Finding Music Files

I purchased a larger external drive (500 GB upgrade from 120 GB). I used to store my music on the 120. I copied the files to the new drive, but when I play a song, it wants me to go through and find the individual song file in the new drive. I have already changed the preferences to have the newly imported songs sent to the new drive, but is there any FASTER way to tell iTunes that my 2000+ song/video files have a new home?
Thanks in advance for your help!!!

*I copied the files to the new drive*
Too bad.
You should have pointed iTunes to the new location, then menu Advanced -> Consolidate library.
iTunes is still looking for the music in the old location but will put new in the new location.
is there any FASTER way to tell iTunes that my 2000+ song/video files have a new home?
File -> *Add folder to library*.
See this -> iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder

Similar Messages

I lost my music stored in my computer. I originally bought these from I Tunes. Now I cannot play because it cannot find music file. How do I download from I Tunes again?

I lost my music stored in my computer. I originally bought these from I Tunes. Now I cannot play because it cannot find music file. How do I download from I Tunes again?

Hey MHallon,
Thanks for the question. I understand that you need to redownload previously purchased content from the iTunes Store. The following resource should assist you in doing so:
iTunes 11 for Windows: Download previous purchases from the iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12491
Thanks,
Matt M.

Moved iTunes library to Vista PC but iTunes 'can't find music files'. Help!

I'm running iTunes 7.1.1 on a new Vista PC and I followed the instructions on this support site for transferring the library using an iPod.
All songs (with artwork) are showing in the new PC's iTunes library, BUT all have a '!' symbol to the left and refuse to play. It offers to let me find them, but this would take hours for the thousands of tracks. I've tried consolidating but to no effect. All the music files are in the iTunes library folder, so why can't iTunes access them?
Can anyone help?

I'm running iTunes 7.1.1 on a new Vista PC and I
followed the instructions on this support site for
transferring the library using an iPod.
All songs (with artwork) are showing in the new PC's
iTunes library, BUT all have a '!' symbol to the left
and refuse to play. It offers to let me find them,
but this would take hours for the thousands of
tracks. I've tried consolidating but to no effect.
All the music files are in the iTunes library folder,
so why can't iTunes access them?
Can anyone help?
hi i to have a similar problem, i moved my music file for another problem i had and now it has removed all my files from itunes, albums and playlists as well, they are still on the pc and i have moved them back but i seem to have to start again, this will take weeks to do, i hope someone can help us.

Updated my itouch gen 4 32g to Ios 5 and now itunes can't find music files

I did a search and could not find anything about my specific issue. I was hoping to get some help if possible.
So I did the update to IOS 5 and everything went fine..........except for one thing. I have all my music stored on an external hard drive so I changed the media folder location to my external drive. When I did the update IOS changed the location to "C:\users\name\music\itunes\itunes media folder". I figured this is why itunes could not find the files. So I switched it back to my external drive and it still could not find my music files. The weird thing is that I can sync it and it won't delete the music from my ipod. All of the music is still on the ipod but not on itunes. I know I can manually go in and find all the folders but I REALLY don't want to have to do that. I have done it before and it took 7 hours. Since I don't use all the files I can't just drag the library over and problem solved.
One other strange thing that happened: After I did the update I downloaded an app off of the the appstore in itunes. This is the first app that I downloaded off of itunes and not straight off my ipod. I then recieved an email from apple saying it had been downloaded on a computer or device not associated with my apple id (which makes no sense seeing how the id on my ipod is the same as on itunes).
If anyone has a suggestion on how to fix the music problem, I am all ears. Thanks.

Once a track is in your iTunes library, you should not touch it except through iTunes. But I guess you know that now.
iTunes, to answer your question, cannot "refresh." If you re-add those files to your library, iTunes is unable to match them with the existing library entries, and will create a bunch of duplicate entries. This is a longstanding shortcoming of iTunes (and the source of lots of traffic on this fourm).
If there are "too many to manually" reassociate, then starting over, in the sense of deleting and then re-adding, may be a good plan.

