How to restore iTunes library from backup?

A large percentage of my iTunes songs have become corrupted. (Seemed to happen when I installed 7.3) Luckily I have a recent backup of my hard drive, so I want to reinstall the library.
What are the steps to take? Do I simply delete my old iTunes library folders and copy the "good" folders in their place? Or do I need to restore the iTunes database, prefs, etc.?

See if any of these articles help:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302392
(see restoring from backup disk section)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313

Similar Messages

How to restore ITunes Library from Backup hard drive?

My computer crashed. I restored it -- but ITunes was wiped clean. I have all my music files and ITunes Library backed up on an external hard drive. How do I get the library from the external drive back to the computer with playlists, artwork and all intact? I guess it is more complex than just dragging the file labled library into ITunes becuase the computer won't let me do that. When I go to the original songs they are all individually in folders accorging to the artist and album -- that will take days to copy each album 1 by 1 -- I have 3,700 songs.

What you first need to do is Place the music it the Location they was in before you restored. If you had songs on the C drive in My Music folder, place them there. If iTunes was reading the music from the external, not much you have to do sincve there already there.
Now with the Library file you have to make iTUnes take the file and recreate it, this is explained here http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313

How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive?

How do I restore iTunes library from Backup files on External Hard Drive and keep the new iTunes library on the External Hard Drive. I have all the media and playlist and .xml .itl files, just want the iTunes to recognise the content.
I backedup my iTunes content by dragging to External Hard Drive. Formatted and reinstalled OS. My iTunes content is so large, that I wish for the Library and content to remain on the External Hard Drive. I have all the music files and playlists, I just cannot get the iTunes application to display all the content. Hoping to Not have to drag and drop all the content to be recopied into new iTunes organised files.
Troubleshooting this by researching other conversations on the web, I have come stuck for a solution. One Troubleshoot told me to hold down the Command key and then lauch iTunes and a dialogue box will appear to Choose a new library, however when I try this, no Dialogue box appear to give me the option!?

It sometimes has that funny switch symbol on it too.
tt2

How to restore iTunes Library from Time Machine on Mavericks?

Please, can someone give me the instructions on how to restore iTunes Library from Time Machine on Mavericks?

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for details.

How to restore itunes library from a faulty time machine backup?

Hello,
I just bought a new macbook pro 15inch. I have a time machine backup but I wanted to start fresh so I didn't use the migration assistant to transfer my info. The only thing I want is my iTunes library with the playlists, ratings, artwork etc. But here's the problem... The computer knows that my external hard drive (it's a 1 TB toshiba) has a time machine back up, but it won't access it the usual way. I choose "browse other time machine disks", enter the time machine, then choose the external drive from there, and then I access my stuff. I copied the whole iTunes folder, changed the iTunes media folder location in preferences. Now all my playlists are gone, 400 songs are missing artist info and the library duplicated itself so now I have 12000 songs.
Is there a way for me to have my exact same iTunes library from my other computer?
Any help is appreciated. Thank you

bilunpe wrote:
I copied the whole iTunes folder, changed the iTunes media folder location in preferences.
All you need to do is copy the entire iTunes folder to /Music/.
Then open iTunes.
This is all you need to do. Don't change any iTunes prefs.

New HDD - how to restore iTunes library from Time Machine

Installed a new HDD in my MacBook Pro, would now like to restore my iTunes library on the computer.
Searched & saw a post about "needing to use the Time Machine interface to restore the entire library".
What is this interface they are referring to and how do I find it?
I open Time Machine in preferences and see there is an "options" button, and you can add items to the restore window ... I'm hoping there is a document somewhere that details if this is the correct place to restore an iTunes library, if so, what files/directories need to be added for restore, etc...
What's the process to restore an iTunes library from a Time Capsule backup?

