ITunes randomly deletes songs or whole albums

I've been having this problem for quite some time now, maybe a year..I just thought I was misplacing the songs at first. However now I know for a fact that iTunes is randomly deleting entire albums. How can I stop this? I've thought about locking the folder, but then I probably wouldn't be able to update stuff as well.
Its extremely annoying because some albums are burns of physical discs and some are ones that I bought online. The physical are OK because I can just grab the original disc, but the ones I bought online I have to repurchase them.
Will taking off iTunes folder management work? Do I need to reinstall something?

This is weird in that when you intentionally delete something by selecting it and hitting 'delete' you get the choice to 'Cancel' vs. 'Keep Files' vs. 'Move to Trash' with note in box that only files in the iTunes music folder can be moved to the trash - so it should not be possible for iTunes to completely trash anything.
The only thing I can think of to check is to be certain in Preferences > Advanced both 'Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized' and 'Copy files to iTunes folder.." are checked (from your first post it looks like they are). If they are not, it is possible that you imported a song in another folder which was not copied into your iTunes folder, that is that you created a link to it but then accidently deleted the original. Of course, if you imported the physical CD using iTunes to rip it this wouldn't make sense. I would recommend making a backup of all music that you buy, but of course that doesn't answer the 'Why' question. -Bob

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Every song I play in Itunes gets deleted out of its album

Hi, I hope someone can help me. Every song I play in Itunes gets deleted out of its album and gets put into a Various Artists album.
What can I do to stop this from happening?
Thanks in advance

That sounds like the tags have been updated by some other software, perhaps Windows Media Player, then iTunes comes along, reads the tag as you play the track and moves it around according to the new information. The damage is likely already done.
See Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely.
tt2

Where are all the songs and whole albums i bought for i tunes? i have a new macbook but iTunes has none of my paid for music

where are all the songs and whole albums i bought for i tunes? i have a new macbook but iTunes has none of my paid for music

Your purchases won't automatically show in your new Mac's iTunes library. If you go into iTunes > Preferences and on the Store tab tick the 'show iTunes in the cloud purchases' then what you can redownload should show in the Music part of your library with a cloud icon against them - click on the cloud to download them. Or click on your name towards the top right of iTunes and then click Purchased on the popup, and you can redownload them from there.
If you've moved countries since buying the music, or if the rights-holders have removed them from the store, then you won't be able to redownload them. In that case if you still have your old computer then you could copy them over from that (e.g. via an external drive : How to move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Support or via home sharing), or copy them from your backup of your downloads/library and add them via File > Add Too Library

ITunes randomly deletes music

I have a Windows Vista computer with iTunes 8.0.1.11.
I have noticed that iTunes randomly deletes music from my computer, i know this because, i have a mac with the same music library and there is music on my mac which is gone from my windows computer.
The file is not in the music folder, and it doesn't appear anywhere on iTunes. There isn't a notice that says, file cannot be found, it is just completley gone. I do the same updates on both computers, so it can't be that.
Why is iTunes deleting music ?
Thanks

This has been happening to my wife's itunes library as well. First I had it set to use the existing folders of music on her laptop. Then it started deleting the original music files at random. Some were songs that she had for a long time and are nearly irreplacable. So I smartened up since Itunes is kind of a crappy software and had it just copy all imported songs into the itunes folder (keeping the itunes library seperate from the original files). Even though this is basicly using twice the space, it is a sacrifice that I must make in order to compensate for really bad coding.
Now, everything was fine for a while. Last night she updated to the 2.1 itouch software and everything seemed to go fine. This morning, she added a few more folders to the itunes library (again it should be copying the music to the itunes folder). But low and behold, she starts itunes and it deleted a bunch of music from her library. Thank gawd I had it not manage her original files as I would be throwing the ipod through the wall if it had.
This is very frustrating (among other issues which I will post in a new thread). Apple needs to give us an answer as to why itunes is behaving like this.

ITunes Match deleted songs from my hard drive. I had to re-rip them. How can I stop this from happening?

iTunes Match deleted songs from my hard drive. How can I prevent this from happening if I try it again?

iTunes Match can in no way be considered a backup service, this is due to the inexact nature of the 'matching process' (see https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4112, for more detail).
Loss of files from a Disk is certainly possible through media failure. However, the extent of iTunes Match capacity is solely to influence the content of the cloud. Perhaps there was a coincident, or pre-existing, failure of the disk which was simply exposed by the iTunes Match interrogation of the disk content.
There are certainly other services which depending upon your goal may work well. For example, Google Play with gBeats IOS App works very well. My use of Match is to synchronise across several computers and to drive Apple TV and an IOS device - other IOS devices still use sync for specific music and are complimented by gBeats for access to the full library when local mobile signal strength is high.
The strong advice to always start with a secure backup remains but if your primary concern is iTunes Match interfering with physical disk content you can relax - it simply does not have this ability. (Apology to Sherlock, further investigation required).

