Does deleting iTunes erase my music files

I erased Quicktime by accident and now it is asking to uninstall and reinstall iTunes. Will this erase my library of music?

No. It does not erase the music.
It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy of your computer, so it shouldn't matter anyway. You could just restore it from your backup if something went wrong.

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How do i make it so iTunes plays the music files from where i have chosen to store them?

how do i make it so iTunes plays the music files from where i have chosen to store them as opposed to it scattering copies of my files into a myriad different folders based on the albums they came from when i'm not even interested in keeping whole albums?
I recently converted myself to mac after having been a windows formatted person since the beginning of time. I use last.fm and the client scrobbler only supports iTunes on the mac (scobbling since Nov 06 and i'm now heavily dependant upon it as a means of discovering new music) - if you don't know what that means then take it for granted i have no option other than to use iTunes as my media player whn using the mac. And almost immediately upon using iTunes i was filled with horror.
My tale of woe as follows: I copy all my mp3 files to folder X on my new mac. I copy my simple playlist in to that same folder X. The simple playlist simply lists all the files in folder X in the order i want to hear them in... simple right? And what happens the moment i start playing my simple list? Well you probably all ready know; itunes throws copies of all those files in to the air, scatters them to the four winds so each of them fall into a little folder of their own representing the album they might once have come from. I don't keep whole albums. For me the 'album experience' is a ruse to trick one into listening to weaker material. I only keep the concentrated goodness. I only put up with albums in a previous lifetime because in the days of vinyl i had no other choice apart from spending hours compiling mix tapes. Now i am liberated from these restrictions and have been for the 15 or so years i've been using a computer to listen to music. Until along comes iTunes forcing me backwards in time, frog marching me back into the past.
That simple list i mentioned is my one and only playlist. This single playlist has been evolving for 15 years as tracks are added and removed and their position in the list changes because that song sounds amazing when heard after that other song whereas hearing this song after that song would be like pouring custard over your sausages (for me shuffling is an abomination). And so here is how i've managed this list and managed synchronization of said list and listed files with my mp3 player (currently a Zen).
Adding a new file: After deciding that song is a keeper i will copy it into that simple folder that holds all my music and drop it in to a position on the list i deem most suited for it. Incidentally over this entire 15 year (i'm pretty sure it's been around that long) my media player has been winamp but for the reason previously mentioned i am unable to use winamp in mac world.
Removing a file: fortunately winamp has an option to simultaneously remove a file from the list and the hard drive. And naturally so because after all if i no longer like a song then i want it expunged completely from life or at least from my hard drive and playlist. In the brave new world of iTunes i have to remove from the list there then delete the file from where iTunes copied it from and then the place iTunes copied it to.
Editing the list: drag an item in the list to it's preferred location and select to save it as i would for any other file using any other application... well desktop type application as opposed to one that uses a database as its primary means of storage.
Syncing with the mp3 player: copy drag drop playlist file from the simple folder on the hard drive to the simple folder on the mp3 player as i would for any other file. And then also copy drag drop the most recently created files from simple folder on hard drive to simple folder on player after having ordered them by creation date so as to make it easier to select the most recently created. After a while the mp3 player will fill up with the files no longer on the list so i will delete all files from player then re-copy all flies from simple folder on hard drive to simple folder on mp3 player.
I do not make changes to the list on the mp3 player so synchronization needs only to go one way: from laptop to player.
So all very simple. Apart from editing the positions of files in the list everything is managed by copy drag dropping and deleting files using windows explorer.
But i'm in a mac and circumstances have forced me in to the corner of using iTunes. And this whole iTunes situation is terrifying for me as over the years i've heard horror stories about it deleting all of someone's music files. Perhaps this may have been by using the software incorrectly but even so, the very fact that it appears possible for this to happen simply by using the software incorrectly and the fact that it happens with some degree of frequency given the number of reports of this happening that i have heard of over the years on music discussion forums fills me with dread that i have to now use this software. And given the software's blatant disregard for the user's choice as to where to store his/her files it's no surprise that this happens. The software is pointlessly doing dangerous things with my data. Please make it stop.
Please can i just at the very least make iTunes play the music from the folder i have chosen to put my files in and not copy those files here there and everywhere without my say so? Thankyou.

option discovered in preferences. Really this and any feature that moves deletes or edits a users data should as far as possible be OFF BY DEFAULT. It shouldn't by default and without the users specific say do this dangerous and unnecessary thing without even letting the user know what it's doing!!! And then cause me a few hours (as i'm new to mac) searching for the option so as to switch it off. If i hadn't noticed the status cage declaring that it was copying files then i might never have twigged that this insane thing was occurring. And if i hadn't of noticed i would have been left maintaining the contents of the folder i copied the files to, the folder which as far as i was informed and so believed was also the location of the music files i was playing. How does Apple justify this 'genius' piece of software non-design? Surely it will hurt no one if this was off by default for new users - overall at least i dare say it would cause a lot less distress in the future for the unsuspecting public at large. Thanks for the support.

