Refresh your iTunes library in Serato DJ.

Two different things get refreshed here. In Music or iTunes, click Songs under Library, select every track, right-click, choose Get Info, confirm Edit Items, then click OK: that rewrites the tags into the library file other apps read. To refresh Serato library data for those same tracks, open Setup, Library + Display, and uncheck then recheck Show iTunes Library so the list is read in again. To stop repeating this, import the playlists once and work from crates. Purchases that came down as M4A play in some setups and not others; the M4A audio converter turns them into MP3 first if yours is one of the awkward ones.

On macOS the Music app replaced iTunes, and the steps are unchanged. Select every song in Songs view, right-click, Get Info, Edit Items, OK, then quit the app so it writes the library file to disk. Reopen your DJ app, toggle Show iTunes Library off and on, and be patient: a first import of a big local library can run for a long while before the orange loading message clears. The same local library feeds other apps: here is the djay Pro version.

Usually the exported library file is stale, not the DJ app. Serato reads that file, and it only changes when Music or iTunes rewrites it, so force a rewrite with Get Info and Edit Items, quit the app, then toggle the checkbox. The same check clears an iTunes library not showing in Serato DJ Pro at all. A Serato library not loading, your own crates included, is a separate fault that lives in the _Serato_ folder.

Work in passes. Fix missing files first: yellow track names mean the file moved, so relocate them. Then remove duplicates, which pile up after a library is moved to another drive and the same song is listed under two paths. Then flatten the crate tree down to what you actually play. Longer walkthroughs: clean up your library and find duplicate tracks.

In a folder named _Serato_ inside your Music folder: Users, your name, Music on macOS, and C:\Users\your name\Music on Windows. Serato writes another one at the root of any external drive you have added music from. Inside sit your crate files, smart crate rules, analysis data and logs. Back it up before you experiment: see back up your library.

Select the tracks in the All view, then press control and delete on Windows or command and delete on macOS. Removing a track from a crate only takes it out of that crate; doing it from All removes it from the library. Adding shift sends the file to the trash as well, which is permanent. Tracks that arrived through the iTunes list belong to that app, so remove them there and reload.

Quit the app, open the iTunes folder inside your Music folder, and move the library files out to a backup folder rather than deleting them. Reopen the app and it builds an empty library, so you can add back only the folders you still play. Then reopen your DJ app and toggle Show iTunes Library so it reads the new file. Keep the old copies until everything loads correctly.

Select the tracks in Songs view, press delete, and choose whether to keep the files on disk or move them to the trash. Do it with your DJ app closed. The change only reaches Serato once the app has rewritten its library file, so quit Music or iTunes afterwards, then toggle Show iTunes Library. Until then the removed tracks can still sit there as yellow, missing entries.

No. A playlist, like a crate, is only a list of pointers to files. Delete the playlist and the tracks stay in the library and on disk. It works the same in reverse: dragging a track out of a crate does not touch the file. Deleting from the main library view is the one action that can move files to the trash, so that is the one to slow down for. See manage crates and subcrates.

Serato DJ Lite is free from serato.com with no license or subscription, and it reads the same list, so a serato hack, or a search for serato dj pro play free download, buys you nothing but broken library files. Pro needs a license or a subscription. For free music for serato dj, stick to legal sources: label promos, artist download pages, and record pools. Any file you own can sit in your local library and load like the rest.