I Trashed Some Song Files from my Computer that Had Been Previously Matched, and Now iTunes Can't Located Them. How Do I Download Them from the Cloud?

Question

The title pretty much says it all. I deleted some songs from my hard drive that had already been added to the cloud using iTunes Match, and now, when I try to play them, I'm asked to locate the files. The songs are still available on my other devices, so I didn't delete them from the cloud. How do I reconect the songs on my computer with the files in the cloud?

Answer 1

Apple provides a brain-dead simple way to backup all your personal data in the form of Time Machine that keeps incremental backups going back at least several weeks, if not months (depending on the size of the backup drive). Why more people don't use it is a puzzle to me. In this day and age of person, and very important, data being digitial (sometimes exclusively) backing everything up becomes imperative. Ideally a good backup scheme should incorporate multiple backup solutions in case of very serious emergencies, but for most people, and in the case described in the OP TM is a very good solution. If a file is deleted, then found to be needed again, just go to the date and time in TM just before the file was deleted and restore it. Simple. But it doesn't work if you aren't backing up. So... backup, backup, backup. You'll thank yourself that you did when you finally need it.