HT201272 How do I erase GHOST music files from Ipad music library

How do I erase Ghost music files from my Ipad music library.............it will not erase by sypping....

Delete a playlist
In Playlists, tap the playlist you want to delete, then tap Delete.
Clear a playlist
In Playlists, tap the playlist you want to clear, then tap Clear.
Delete a song from iPhone
In Songs, swipe the song, then tap Delete.
The song is deleted from iPhone, but not from your iTunes library on your Mac or PC.

I'm having installing itunes on my computer. Will removing itunes remove my music files?

I'm having installing itunes on my computer. Will removing itunes remove my music files?

No, it won't remove your other files.
Solving MSVCR80 issue and Windows iTunes install issues.

Can I change the file path that itunes reads my music files from? 65000 files trying to be transferrd from external to internal HD. I dont want itunes to manage my collection, just read it. thanks

Can I change the file path that itunes reads my music files from?
I have about 65000 music files that i have transferrd from my external to a new laptop internal HD.
I have organised the folders myself as I use a PC and do not want itunes to organise the folders because when I'm searching through music on windows it is sorted out by artists/albums with 'the...(eg The Beatles)' under 'T' instead of 'B'.
Long story short.... Is there any way that I can keep my itunes library as it is on the external HD and copy it to the new laptops C drive, keep all the info (playlists etc) and still have the same folder structure as on the external HD?
Or, is there any way of making windows sort things in alphabetical order like it is in itunes (eliminating the 'the' issue)?

The files that weren't inside the media folder on the original machine need to be copied over to exactly the same paths as they had on the source machine. See this thread for an ongoing discussion of a similar problem. See also this post on migrating the iTunes library.
tt2

Itunes 'lost' my music files

This appears to be the result of a problem while I was syncing my iPod. During a standard syncing process, it appeared that iTunes was pulling music files from a location on a home server that I didn't want. I stopped the sync process and most of my music and all my playlists have now disappeared.
Now iTunes 7.4.2.4 can't seem to 'see' 2/3 of my music library or any of my playlists. I've been using it for a couple of years with no real problems. All my music files/folders are still in the iTunes folder on my hard drive but iTunes doesn't see them.

Are you saying that there is no music on your iPod and in your iTunes library on your computer?
- Try resetting the iPOd. Nothng is lost
Reset iPod touch: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Reboot the computer
- Redownload iTunes purchases by:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
- iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads

My playlist appears in itunes, but the music files have mysteriously disappeared in my iTunes Media file. Is there a way to recover them? Tried searching and cannot find them.

My playlist appears in itunes, but the music files have mysteriously disappeared from my iTunes Media file. Is there a way to recover them? Tried searching and cannot find them.

This page might help: http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=44083
Older Zens don't support AAC, which is the format iTunes uses for songs.
You can convert from AAC to MP3, which every media player under the sun will play. Here's a tutorial: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_7-10096807-49.html

How do I get my itunes to access music files on external disc hooked up to my imac?

how do I get my itunes to access music files on external disc hooked up to my imac?

assuming copy to ... when adding to library is checkmarked in preferences > advanced, drag the files from the external into an open iTunes window while holding the option (⌥) key.

How do I batch delete all my protected music files from iTunes.

Hi, in a moment of stupidity, while I was working on a backup folder of my friends files (from his broken computer - copied them to my PC so he could get them back onto his new PC) I managed to copy all of his songs from his iTunes folder into my iTunes library. I don't know how I managed to do this, maybe it was the fact that I was really tired at the time.
I own all my music - none of my music is copy protected (it is either downloaded from legal sites where the bands themselves [usually unknown or alternative artists] release their music, or I ripped the music from CD's I bought) and all of his music is copy protected.
Now thing is, I have upgraded my PC before realising I did this, so now I don't have the original iTunes library (formatted PC and reinstalled XP from scratch) - is there any tools out there that will find and delete all your copy protected files from iTunes?
I could go through song by song and when it comes up with the "Authorise computer - This computer is not authorised to play "******" Would you like to authorise it" and delete those songs, but as this is a very slow and time consuming process and considering I have 8,551 songs, I would prefer a faster way.
I would go and re-rip all the songs, as I have the original discs, but this would take very long, and put quite a bit of strain on my CD drive, and this would not account for all the songs I have spent years finding on the internet/demo songs from friends bands.
Any help is appreciated, as I would love to be able to remove all of his songs so they don't keep popping up in my iTunes library
Thanks in advance.
Dale.