ITunes can't find music files

Somehow my iTunes library got messed up, though everything worked fine before. I think that something happened when I did an iTunes upgrade but I am not sure anymore.
The library file is at
-- C:\Documents and Settings\i080151\My Documents\My Music\iTunes
and all my music is at an external HD at
-- G:\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music
In iTunes under Advanced I set it to the right music location, it says
-- G:\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music
On a side note I also have a library file at
-- G:\My Documents\My Music\iTunes
and it is a few months old, when the problem started. In any case, if I remember right the library file needs to be where iTunes is installed itself, and that is on C:. The library file on C: is current.
So all my music is on G:, my library shows all that music, but when I try to play any song I get the exclamation mark and that message that iTunes could not find the file.
When I today add a new music file, say a podcast, it gets properly added to the G: drive, shows up in iTunes, and I can play it there. I also see that the file date of the library file on C: gets updated to when I added the new podcast. But none of the older music files play.
I am confused... can someone help?

Try this as a test - open iTunes and tell it to get the old library from G:
Here aer directions on how to do that - don't create a new library, just hold down the shift key while starting iTunes and browse out to that old library file.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesWin/7.5/en/15502.html
Does it find the old songs with the old library?
Something else to check-
Do you have any old libraries with a date near when you upgraded?
As mentioned in this article
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301895

Itunes cant find music files

Seems to be some discussion on this problem where as itunes will not play the music on the computer and says it cant find the music files. I found that the block for using itunes as default audio player has to be checked. This is in preferences under the advanced tab. Seems to come unchecked at times and stops the player. Also my music location, also under advanced will go back to default at times. (My files are on an external hard drive) Hope this helps.
dlj

Try one of these solutions already posted to this forum or use the "Search Discussions" for many more:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4358684&#4358684
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4123245&#4123245
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4090531&#4090531
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3960710&#3960710
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3950754&#3950754

ITunes not finding music files

iTunes cannot find 90%+ of my music files. I manually linked them together over the last weekend (yucch) and today when I went into iTunes, the links were all broken even though the .mp3 files were in the same directories as before. I can manually find the music files but that's a chore, particularly if I have to do it several times (not!). Any suggestions?
Inspiron 6000 Windows XP

Well, you have a couple options. First shut down iTunes. Then unmount your HD. Then mount your external HD again, then after it pops up on your desktop, launch iTunes. Any files iTunes has that points to your ext. HD should play just fine.
Or, you can copy all your music to your ext. HD (if you don't already have it there), and simply delete your iTunes library (by removing your data files). You could then add to library, making sure you uncheck "copy itunes songs to music folder). This way, iTunes will only "point" to your ext. drive to play the music. If the drive isn't on, you don't get any music, and the "!" sign. If you have many playlists, this can be tricky.
As a rule, I don't go crazy with playlists, other than smart playlists. This way, you don't go nuts when you lose your data file, or want to do a clean update of your library. You'd be surprised at the times I thought I kept my library in tip-top shape, only to delete it and add the music again. I often find a song or two that I had hidden somewhere.
Bryan

How Do I Quickly Find Music Files Not Used By iTunes So I Can Delete Them?

Hello, I have deleted many songs from my Windows iTunes library; but, the music files remain on my hard drive and are taking up space. I need to quickly and efficiently find these music files to delete them. I would prefer to not have to download another utility to accomplish this.
While I now have iTunes setup so that any future deletions will prompt me to move the music file to the recycle bin, I want to clean-up my hard drive.
Thanks in advance for your help!

How did you Migrate? On original Startup, or after starting up and creating a user.
If the latter, then you migrated data is in the migrated user's account.
If that is the case, log into the other account and move the music into the /Users/Shared folder. Then, log into the account you want to use and import the music into iTunes.
If that is not the case, please explain where your music is located.

Ipod cannot find music files

I just updated to iTunes 12.1.1.4, and once again, I plug in my iPod and my music went from over 2500 songs to 174!! ABSOLUTELY FRUSTRATED!
Restore did not work. I click on music files on my iPod and I get the icon but there is no option to "find" the file. All the help articles talk about how to find files in iTunes. They are not missing from iTunes, they are missing from my iPod! And it's RIDICULOUS that Apple wants me to pay $29 for support on software that always corrupts my iPod!!!

