ITunes Lost Library

I inadvertently changed the default on my primary library (1,500+ songs) to a short file of 50 songs (all purchased music). How do I change it back to retrieve my primary library? Primary library includes transferred CD's and purchased music.

I downloaded all my CDs (+2000 songs) to my itunes library at home. I then downloaded 10+ songs on to my itunes library at work, and updated my ipod, on the computer at work. Now my ipod only has my 10+ downloaded songs on it and I can not get my original library (+2000 songs) on my computer at home back on to my ipod. It only plays the 10+ downloaded songs. What do I do?

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Itune lost library old ipod need to be sync

Hi I got itune messed up and when updating (i talk about few months ago perhaps) lost all my music and ipod playlist. So now I have my ipod (ipod nano 5th generation) with my music but if I sync with itune it will get erased so I'd like to repeat the process of syncing starting from a full ipod.
question 1:
Now i managed to get the music from the ipod save on my computer with this post http://macs.about.com/od/backupsarchives/ss/copy-ipod-music-to-mac_6.htm
now what i'd like to do is to put these songs from the folder where are saved directly to "my ipod" playlist rather than drag to music main folder of itune. drag and drop won't work I searched how to send songs from a folder to a playlist and came across this post http://hintsforums.macworld.com/archive/index.php/t-40585.html ) it suggest to download a script which a did but once put in the folder I don't know how to run it...
suggestions?
I thought about delete all the music in music itune and put the song of folder "my ipod" as new total music library then send them all to ipod playlist and then rebuild my music library but if there is another way i'd prefer...
question 2 :
if i manage to put those song in the "my ipod playlist" how to tell ipod to sync on that playlist? if i go to my ipod section in itune (when plugged) and then music tab the music syncing is already set on "selected playlist" but won't tell me which one (and I might doubt is different name) and if i thick "sync music" it will ask me to start syncing without allowing me to change the setting already pre set.
question 3:
if itune will be so smart to sync the ipod with "my ipod" playlist will it delete the on the go playlist? i'd like to keep that on my ipod, otherwise i have to export it. I found this post http://forums.ilounge.com/ipod-classic-ipod-5g-video/210062-how-can-i-get-playli st-off-my-new-160-gb-ipod-classic-into-itunes.html on how to export and import the playlist and I tried but it tell me that not all the file were imported cause they haven't been found. still on the ipod they are all there
Thanks
P.

3 days,36 views ,0 answers
It means:
1) I either post a question that has been answered already many times ----> LINK TO SOLVED THREAD PLZ
2) This case is too difficult for APPLE
P.

ITunes lost library. now can't install iTunes at all!!??

I have iTunes on a iMac running the latest of everything. A year or more ago I transferred the iTunes library to an external drive and marked it on my start up drive with an alias. Worked great until today. I turned on iTunes and no music at all! I checked and it is still on the hard drive and the advanced prefernces shows it still pointing to the other hard drive. I tried everything I could find on the Apple support pages and this list and others and nothing works. I finally trashed iTunes and everything connected to it on the start up drive. I downloaded iTunes 6.0.4 and tried installing it. I get to the install button, click on it and it says - "You cannot continue. There is nothing to install". On customize install all options are greyed out and the word 'skip' is in the next column. iTunes shows 0 bytes! Easy install will not work either.
I finally connected the hard drive to my powerbook and confirmed the music is still there but I lost all playlists and folders.
I called Apple support but they want $49 to help isolate the problem with no guarantee they can fix it.
Anyone out there able to help?
Thanks, Mike
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.6) External harddrive not showing on About this Mac though is accesible on desk top

Mike,
The song locations, playlists, ratings and Date Added are all stored in the 'iTunes Library' file. (more info here).
It appears to me, the file got corrupted or missing.
If the file got corrupted, you should have gotten a message about a 'damaged library file' or something like that.
The one you now have is empty and contains no data. You might take a look in the 'Previous iTunes Libraries' folder inside the iTunes folder.
If there are still older versions available, use the most recent one, rename it to 'iTunes Library' and put it in the iTunes folder, replacing the one just created.
That might bring most contents back.
Working with an alias might complicate the restoring process. I'm not enthousiast about those. I prefer creating symlinks. They seem to be more stable with OS X.
To bring back the remainder, drag and drop the 'iTunes Music' alias on the library window in iTunes. I'm not sure if this will work with aliases, but it could add the possible missing contents to the library.
If no other library files are found, I'm afraid you have to start from scratch.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

Downloaded new version of itunes lost my library now itunes won't save my library have to install my library everytime i turn computer off itunes store will not open either have tried a few ways to solve problem from community members nothing works

downloaded new version of itunes lost my library now itunes won't save my library have to install it everytime i turn my computer off itunes store won't open either with almost 16,000 songs this is getting unbearable if someone wants to download new version it's a nightmare

I had the same problem on my iphone 5s, and this fixed it. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5335

ITunes lost connection to music library

For some reason, iTunes lost the connection to my music library. All the songs are still on my hard drive, and if I manually go to them and click them, they will play in iTunes, and then stay in iTunes, but none of the ratings or playcounts, etc. show up. How can I get iTunes to reconnect to my music and keep all my ratings, etc? Please help...