I have never tried this and am not at a computer with iTunes, but can you delete from a Smart Playlist? If so, you could make a smart playlist that shows songs that are of kind Protected ACC. Then select all and delete from that playlist. But I am not so sure if you can delete from a smart playlist.

How do I get iTunes to access music files on external hard drive?

We moved all of our music to an external hard drive. The hd is always on and I connect to it wirelessly. I don't know how to get iTunes to use the library that is on the hard drive, can anyone help me please.

iTunes expects to find its library in the ./Music/iTunes folder. To get iTunes to see music on another drive, you first have to create the library on your internal drive. Once you've done that, you copy the iTunes folder over to your external drive, and redirect iTunes to that drive, using an alias. (I originally did this in Tiger and it continues to work fine in Leopard. I don't know if doing it originally in Leopard would make any difference.)
Note: If your external drive library is already too large for your internal drive, simply use as much of it as you can to create the original library on your internal drive. You can add the rest of it once you've got iTunes looking at the external drive. In this case, remember to name any "iTunes" folder on the external drive to something else, so you don't erase everything in the following procedure.
Load up as much music as you can on your internal drive, making sure it appears in iTunes.
Quit iTunes and copy the iTunes folder from your internal drive to your external drive (be sure you don't erase whatever's already on the external drive). Copying that folder to the root of the external drive is OK.
On your internal drive, rename the 'iTunes" folder to something else (like orig_iTunes) -- or move it out of the Music folder.
Open your external hard drive to the directory containing your iTunes folder.
Cmd-Option drag the iTunes folder from the external hard drive to the internal hard drive Music folder, creating an alias in the internal drive's Music folder.
Launch iTunes. You should now see the music from the external hard drive. If necessary, you can now add back any missing music, and it will automatically create the necessary music and library files inside your iTunes folder on the external drive. Once you've got them all added, you can delete both the orig_iTunes folder, and the folder on your external drive that served as the source for adding your library back in.

How to delete one kind of music file and keep another.

Hello everyone, I'm new here and I hope you can help me. I have an iPod touch, and I am trying to add my music to it, but I only want the AAC versions on my iPod. I've got some mp3 tracks in iTunes, and some AAC versions as well. I have added the "kind" column, to order the files by their mp3 and AAC versions. Now I want to delete the mp3 versions, and keep the AAC versions to add to my iPod. Is there a way of highlighting the mp3 versions en masse, so I can select all the mp3 tracks in one go, ready to delete them? I don't want to remove them from the computer itself; just from iTunes. I could select each mp3 track in turn, and delete them individually, but that is a laborious way of doing the job. I'm looking for an easier method. Can anyone offer me a suggestion as to how to do this please, either via iTunes, or via a file management method in my Windows PC? Thank you for your time in reading this question.

It's OK, I sorted it myself. I sorted the songs by "kind" as explained above. Then I highlighted the first mp3 track, scrolled down to the last one, then pressed the shift key to highlight all the mp3 tracks. Finally, I right clicked and chose "delete" from the options, which removed all the mp3 tracks in one go.

Deleted all my actual music files but have " backup"

Dear All, I use a mac mini and had all my physical files on an external hard drive which sits on top. I use time machine to back up muy mac mini but not being able to work out how to use that to back up an external drive I made a physical coppy of my music folder to another drive a few months agao.
Well seduced by reports of extra bits and bobs on a program called songbird I installed that and ran it. It deleted all my music. ( googling songbird deleted my songs brings up numerous distraught people who this has happened to. ) Now my artwork, library etc is still on my mac mini bit of course none are now linked to the actual song files any more ( all deleted ) . Thank god I only brought a few songs since I made a copy of all my music files. Its a large file 250GB.
Whats the best way now to get my songs back into itunes ( from my copy on an external hard drive ) with the minimum of fuss and duplicates etc? Delete all my itunes libraries art etc and start again. Something simpler?
Any feedback on hoew to use timemachine to back up an external hardrive holding my music would be appreciated.
Thanks all
Richard

richardb22 wrote:
Dear Jolly Giant, thanks for that everything is back to what I would call normal now.
glad i could help
After my "restore" Itunes says I have 71,638 songs taking up 406GB. Clicking on get info on my music folder it says 106,340 items 426GB. That leads me to believe that I have not imported some songs into itunes. What do you think? Any suggestions as to how to "hoover" tracks up into itunes ( if thats indeed the case that there are tracks that Itunes does not know about ) would be gratefully recieved.
Doug has an answer for almost eveything:
_*Music Folder Files Not Added v2.0*_
This application will list the file paths of the files in your designated "iTunes Media" folder which are not in iTunes' library. Additionally, you can select a different parent folder and its contents will be compared to the iTunes library. Options to Add a selection of found files to iTunes or move them to the Trash.
Another strange ( but nice ) thing is that I brought a few tracks from itunes recently which definitly were not backed up. I am 99% sure they were lost but now seem to be working fine? Weird ?
not weird - try blind luck or +pulled a Homer+
anyhoo, might want to close this thread by marking your question answered !