Try:
- Reset the iOS device. Nothing will be lost
Reset iOS device: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Unsync/delete all music and resync
To delete all music go to Settings>General>Usage>Storage>Manage Storage>Music>Tap edit in upper right and then tap the minus sign by All Music
- Reset all settings
Go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset All Settings.
All your preferences and settings are reset. Information (such as contacts and calendars) and media (such as songs and videos) aren’t affected.
- Restore from backup. See:
iOS: Back up and restore your iOS device with iCloud or iTunes
- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.

I can't find music files even though I have purchased them through iTunes.

I have 274 music files that my itunes library can't locate. About 75 of those songs I have purchased through itunes store but still can't find and I can't re-download them but they show up in my "purchased" playlist with the i warning next to the song. Please help me determine what is wrong.

Hello Hmahon,
The Default Location for iTunes Music on your Mac OS X: /Users/username/Music/iTunes/
(Username is your Account Name on Mac) go to the location as mentioned above and see if you find your Music there, if No Music is available there then you can download the Purchased songs by Deleting the Dead Tracks from your iTunes Library and then Download it from your Account.
Download previous purchases on Mac or PC :
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519

I cant find music files on my Ipod

I can see all my songs on my ipod library when I tunes is open. But when open it as a hard drive half of my songs are missing or not there. I need them all to be there to transfer my library to a new computer.
any suggestions on how to find these files?

Hi,
To transfer all the songs from the computer to the iPod shuffle and then to a new computer, first determine the amount of space taken by all the songs.
Then connect the iPod shuffle to the old computer and in iTunes Prefrences click on the iPod and check "Enable Disk Use" and slide the slider to the Right side to increase the size.
Santo

Mac Air storage indicates music storage is big but can not find music files

I am going in to check the storage on my hard drive. In the music section it says there is 74.14 GB of storage being used but I am unable to locate the files. I have checked everything that can be checked on this mac and no music. Can you please help. I fequently use Final Cut Pro and I know they render files but there are no music files rendered in there. Especially not to amount to that amount of storage. Please Help.

Download from the Internet OmniDiskSweeper and open it. It will show all of you files and the respective sizes.
Ciao.

Can't Find Music Files in C Drive

There are many AAC files that I can see in iTune library, but I can't find those in 'My Document/My Music' folder, nor can I find those in my local hard drive. Where could these file be?

Rename what, the m4a part? I wouldn't if I were you! The file extension (the m4a) tells both Windows and iTunes how to use the file. If you change it to something else, your computer won't know what to do with it.
I don't know the full history of Apple's development of these files, but AAC is the name they gave to the encoding system that turns the CD music into iPod format. Perhaps it was only after they developed it that they discovered a good reason why they couldn't use aac as the file extension, but quite frankly, you don't need to worry about any of this, because now you know that Apple's AAC files are stored as m4a files. End of problem.
Don't forget, the filename is what the computer (both Windows and MAC) and the internet use to handle the file. But that filename is not detailed enough for you and I to use on our iPods. So "tags" were introduced as an additional piece of information "within the file" so that we humans can see all the information we want. Those tags are what you see in iTunes and on the iPod.
Or, did you mean renaming the song's filename? Well you can, but why would you want to? You can change the *name of the song* in iTunes so that it's your choice in iTunes and on your iPod, but the filename would stay as before. (Note that filename and song title/artists name are separate pieces of information that are not actually connected to each other. A song called "one, two, three" could have a filename of "xyz"!) A word of caution here; if you change the filename after you have added the song to iTunes, it will be lost by iTunes and you'll then have to spend time getting iTunes to find it again, probably after another post here to find how to find the lost songs! (We've seen such posts in the past.)
Phil

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.

Itunes cannot find music files

I know I've seen this problem before but can't remember the solution. When attempting to play an Itunes song I get a box saying "song could not be used because the original file could not be found". I've checked under advanced for the proper music folder location and that is correct. Could someone help me again.
Thanks in advance.
Dale

If you hold down the option key when you open iTunes you should be able to point it to the library that you want to open.
Is you extrernal drive formatted in NTFS? That might be causing an issue with your Mac seeing it.

Finding Music Files

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for