If your are on Windows XP - SP2 and above, try this:
Close your iTunes,
Go to command Prompt -
(Win XP SP2 & above) - START/ALL PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/Command Prompt
In the "Command Prompt" screen, type in
netsh winsock reset
Hit "ENTER" key
Restart your computer.
Now launch your iTunes and see if it is working now.

TS4062 Have lost itunes music library from my iPad

Cannot access my iTunes music library from my iPad3. It was working fine until I installed iTunes on my netbook (windows 7) yesterday. That seemed to result in losing my music library on the iPad. I also have the iTunes account on a desktop pc. Any suggestions as to what caused this and how to fix it? Thanks!

iOS devices can only be synced to one iTunes library.
You probably allowed syncing of your iPad when you plug it to your Netbook which was previously synced with your PC (by the way, you posted on the iTunes for Mac forum). It that time, you must have seen a popup warning telling you that your iPad is synchronized with another iTunes libray.
If you sync your iOS device with an empty iTunes library, it will result in deleting everything on it. In you case, you should plug back your iPad in your PC and then, select to restore it from your latest backup.

Is there a way to transfer my iphone/ipod music to my itunes music library?

my 1st generation iphone was synced with my laptop. then my hard drive crashed. so now i have a new hard drive. in order to sync my iphone with this one, it says it will erase all my music. what can i do? i heard about the software senuti, but i cannot get it to work, and i am worried that if it unlocks my iphone, it may render it useless, or something worse. what can i do? can anybody help? apple tells me i cannot transfer the songs from my iphone/ipod into my itunes music library because some of them were not purchased from itunes. i understand business. it's about money and copyright rights, etc...yada, yada, yada. i just hate to lose my songs (625 of them). i have no backup for the songs. i learned a lesson. BACKUP your stuff!
<Edited by Moderator>

iTunes includes an option to transfer content that was purchased from the iTunes Store from an iPod or iPhone, but this is for content that was purchased from the iTunes Store ONLY.
With your iPhone connected and without syncing, at the iTunes menu bar go to File and select Transfer Purchases From - the name of your iPhone.
Any content not purchased from the iTunes Store will be lost, which is why maintaining a backup of your iTunes library along with all other important data stored on an external drive used for backup purposes only is so important. The iPhone is not designed nor intended to be a backup device.
If your iTunes content that was not purchased from the iTunes Store was imported into your iTunes library from music CDs, dust them off and start importing them back into your iTunes library.
Using a 3rd party utility or application that provides for this but is not supported by Apple is your only other option.

Moving iTunes 6 Library to an external drive

All I wanted to do is reroute the iTunes Library from my Macs INTERNAL DRIVE, to an EXTERNAL DRIVE (that has more space) AND keep all my hard earned playlists & downloaded album covers intact. Unfortunetly I followd the directions for an earlier versions of iTunes. Final result; I was able to change the location, BUT all the playlists & album cover downloads were lost (hard work down the drain!). Does anybody know if there are any updated instructions for doing this available for iTunes 6?
Thanks to anybody who can help with this.
Dan

Dan,
in this case for whatever reason something went really wrong: The 2 library files "iTunes Music Library.xml" as well as "iTunes Library" must not be moved.
All playcounts, ratings etc. are stored in the last one mentioned.
If this files isn't in your iTunes folder, iTunes creates a blank one: All metadata will get lost.
If the original files still exist: Close itunes and move back "iTunes Music Library.xml" as well as "iTunes Library" into "iTunes" and relaunch the application.

Hard drive failed, now I need to re-purchase iTune's library

My father's hard drive failed and now his iTune's library is gone. I have two questions.
1. How can I buy a list of songs from the iTune's music store? I want to avoid re-purchasing individual songs and albums; it will take forever.
2. Is there a valid way to recover the songs that are on his iPod nano? This is only a partrial solution if it can get done.
Thank you in advance for any insight.