Please do not double-post.
Answered in your other thread on this subject: https://discussions.apple.com/message/17532046#17532046

Anyone know how to Restore iTunes Library from External HD

My PC won't even turn on anymore. But luckily, I have most of the iTunes Library backed up in an External HD.
Now, I've searched and can't find instructions from Apple on how to Restore the Library while keeping all the Playlists, Ratings, and all that other good stuff. Anyone know to do that, or at least WHERE that info is?
Thanks.
Message was edited by: MasterSpade

I have most of the iTunes Library backed up in an External HD
What exactly do you have backed up on the external?

How to restore iTunes library from TimeMachine external hard drive backup after clean install

I was not able to solve this problem, hence I decided to open this discussion.
1. Recently, I clean installed Yosemite so my new Mac is completely empty.
2. I have my time machine backup on my eternal hard drive and would like to restore only specific things - such as iTunes library.
3. I did not manually copy iTunes library to my drive, I did the TM backup only, but I also do have all the files in my own "music" folder I manually backed-up.
However, I cannot locate the library there, where is it?
How do I move the library to my new Mac and then establish a new source folder that would be on my drive?
PS: Previously, iTunes used my own music folder as a source = it contained all the music files. I had it on an external drive, later moved it to my Mac.
This leads me to the conclusion that my backup copy of iTunes library did not contain the files anyway.
Any advice?
Thank you in advance.

I am confused as to what you had or have where and when. The bottom line is, your library (for the standard user) is everything in the iTunes folder. As far as iTunes' organization and display is concerned, your library is a file called "iTunes Library.itl" which points to all the other host of files and folders normally in the iTunes folder which all work together.
What are the iTunes library files? - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
More on iTunes library files and what they do - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes#Media_management
What are all those iTunes files? - http://www.macworld.com/article/139974/2009/04/itunes_files.html
Where are my iTunes files located? - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
iTunes 9 [and later]: Understanding iTunes Media Organization - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3847 - plus supplemental information about organizing to new structure https://discussions.apple.com/message/26404702#26404702
Image of folder structure and explanation of different iTunes versions (turingtest2 post) - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-7392 and making an iTunes library portable.
If you kept everything together in one place then you need to put the whole iTunes folder on the drive where you want it, start iTunes while holding down the option key and guide it to that .itl file. If things were split up and you had media on the external and the rest of the library on the internal you need to get them back to exactly where they were before. If you can't find that iTunes folder holding the critical .itl file anywhere then you have a bunch of media tracks and no organization and will need to rebuild the organization from ground level.

How to restore iTunes Library from a recent time machine backup

I have to make room on my internal HD on my iMac. The HD is a 1TB and I have 391GB of music and video etc that are in my iTunes Library. So I decided to move it to a new 5TB external HD which I formatted with 2 partitions. One partition 2.5TB will be my new Time Machine Backups and the other 2.5TB for iTunes Library so I never have to worry about this again. Using the knowledge I gained (?) from a YouTube video I copied my iTunes folder over to the new partition on the new HD. However, there was no library .itl file. So I found an old one but found I am missing playlists and content from iTunes. So I was thinking maybe the easiest way was to do an iTunes restore from Time Machine.
I am hoping that someone can guide me through this as I have already botched things up and want to do it properly this time.
Thanks

One partition 2.5TB will be my new Time Machine Backups and the other 2.5TB for iTunes Library so I never have to worry about this again.
Your worry now is what will you do when the single hard drive containing both your library and its backup makes a screeching sound one day and is toast, or get stolen?
from a YouTube video
Uh-oh, those unspecific and sometimes incorrect YouTube videos. I dislike those things. I watched one once and some kid droned on in a barely audible monotone for about 5 minutes to show how to do something to which I could have typed instructions in two sentences.
Downloading (using iOS or computer) past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519

How to restore Itunes library from stolen Ipod Touch to a new Ipod touch?

My Ipod Touch 3th gen was stolen. I bought a new Ipod Touch 4th gen. How do I restore everything that is in Itunes library to it?
Should I just give the new device the same name of the other one and sync?
Will that transfer the apps I bought on the old one too?
I also have mobile me account and it was updated 1 day before the robbery. Do I need to do anything about mobile Me?
Thanks!

You can restore from the backup of the old one.
OR just sync whatever you like to the new one.
You can sync as many ipods as you like to the same computer.

