4P and no Music

the manual says:

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/forerunner945/EN-US/GUID-CD4439DF-46FF-4279-A8D5-8DA61C87A4EB.html
[h=1]Downloading Personal Audio Content[/h]
Before you can send your personal music to your device, you must install the Garmin Express application on your computer (www.garmin.com/express).


You can load your personal audio files, such as .mp3 and .aac files, to a Forerunner[SUP]®[/SUP] device from your computer.

• Connect the device to your computer using the included USB cable.
  
• On your computer, open the Garmin Express application, select your device, and select Music.
  TIP: For Windows[SUP]®
[/SUP] computers, you can select

and browse to the folder with your audio files. For Apple[SUP]®[/SUP] computers, the Garmin Express application uses your iTunes[SUP]®[/SUP] library.

• In the My Music or iTunes Library list, select an audio file category, such as songs or playlists.
  
• Select the checkboxes for the audio files, and select Send to Device.
  
• If necessary, in the Forerunner list, select a category, select the checkboxes, and select Remove From Device to remove audio files.
  

Thank you, this is exactly what I did. I see the music transferred to the watch in Express and after checking they are there in Express on the watch and on the filesystem of the watch. But in the watch music widget: "No Music found, use Garmin Express MOBILE?? to upload music" (no 100% correct, sorry)

And the extension m4a is also a valid one for AAC files and however, that should not matter. So the big issue is, that the watch is not capeable to get aac content of the m4p. container format and iTunes seems not to be able to convert ALAC source content during import into a native AAC file, which would mean I have to use an external encoder to go from ALAC to AAC first and then have to import it in iTunes which creates another file in the iTunes database. And therefore I cannot play ALAC from iTunes anymore because i would need it for AAC only for the watch.

So three times the data, no ALAC in iTunes for my HIFI system, two additional steps to keep the audio content in sync and additional software. This is not 2019, this is 1985 style :-( It seems I'm the only one ripping his CDs in ALAC for best quality and is using a Garmin smartwatch capeable to play music. Someone out there who was able to solve this...?

have you tried using some native .mp3 files out of interest?

I'll try some stuff later in the evening (some 10 hours from now). I think I did on Fenix 5x+ and it worked, I also think it's just a matter of filename, folder structure and of course file type (content AAC/MP3) in the correct format. If I get one of this files running, I'll make an "low quality" folder structure which I can update from my ALAC files with a convert tool via batch script and transfer it direct to the watch using MPTtransfer tool. Then I can listen high quality recordings on my HIFI equipment and whatever quality turns out to work on the watch ...

It's working now! What a mess: I tried uploading with iTunes, with Android File Transfer - nothing worked. I did try to start the music from the quick menue. The first issue I did find was, that in the Music app quick menu there was the icon for the music library completely MISSING. Just by chance because the selector did stop on an empty field, I did select it and found the "secret" menu for choosing the music. But whatever I coose (yes, only AAC & MP3 extensions were found) no audio. Tried different bitrates and so on....

Before completely giving up, I thought of checking the setting, if there are more options. In the setup then there was the hint - an own setting for "Music": because I hade neither Deezer nor any other music provider installed it seems, that the watch does not default to ANYTHING. I did set it to "My Music", there were my songs now, pressed play and WOW, finally sound on my B&W headset!!!

Immediately tried from the quick menu again and there was now an icon showing some stacked folders and by choosing that, I got my files from the quick menu as well!

So there is definetly something not initialized correctly if none of the suggested music provides is installed...

Just one thing left: because ALAC is not supported and that is my iTunes master data, I will convert them with automatic batch processing from there to some other MP3 folder and manually transfer the files to the watch ...

Last update: managed to bring the ALAC to AAC very simple and for the FR945 the extension M4A for AAC files is also working. No need for MP3. I extract CDs now in ALAC to a working folder, import them with iTunes AAC conversion trick (press alt key when choosing "Import") in iTunes PLUS AAC format (320kB/s, 44,100kHz VBR). That's pretty good quality and FR945 compatible. File name extension stays M4P but that's ok.

THANK YOU!!! Was facing the exact same issues and this post saved my 945!!! The quick menu will not be initialised correctly unless you set 'My Music' under settings in the watch from the onset.

Previously was using Spotify but that was not working well due to being based here in China.

I wonder if I can have 'My Music' and multiple music providers accounts setup.  Then again, using the 945 for working out mostly and not for music appreciation.

BIG THANKS AGAIN!