If he still has the library on his Nano, hope is not lost. There are programs that will allow you to copy from the iPod. I've heard of Yamipod and iPodRip. You could Google those and give it a try. Not sure if they work on Nano, but I would think so.
Diane Wordsmith

Need guidance - replace entire iTunes Match library with new library

Been using iTunes as my music manager/player since 2003. Currently have about 5,000 songs which are a mix of selective CD song rips, iTunes purchases and Amazon Mp3 downloads. Lots of missing artwork, incomplete albums, wrong genres, etc. I use iTunes Match to sync across multiple Macs and iOS devices, including 3 Apple TVs. It all works OK, but I recently undertook a major project to re-rip all of my CDs/Box Sets in their entirety – about 20,000 tracks. I performed the new rips on a Mac Mini running Windows 7 in BootCamp using Roxio Creator to get a 'universal' Mp3 (256kbs) format and keep everything separate and apart from my current iTunes/Match libraries. Total library size came out around 80-85GB, saved on an external USB HDD.
Recently had my iMac 1TB HDD replaced under Apple’s recall program and looked at it as an opportunity to totally rebuild my iTunes library from scratch using the new, complete album rips. I’ve loaded the new 80GB library onto the iMac and am currently using TuneUp Media to ‘clean up’ metadata and album artwork on the new library. I've turned off iTunes Match to isolate the iMac during this stage of the process.
When cleanup is complete, I would like to totally replace my current iTunes Match library with the new larger library. I think the songs will sync OK, but I’ve put a lot if effort into cleaning up the album artwork and am afraid that, if I don't take some precautions, iTunes Match will overrule and mess up my new artwork when I activate it.
My plan is to
From the iMac, first copy (or should I export) the entire rebuilt library to an external drive as a backup, hopefully preserving all of the artwork and metadata corrections in the process (true?).
On my MacBook Pro, copy my current Match library to a different external drive to ensure preservation of any unique tracks I may have missed in building the new library. Then delete the entire library – both local and Cloud. I should then have an empty iTunes Match library, correct?
Then, on my iMac, activate iTunes Match and let it upload/match all the new songs/data to create a new Cloud library with all the new albums, descriptors and artwork.
Do I need to individually deactivate Match and delete local libraries on all my other devices also, or does the total Cloud library delete I perform on my MacBook Pro then transfer to all my other registered iOS and OSX devices that have Match activated?

Thanks bmw249. I have good news and bad news. Good news: Apple very quickly deauthorized my computers so I was able to drop the lost computer that was taking up a slot and (I suspected) confusing iTunes Match.
The bad news is that this didn't make any difference. Nearly all the songs in my iTunes library have an iCloud status of "error" and when I turn on iTunes Match, it churns for a while before telling me that I already have 25,000 songs in the cloud and can't add any more. What I expected is for it to recognize that most of the 25K songs are the very same ones sitting in this local iTunes library. It should be substantially fewer than 25K because I also deleted 1000+ classical music pieces that I have sitting in Amazon Cloud, in hopes of freeing up space for my recently purchased and created music to be uploaded to iCloud. But no dice.
I am now downloading ~800 songs that iTunes thinks I have only on iCloud. I then plan to figure out how to deactivate iCloud and iTunes Match on this PC so that nothing will be deleted locally when I cancel my iCloud account (it runs out in March 2013 but I assume I can cancel and deactivate the account sooner). The "convenience" of this service isn't worth the many dozens of hours of hours I have spent trying to get it to work the way Apple says it works. Amazon Cloud (also costing ~$25 a year) has a limit of something like 20 GB and no specific limit on number of songs. I buy most music there anyway and have already uploaded most of the rest, so this makes the most sense. I really like the way iTunes Match can (in theory) keep all my music sync'd and smoothly stream to my iPhone even over 3G. Amazon Cloud takes a bit more effort but does much the same thing.
Thanks for listening. I'm assuming this is a "moderated" forum and that this post will soon be removed for my Amazon comments.

ITunes Library.xml versus iTunes Music Library.xml

Hi.
What is the difference between the two?
Thanks

From this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
iTunes Library (iTunes Library.itl in Windows) is a database of the songs in your library and the playlists you've created. Some song-specific data is saved in this file. If you delete the file, iTunes creates a new, empty copy when you open the application, but any playlists, song ratings, comments, or other information you created is lost. The iTunes Library file is only used by iTunes.
iTunes Music Library.xml file contains some (but not all) of the same information stored in the iTunes Library file. The purpose of the iTunes Music Library.xml file is to make your music and playlists available to other applications on your computer. In Mac OS X other iLife applications (like iPhoto, iDVD, and iMovie) use this file to make it easier for you to add music from your iTunes library to your projects.

Bug: iTunes Music Library Not Showing Song Name Category

As the title says: the iTunes Music library does not the track/song name category.
I realized this after clicking "Auto Size All Columns" after a fresh install of iTunes. The track/song name disappears from the current view, and isn't an option when right-clicking the categories.