Restored iTunes Library from backup, but Missing Artwork

Hello
I had to reinstall iTunes 8. Fortunately, I had a clone of my HDD from just the day before. After the iTunes reinstallation, I replaced the iTunes Library and iTunes Music Library.xml files with my back up versions. Once I opened iTunes it took its time rebuilding the Library with the result being my ratings, play counts, and lyrics all where they were supposed to be. I am happy!
However, while that metadata was good, I noticed that I was missing artwork for a lot of the music files. It so happens that artwork was present in the iTunes Store purchased music, and in the files that had the artwork embedded via drag and drop (i.e., art was part of actual song file). On the other hand, every file that originally had images via Get Album Artwork was not referencing the Album Artwork folder (i.e., art not part of actual song file but referenced .itc files). So, no artwork.
How do I get that artwork back? All the images are still in the Album Artwork folder, restored from my backup, but I cannot find a way to make itunes reference them again! Why does the Library.xml restore all the iTunes-specific information for a track except the artwork?
Why do I not just use the Get Album Artwork feature again, you may be thinking? Because for most of the songs iTunes had the ID3 tag info wrong. After importing the music and matching the track names to iTunes Store to grab the artwork, I modified the ID3 info to more correctly reflect the artist, album, and track names. To rename the files to match iTunes Store, and then name them back to how I like them will take days.
So.. am I out of luck? Is there a way to actually backup iTunes information so that songs keep their references to the .itc files in the Album Artwork folder?
I thank you for your time reading this.
cheers!

2 words - Migration Assistant. Worked wonders.

How to Restore iPhoto Library from BackUp?

My iPhoto library has gone blank, although its trash has the 4,555 images. And all organization, albums, keywords, photo names, gone. Recently my backup storage, where library kept, went blank. I got a new backup, and a pro restored most of old data, and transfered to new one. So, I have the Library on the new backup, and need to restore it in the iPhoto Library, rather than create a new one, which as I understand will lose albums, keywords, etc. A friend says that way to hold down a key when opening iPhoto that will have it look for old library and restore? Not in Help or elsewhere.
I had a MacBook Pro, when this first happen. Now have iMac and have iLife 09, but don't want to instal it until photo library restored.
Sounds basic, but how to restore.
Thanks,
Armando

Armando
The simplest way to restore is to put the Library in the Pictures Folder and launch iPhoto.
Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' To select a Library.
Regards
TD

HD failure. Want to restore iTunes library from backup

The hard drive containing my music died. Fortunately, I have a (manual) backup of all the songs/artists on another hard drive. I also have a backup of the iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library files.
I moved the xml and library files to my Music folder. I attached the backup hard drive and changed the location of my library in iTunes preferences to look for my songs there. I hit Consolidate. All the songs show up in the library, but a load of them have the dreaded exclamation point and have no link.
I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Thanks so much for any help!

That setting in Prefs tells iTunes where to put music when you import...not where to find your library. Try launching iTunes while holding down the option key, then tell it where to find the library.

How to restore itunes library from time machine

I recently needed to replace the hard drive in my mac. I have an external hard drive that has been backing up to time machine.
All documents and photos were retrieved. Itunes backed up files and plugins but I can't find any of the music, video's etc.
Where are they located and how do I re-load into my Itunes library?
Thanks!

The default location for the iTunes media folder is
Documents/iTunes/iTunes Media
in your home folder. If that folder exists, set it as the location in iTunes preferences. If it doesn't exist, search for it by name in Spotlight.

How do I restore iTunes library from flash drive backup?

How do I restore iTunes library from flash drive backup?

brigdool wrote:
How do I restore iTunes library from flash drive backup?
HI Brigdool,
It depends how you made the backup.
If you copied your entire iTunes folder onto the flash drive, just copy it back to the appropriate place on the computer.
If you copied individual folders or files, add them back to iTunes by inserting the flash drive in your computer, and then dragging the files into your "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder.
The first method recreates your library as it was, with all playcounts, playlists, etc. The second method builds a new library with the same content.

How to restore iTunes library from backup?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for