Bought an album off iTunes and two songs from the album will not download. Is there anyway to make them force load or anything along those lines?

Bought an album off iTunes and two songs from the album will not download. Is there anyway to make them force load or anything along those lines? The Album is Sunshower-EP by UME and the songs are The Conductor and The Means.

Hey ChandlerAdaway!
I have an article here that can provide you some guidance for this issue. First, you will want to check for the songs in your past purchases list for your account, if you haven't already:
Downloading past purchases from the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBooks Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
If the songs cannot be found there, you will want to report an issue with your download by following the directions in this article:
How to report an issue with your iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, or iBooks Store purchase
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1933
Thanks for coming to the Apple Support Communities!
Regards,
Braden

My iTunes keeps randomly deleting songs.

I know it isn't because it's full, I don't have enough for that to be the problem, but over time I go to look for a song I know I purchased and it's missing from my library. When I go to the store to find the song or album, it asks me to buy it again as if i never had. It's driving me crazy and I don't want to keep paying for music twice. Help!

I estimate iTunes really randomly deleting files and the iTunes Store really completely forgetting you ever purchased an item at about my chances as winning the lottery (for which I never buy tickets).
Do you have more than one AppleID? You cannot merge AppleIDs and items purchased with one will remain permanently associated with that ID, thereby not appearing in the Store as purchased if you log on with a different ID.

Itunes charged me for a whole album but didnt give me 3 of the songs

Hey so i preordered an album on itunes a couple days ago and it just came out today. itunes charged me the whole $9.99 for it, but left out 3 of the 10 songs. when i look at the album in the itunes store, those 3 songs have the price listed next to them. does anyone know how to fix this..? thanks

Hi haileyj13,
If you are having an issue with not getting some of the songs in an album you purchased from the iTunes Store you should report it using the steps in this article -
Report an problem with an item you bought from the iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, or iBooks Store - Apple Support
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

ITunes randomly deleting content - the "!" shows beside them, but they are not where iTunes says they are

Hi - I find that iTunes has been randomly deleting some content (movies or songs) from my library. I'll go to play something and it will have an exclamation point beside it. Sometimes if I "Get Info" and locate the file, it will be there, and then play fine. But sometimes it is completely gone from the library (still listed with an exclamation point, but not in the file folder it was stored in). In that case, the location in the "get info" window shows as:
file://localhost/Users/Username/.Trash/iTunes Media/Movies/Movie Title/Movie Title.m4v
Even if I view hidden files, I cannot find that folder location to move the content. The content is also not in the Trash, nor on the extrernal hard drive any more.
NO idea why this is happening, and can't figure out a pattern. Is anyone else having this issue, and/or found a solution?
As background, I'm on a MacBook Pro (2011), running OSX Lion. I sync an iPhone and an iPad2 to the iTunes library. iTunes is set to manage files automatically. The library is stored on an external hard drive accessed through a Time Machine.
Thanks to anyone that can help!

file://localhost/Users/Username/.Trash/iTunes Media/Movies/Movie Title/Movie Title.m4v
But that file location is your System Trash - you seem to have a problem with the permissions on your Trashes, either in your system Trash or the hidden Trash bin on your external drive.
See if any hints in this document help to locate the trash on your external drive:
Solving Trash Problems: http://thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html
The library is stored on an external hard drive accessed through a Time Machine.
Do you mean your Library is stored on a network volume (Time Capsule)? Then network problems may be the reason for your dead tracks.
Regards
Léonie

Why does iTunes drop many songs from an album and will not add them back?

iTunes regularly droping songs/tracks out of albums I've previously added to my library. The files are present in the album folder, but if I delete the album from the library and add it back, it still will not include the previously dropped files. Sometimes I can add them individually using "Add Files" instead of "Add Folder". This is a real pain in the backside, since when I play any album in my library, I can't be certain that all the songs/tracks will be played.

Are you burning as mp3 CD or Audio CD?.
If mp3 CD - then iTunes may remove the .aac audio files. (Just a thought)

ITunes Randomly Renaming Songs

Ever since purchasing an Apple TV, my iTunes randomly renames a handful of songs by putting the track number in the song name. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to how it chooses which songs to alter... sometimes it will alter an album that I just listened to, or it will alter an album that hasn't been touched for months (eg. Christmas music).
Any thoughts?

iTunes prefs -> Advanced - Importing.
Uncheck *Create filenames with track number*.

Itunes have deleted songs in library; cannot download; cannot understand previous comments.