Hi Bigfrank28,
If you appear to be missing music in iTunes, you may find the troubleshooting steps outlined in the following article helpful:
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1408
Regards,
- Brenden

Lost library and only a portion was salvaged - how I get the rest?

I was running Google Earth and iTunes at the same time today and our computer crashed. As a result, we lost our library (we do have it backed onto our iPhone except the album I purchased just before it crashed). I followed the instructions under apple.com/support (users/music/itunes...moving iTunes Music Library.xml on the the desktop, etc. etc.). It only recovered a small portion of our albums. When I go to users/music/itunes, there is a folder that has all our music in it. I tried to bring it in to iTunes and every time I've tried to do that, iTunes crashes. I'm a bit nervous to get the music from our ipod. I disabled the automatic sync on iTunes but when I go to do it manually, it says this phone is recognized by another iTunes application. I hope this all makes sense! Help!

I told you how to get the music from your ipod.
Relax, I am trying to help. You can check the inferiority complex. You would be shocked at the number who never backup anything and then are shocked that there is no way to get the music back.
Not that I feel like helping you further, but try this article ( and try being more polite to those you ask for help):
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1553
"I know it's not a backup"
"we do have it backed onto our iPhone"

BIG Problem - lost library

Hi there, last time I posted here my problem was solved in hours so I'm hoping someone can help this time!
I left my computer running overningt playing itunes and awoke to find that it had rebooted. I think that Wondows defender does that for spyware sweeps occasionally. When I started itunes again it was completely empty - all songs & playlists gone. I tried to sync my ipod with it to reload everything & it tells me that I can't transfer to an unauthorized library. It appears that my old itunes has been replaced with a new (and empty) one.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
I humbly thank you in advance,
Karl

It sounds as though your library file was corrupted when your computer rebooted.
The iTunes Library file is a database about your music, not your actual music files.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93732
Unfortunatley it appears you have lost the library file and iTunes has created a new empty one.
You can simply add your iTunes Music folder to the empty library (assuming that is where all your music is) this will get your tracks back into the library but without playlists etc.
Another possibility is to use the backup libarary file made when you upgraded from 6.0.5 but you lose everything since then:
You need to recover the backup version 6 library made when you first upgraded to V7. It should be in the Previous iTunes Libraries folder which is in the iTunes folder.
It will be called iTunes Library yyyy-mm-dd.itl where the date is that of first upgrade to V7.
When you have found the backup, drag iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml out of the iTunes folder to your desktop. Then copy the backup library from the Previous iTunes Libraries folder into the iTunes folder. Rename it iTunes Library.itl and you should be good to go.
This will take the library back to the day of the first upgrade. You will have to add any changes since then.
Start iTunes and check that purchased music plays before plugging the iPod, it may be necessary to authorise the computer.
You could investigate third party software which can transfer information from your iPod. Copypod is one example but there are others.
This seems to be a common problem and it is a good idea to make regular backup copies of your library files once you get things back to how you want them:
Backup the iTunes Library Files
The library files are in:
My Documents\My Music\iTunes
Close iTunes and wait about 30 seconds.
Copy iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml somewhere else e.g. into the Previous iTunes Libraries folder.
To restore, with iTunes closed drag the current itl and xml file from the iTunes folder to the desktop, then copy the backup iTunes Library.itl into the iTunes folder. The xml file isn’t necessary but can come in handy if the library needs to be recreated and the itl file is causing problems.
.

Itunes Music Library Location

I had my tunes on the server, even when I select my server location as default for Itunes music, Itunes puts them back on my laptop under Itunes local hard drive music folder(music:iTunes:iTunes Music:). How can I keep it on the server and to stay there. Is it a way to "Lock" it?
Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.10)

After re-reading your first post I would like it if you could clarify something. You said: "I've imported a bunch of songs to my external drive where I keep my itunes library."
I am assuming that you mean you used the "Add To Library" menu item in iTunes. I hope that you didn't manually drag the song files into the Music folder. If you didn't add them through iTunes that could cause problems.
I had a similar problem a long time ago with iTunes losing track of files when I tried to move them to an external drive. When you look at songs listed in the main music library in iTunes do any of them have an exclamation point next to them in the left most column? If so, the iTunes index (library file) has lost track of the files. You will need to delete all the exclamation point marked songs from iTunes and then re-import them.
Once you have all the songs in one iTunes music folder you can then move them to the external drive. Instructions here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
You might also want to read this: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301509
If you still have problems let me know I will try to help you the best I can. Also let me know if you work the problem out. Good Luck!!

ITunes Lost Library

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