Itunes can't find most of my music - help!

I accidentally started moving my itunes folder to my desktop one day. I cancelled it but since then itunes hasn't been able to find most of my music. It's confused about it's location. I cleaned up my folders and made sure all of my music was in the one main itunes folder. I pressed consolidate library. Still itunes has no idea where most of my music is. I have thousands of songs and i don't want to go through my entire library telling itunes where each song is. There must be an easier way. Like i say, my songs are now clearly organised in one folder.

This is going to lose your playcounts, ratings, and playlists, but at this point all I can think of is, make a new blank library.
Directions on that:http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesWin/7.5/en/15502.html
Then drag the iTunes folder into it from Win Explorer, or used the files > add folder.

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ITunes can't find most of my music!

Up to now, synching my iPad to my iMac has been a piece of cake. Suddenly on the latest synch, I get an alert informing me that half my list can't be found and will not be synched to my iPad. So I investigated and found all the music that iTunes claims to be missing still residing in the same folders in the iTunes folder where they have always been.
Is my copy of iTunes getting senile?

Very strange, I attempted to get iTunes to find it by using (what else) the Finder. It said it could not find it because it did not exist. So I went in manually and double-clicked on one of the lost songs and it went to QuickTime 7 and started to play. Huh?

ITunes can't find any of my music

I've been using iTunes for a long time now. I keep all my music on an external (portable) drive with the exception of podcasts or downloaded music from the store. All of a sudden iTunes can't find any of my music. Everytime I click on a song to play that is stored on that drive I get the "!" mark and a box that says itunes couldn't find the song, do I want to search for it. I really don't want to have to do that to all 3k songs. My drive is fine, the songs are there. Could my library file have been currupted? This every happen to anyone else?

Do what Katrina says and that will most likely fix it.
Usually, when this happens, it's because a new device has been added via USB, like even a thumb drive.
When windows boots up, it assigns drive letters to the external devices. If it does it out of order from what it used to do, that effectively changes the location of your music files.
So if you've added anything to your computer via a different USB port, try taking that out. Of course you'd have to reboot after that.
But the permanent solution is what Katrina says, but you might need more detailed instructions on how to achieve what she says.
Look at the XML file to see what the drive is supposed to be. Open My Computer and match it with what your external harddrive is. If they don't match, there's your answer.
Once you fix that, your exclamation marks will disappear; you don't have to re-import or anything silly like that.

I moved all my music from c: drive(because it was full) to an external harddrive and now itunes can't find any of my music. Is there a way to get Itunes to find music on external drive without having to place all the music back onto the c: drive? Thanks

I moved all my music from c: drive(because it was full) to an external harddrive and now itunes can't find any of my music. Is there a way to get Itunes to find music on external drive without having to place all the music back onto the c: drive? Thanks

Hopefully you moved the entire iTunes Media (or iTunes Music) folder to a new path on your external drive. Copy your iTunes library folder out to the root of the external drive, e.g. X:\iTunes (where X: is your external drive), then move the media folder inside it. Hold down shift as you start iTUnes and keep holding untila asked to choose or create a library. Choose the library at X:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl. Should all be good.
Failing that, download and run my FindTracks script and point it at the new location of your media folder.
tt2

Itunes can't find alot of my music.....

I don't know what happen but oneday all my music or atleast the majority of them itunes can't find in my harddrive the names of all the song are in the library but once i click on them it take me to this screen where i have to search for them and there are not in my computer anying more....i shared my computer w/ my girlfriend so i don't know if she deleted them all by mistake somehow when she upgraded itunes.....if anyone know how i can get the back please help.....

Do what Katrina says and that will most likely fix it.
Usually, when this happens, it's because a new device has been added via USB, like even a thumb drive.
When windows boots up, it assigns drive letters to the external devices. If it does it out of order from what it used to do, that effectively changes the location of your music files.
So if you've added anything to your computer via a different USB port, try taking that out. Of course you'd have to reboot after that.
But the permanent solution is what Katrina says, but you might need more detailed instructions on how to achieve what she says.
Look at the XML file to see what the drive is supposed to be. Open My Computer and match it with what your external harddrive is. If they don't match, there's your answer.
Once you fix that, your exclamation marks will disappear; you don't have to re-import or anything silly like that.

ITunes update corrupted some of my music files so iTunes can't find the file, nor music I bought from the iTunes store.

After an iTunes generated update of iTunes, some of my music can't be accesed any more. When I try to play the file, iTunes says it can't find the link. This also happens with music I purchase from the iTunes store, so I've lost all this music; do I have to re-buy the purchased music again? My iTunes program is on my C drive, and the music library is on my D drive. In iTunes, I've set the ripped music to be placed in my D drive. The lost links are on some music files, but not others which do play music. Some compilation music files were split up into individual files, usually without LP art attached. Some album art was placed on wrong albums as well. Music with lost links have a ! mark beside the song name. File info says the link is on my C drive, but I can't find it there. Any ideas on how to get these lost files back. Thanks, Moizy.

Try this...
Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash
Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.
See iTunes Folder Watch for a tool to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
When you get it all working make a backup!
tt2

For some reason itunes can't find original file for music. If I have purchased from Itunes do I have to re-purchase?