ITunes cannot find music files, confuses inodes, external drive

I have all my music on an external drive, which is not always connected to the Mac. When I start iTunes w/o the hdd connected iTunes occasionally marks some of the songs as not found. Which is ok so far. BUT if it finds the same inode (of the original file on the external hdd) on the internal hdd it changes the location of the songs to the internal hdd. In my case to files like /Previous System/<some path>/Info.plist. So iTunes thinks the files are still there and cannot play them. After deleting all the Previous Systems files iTunes marks all those files as not found, that is, it does not search for the inode on the external hdd again. Very confusing.
Yesterday I started from scratch with an empty iTunes Library (I moved the original one) and the problem reoccurred instantly after I imported all my music, quit iTunes, disconnected the external HDD and started iTunes again. So some of my songs are lost, iTunes will never find them again w/o me reimporting them. Also the problem might occur anytime in the future and I seem to not be able to cure it, because iTunes tried to be intelligent. But how it can confuse inodes w/o looking at the device ID and why the songs did not return after I removed the /Previous Systems folder I cannot image.
I checked the inodes on the internal and external hdd for some of the songs and they were indeed identical. So iTunes seems reset the path/location in the Library DB if it can find the inode of a song which it cannot find by path. Why it does not look at the device id in combination with the inode# is a mystery.
Some additional details:
iTunes Music Folder Location: on external hdd
The Library files are on the internal hdd at ~/Music/iTunes.
I hope someone can answer that. I do not want to start from scratch every week. I hope my iPod which holds all the songs synchs meta info like play count and rating back as well.
Kind regards, soryu2.

And further....
I went into iTunes to try to download all my purchased music. Some, but not all, is showing up under iTunes>iTunes Media>Music. It looks like the library thinks some if the music is there, but it actually is not.
Seems like my library is corrupted (or something).
Since I have to upload all music from CD anyway, should I delete my iTunes library and start over, first by downloading all purchased music.

Using the "consolidate" function has deleted 50% of my music files

Hi there, Any help appreciated: I stupidly thought that because I had music files in a couple of locations as well as itunes that using itunes to consolidate them would solve the problem. As the itunes help menu says for "consolidating your library":+Depending on how you've imported songs, videos, and other items into iTunes, your library can include items that are located in various places on your computer's hard disk or other locations. You can make sure that copies of all the files in your iTunes library are in your iTunes folder so that, for example, it's easier to move your library to a new computer.+ Now itunes can't "find" at least 50% of my tunes because it clearly hasn't copied anything: they are GONE. Supposedly "Files located outside the iTunes folder remain in their original locations, and copies are placed in your iTunes folder". This has not happened. I have searched my hard drive and they haven't been relocated anywhere I can find em, not even the recycle bin, or down the back of the couch. When I try to play or "get info" on a song I get an error message saying "the song could not be used because the original file cannot be found. Would you like to try to locate it?" Not only has itunes deleted half my music but it also created a big pile of folders by artist, with lots of handy subfolders by album, that usually contain NOTHING. There appears to be no rhyme or reason which music it has deleted. Has this happened to anyone else and is there a way to "locate" my lost music files and undo this?
Many thanks for any suggested solutions...

ITunes rearranges the files and folders only when the option to do so is checked under Edit•Preferences•Advanced•General. I think by default the option is unchecked and iTunes asks about it during install. After rearranging, it may look like lots of files are missing but they're probably just tucked into the Unknown Artist folder, where iTunes stashes any poorly tagged MP3.
Rest assured, iTunes always asks before deleting files, and actually it asks if the user wants to keep the file or "move to Recycle Bin," so the user can always retrieve from the Recycle Bin if he changes his mind.

Itunes says my music files are 6gb, my user/itunes music folder says its 23gb. I am trying to move it from old/new mac with 8gb ipod

I am trying to move my sons library to his new mac using his 8 gb i pod as a hard drive.....
itunes 9.0.1 says his music files is only 6gb. But when I go to transfer his itunes folder it says his music folder is 23gb. I know I can home share transfer but his wireless is down. Either way I am wondering
1) why is Music folder so large compared to my music library?
2.) Can I simply move the 6gb of music and the playlist info etc....using his 8gb ipod?
3.) Can I delete his previous library files ?

No, I have the music I want to move from the laptop to the phone selected. Then I go under file, devices, and try to click sync but it is not available to click.

Does deleting iTunes erase my music files

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