Sob Story: My mother just died. I want to listen to my songs on my iPhone to destress myself. However, itunes has deleted half my playlist on my Mac. I went to my library. I did lots of searching for hours; I read all the comments here - half of them I don't understand.Too much talk; too little help. I tried dragging albums to itunes - NO!. Half of the songs in my so called library have weird names - not the previous song titles. I dont know what has happened. I have not changed software, updated anything, changed anything etc. There are more songs on my iphone that are not now in itunes so I can't even sync because then I will lose the precious songs I DO want to listen to. I really can't cope with this. I read someone saying they will buy a huge MP3 player and download songs the old fashioned way and others laugh - but you know what? When your mother dies, he will be laughing and itunes users... I hate Apple SO much right now.
If anyone has a really simple solution for an IT dummy (funnily enough I was quite clever on the old IT front until this happened) please spell out. Do not say: go to library, do this with file blah blah -- I have tried it all and plus, there are dozens of itune library files...

It's very simple. I turned on my MacBook Pro, went to itunes and noticed half of my songs were missing, albums etc. I looked online and people said go to X folder i.e. itunes library etc etc... But when I go there, there are dozens of folders all with the same name. I tried all the techniques, dragging, dropping, from A to B, but no good. Then I found a Music Folder - great I thought, as all my albums seemed to be there. But when I looked at them all the tracks have weird names (i.e. they have lost their titles) and they could not be dropped into iTunes. I never buy anything from ITunes so all my albums are ones I bought on CD and downloaded. By MP3 Player I mean, one of those old fashioned devices where you can just manually drop albums into, that don't bother synching, unlike the ipod on my iphone which now contains completely different albums and tracks than in the itunes on my Macbook Pro meaning I can no longer sync. To be honest I've now given up but thanks for your response.

ITunes randomly deletes folders from my iTunes system directory

I am running iTunes v7, "I have the box Let iTunes manage folders" unchecked, I have no folders in my iTunes list. I select "Add folder to library". At this point iTunes imports the majority of the albums contained in the iTunes directory on my disk, those that it doesn't it DELETES from my system. This has happened on two different systems so now I have a copy elsewhere on the disk of all the albums in a directory structure. However, how can I stop iTunes from randomly deleting these albums - I have checked to see whether iTunes has just moved them somewhere else, it does not, they are deleted.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Ray

I have an Intel based PC with XP Pro. I have had the same problem as the rest of you for 5 years. I have e-mailed Apple 3 times sans response. I searched the Internet for solutions. I have done what several of the suggest but still the problem persists. I had almost 13000 titles of music and old radio shows. Some I uploaded from personal CD's. Some were downloaded via an online music service. I can play a piece one day and the next that line has an exclamation point in front of it. I have lost entire works by one artist due to this problem. I am fed up with reloading the music and losing it. iTunes either has no answer or does not care. I asked about any limitations on the database manger, no answer. I asked about database limitations, no answer. I saw a post two years ago from a husband wife team that had 18,000 titles and had now lost many of them.
If there are complaints, there must be a problem. If there is a problem, there must be a solution. I spent too many years testing software professionally to think otherwise. If I do not receive a response from iTunes in the near future I will find another database to move my music too.

ITunes merges unrelated songs into one album?

Hey all, I've tried repeatedly to fix this problem and haven't had any luck. I recently added an album to iTunes (11.4) and the following things happened:
1) Under "albums" view, each song from the album had its own separate entry in albums (same album art and title, several entries with one song each).
2) After I repeatedly consolidated them into one album, they finally stayed together...
3) ...but suddenly 100+ other songs joined them in that album.
Now over a hundred of my songs are considered part of the same album--everything from Johnny Cash to Yoko Kanno is considered part of "Awesome Mix Vol. 1". I have no idea why these songs in particular were chosen, but whatever is happening overwrites their album information as well as their album art while leaving everything else intact. It's not even consistent regarding which albums it messes with--SOME of Abbey Road is now part of Awesome Mix while some is not.
I've changed the tags back a dozen times. I've even used a program like TuneUp to do so automatically. Every time I do so it eventually changes back--I think the Awesome Mix category is saved into iCloud or something. Has anyone encountered this before and can they suggest any fixes? I am going nuts. These are awesome songs, but they don't belong in Awesome Mix.

In iTunes an "album" is any collection of tracks with the same Album title and the same Album Artist, or Artist if Album Artist is blank, or for which Part of a compilation is true. This can be further complicated by inappropriate values in the various sort fields. See Grouping tracks into albums for more.
tt2

How to prevent iTunes form deleting songs when iPhone/iPod is NOT connected?

One day, I was reading a pdf file on my Mac Computer and decided to open iTunes. All my songs was deleted!!!! I didn't even connect my iPhone to the computer!!!! I the forced quit iTunes and reopened it again. Some of my music came back. I then shut down my computer and opened iTunes the nesxt day. All of my songs (I think) came back, except my Movie file is completely empty!!!!!!! All my movies stored in iTunes was deleted!!!!!!!
How do I stop iTunes from spontaneously deleting stuff from my computer?!!!! My computer btw is the MacBook Core 2 Duo. Could it be this computer is getting old?

Don't sync any iTunes content with iTunes on your work computer - don't have anything selected under these tabs for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes on your work computer - Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Apps.

ITunes randomly deletes songs or whole albums

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