I keep losing music from my library because "itunes cannot locate original file". Why does my computer lose this? If I have purchased in itunes, can I copy again for free? how? Thanks.

kenfromoshawa wrote:
I keep losing music from my library because "itunes cannot locate original file". Why does my computer lose this?
If you are losing music which can mean the database in iTunes is not stable. Maybe you should do under File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate Files.
Thanks and I did find the link, it now states that they have been downloaded but how do I copy thise files into my itunes or how does my itunes find those files? Again thank you for your help
Downloaded means you already have it in iTunes. If you've deleted them then you will see a cloud symbol. Click the cloud symbol and it will download into iTunes. (iCloud is your backup for all your purchased items)

ITunes can't find my tracks - please please help, DJ in need to urgent fix!

iTunes cannot find my tracks which have been working fine on my external HDD for a long time. Basically today I have tried to move my library from one external HD to another (due to portability issues) I changed my iTunes media folder location in the preferences to the new drive, and then consolidated my library in order to copy all of the tracks...when I opened up the new library on the new HDD the files could not be found. So I simply decided to change the media folder library back to its old location again so that I could just load up my initial library and go about copying my library in a different way... however, when I went back to the old library location which should not have changed at all, it was also unable to find 99% of the files!
Please help. I cannot recreate my library from scratch as I have 10000 tracks, most of which which are all sorted out into different playlists ready for DJing. The tracks are still on the HDD and I can find them individually, but this is obviously out of the question for such a large library of tracks. Please can someone enlighten me as to how can I relocate them without reconstructing the library?? Thanks very much, i'm pulling my hair out right now with stress!!!

Hey thanks very much for your reply. The original folder was still the H drive because I was trying to move from one exHD to another (one which is much more portable) Also the media folder location definitely shows the correct location of all the tracks. The new library did not work properly so I went back to my old drive in order to try again and follow a guide online so that it would 100% work correctly. However, when going back to the old drive I experienced the problems, so now my main (old) library is not working.
I think the problem lies somewhere along these lines - If you look at the picture closely you can see that the tracks file name is different for some reason before and after manual relocation...
So in the picture above it's originally trying to find the file "02 Serial Killa" and failing. However, after manual location it has realised the file is called "B Shackles - Serial Killa" so for some reason its searching for the wrong filename (I think!?)
Any help will be massively appreciated!! Thanks
Message was edited by: scratchley

HT203167 had new harddrive installed on computer and can't find my previously downloaded music----help

Can someone help me----I just had a new harddrive installed in my computer and I can't locate previously purchased i-tune music?

It will only be where you put it.
Where did you put it?

Itunes can't find my music from old file

Although my music is available on my ipad and phone, Itunes can't find and play my music on my laptop. WTH?

+changed the location of the music folder to E: iTunes Music.+
All this does is make future additions go to that new place.
When you move things around outside of itunes, it loses the path, as you've found.
Can you move everything back and use the Consolidate Library command to move it to the new location?
Here is a good article from iLounge on what you need to understand about the process.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

ITunes suddenly cannot find any of my music (but I see it!!)

So all of my music (the entire library, including the library and xml files) are sitting on an external USB 2.0 drive, in this location:
e:/ITUNES/library
the xml and itl file is sitting at e:/ITUNES/
In advanced itunes preferences, my itunes library is set to stay organized, copy new music when opened in itunes, and the music folder is set to e:/ITUNES/library
All of the sudden, itunes can't find any of my music. I've tried to restart, no luck. I took a look in the XML file, and it is pointing at the G:/ drive instead of E for some reason (I don't even have a G drive!). I did a replace all with programmer's notepad (G:/ to E:/), but no luck. And when I re-open the xml file the next time, it's all back to G again....
any ideas??
Thanks

Your music will only be where you put it.
It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy. Have you failed to do this?
If for some reason you have failed to back up, then you can redownload some itunes purchases in some countries:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

Moved my music folder, iTunes can't find it

My music is there, but iTunes can't find it. I created a new music folder on an external HD because of space issues. I have set the preferences to find the music folder at the new location, then consolidated the library.
I deleted the original music folder in it's entirety. Apparently, that's bad. Is there a way to re-create that folder? Or is there another way to make iTunes find the music in it's new location?
Any help much appreciated.

If you deleted the original iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Library.xml files, you may need to re-load all the music. You should be able to go to File-Add Folder to Library, select the folder that holds all your music and have it re-loaded.

Move all my music to another folder but Itunes can't find the files!

I have all my music on my desktop in small folders for each artist.
But now i don't have room anymore, because i have to much music.
So i want to move it all in to a folder called "Music". But when i do that
Itunes can't find the files, and i have to search for each file, to find the new location instead of the desktop. How do i move my music more easily? So i don't have to synchronize it all in again, with the right album covers and that..
Please, need some help here!

You need to open your preferences file in iTunes and click on advance then select the location of where you put the folder. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527

I can't find most of my files for the songs in my iTunes library and so cannot Sync them with my iPhone, Help please

Help please! When I try to sync my iPhone it tells me it can't find most of my files for the songs in my iTunes library, although the songs are there!!

Can anyone help?

ITunes Can't locate most music files

I updated iTunes and it can't locate most of my music. I'd say only about 10% and that being the most recent stuff I added is all it can locate... it asks me to look for the file and I point it exactly to where it should be.
I searched around and some have had this happen when they move files or store on an external HD whose name (ie F: or G:) switches. I did not do any of that, though, and everything is where it should be. The only answer seems to be reimporting the songs, I did that, but I have lost all my playlists, ratings, and counts.
I think this is a serious issue and no one seems to have an answer on how to solve it.

Welcome to AD!
Your best hope is to see if there is an ITL file in a folder named *Previous iTunes Libraries* that will have most of the metadata.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1967

Itunes can't find most of my music - help!

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