Itunes will only recognise purchased music

Itunes won't recognise any music that wasn't purchased. I have all my music on an external drive and this is the specified locatin for the library. if i select an unrecognised track by going into the actual folder and play then the link is restated... I can't do that for several thousand tracks though...
any ideas?

You need a third-party program. See:
Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device: Apple Support Communities

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You must "Add" the tracks to your library. Select Add to Library from iTunes' File menu. Select your downloaded track(s) then click on the Open button in the file dialog. Once added to the library you can select and sync them in the Music configuration tab in the iTunes main window for your device.

Why wont my entire music library sync onto iTunes on my MacBook Pro? Why will only my purchased music from iTunes sync?

Background Info
I recently took my MacBook Pro 2011 to the Genius Bar because I was having issues with the logic board. Unfortunately the computer would freeze, emit three continuous beeps and basically render it useless every time I turned it on. Thus I was unable to do a more recent back up before taking it into the store. The first time I took it in, they said that the RAM and the logic board looked fine after running system diagnostics. They held onto it for about a week and when I got it back they had said that it was simply an operating system issue and that they had wiped it and reinstalled Mavericks instead of Yosemite which I had been running previous to my issues. However as soon as I took it home, the issues persisted and so I returned to the Genius Bar in hopes that they would see that the logic board was having issues. This time they sent it off to Texas to have all of the faulty parts replaced for a flat rate which included my logic board and optical drive. When I picked it up the lady at the Genius Bar said, "Good news, we didn't have to touch any of your files so they should all be on the MacBook." Alas they had already been wiped in an attempt to fix my laptop that failed. So all of my music from CD's as well as mp3 downloads of recordings done by boyfriend and other small artists not purchased from iTunes are gone.
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I just got my MacBook Pro 2011 back after having it wiped by the folks at the Genius Bar. With only an old back up from 2 or 3 months ago on my external hard drive, I don't have a lot of my more recently downloaded music saved anywhere. All of my iTunes purchased are easily retrievable from iCloud and what not but mp3 downloads of personal recordings done by boyfriend and other small local bands, mp3's purchased on Amazon, mp3's purchased from Bandcamp, free mp3's from Soundcloud artists, etc. will not sync over to my MacBook. All of these songs are still on my iPhone 6 thank goodness but I would very much like to sync them over to my MacBook. If anyone knows how I can overcome this, please let me know. Thank you very much.

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ITunes will only play select music...

I have recently done a complete switch from PC to Mac and as such I transferred all of my music from my PC to my Mac. When I load the music into iTunes it will only recognize some music and won't even import the other stuff. The 'other' stuff played in iTunes on my PC and just recently noticed that certain albums were completely gone and when an attempt to re-import itunes would do nothing with it.
hope someone can help,
thanks.

Assuming this is for iPhoto on your Mac:
Launch iTunes use the File -> Library -> Organize Library -> Reorganize Library menu option. Then quit and relaunch iPhoto.
Credit to user keysandfood who found this solution.
OT

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I had something similar occur when I purchased a new I-Pod. Sync did everything except vids I had downloaded from YouTube.( These are placed in films/home films.)
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FLAC files do not run on iTunes. See this article for how to convert your FLAC files to iTunes compatible format:
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See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
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or
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I have recently encoutnered a problem with my 5th generation 60gb ipod which I'm hoping someone can help me with?
When I plug my ipod into my computer and open itunes, it recognises that the ipod is plugged in, but asks me to set-up the ipod, like it is the first time I have used this ipod. Also it does not recognise any of the 5,000 or so songs on the ipod.
When my ipod is not plugged into my computer all 5,000 songs still appear on it and play with no problems.
For some reason itunes will not recognise the songs on my ipod - even though I have added them all with this software and about a third of them on this computer.
If I choose to proceed with the set-up of my ipod, I am afriad I will lose all 5,000 songs off my ipod.
Can anyone offer a suggestion - as it is, I either wipe my ipod or concede that I can't add any more songs to it, even though it is only half full.
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Thanks!

When I plug my ipod into my computer and open itunes, it recognises that the ipod is plugged in, but asks me to set-up the ipod, like it is the first time I have used this ipod. Also it does not recognise any of the 5,000 or so songs on the ipod.
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Windows confuses iPod with network drive or hard drive and may keep iPod from mounting or songs may seem to disappear

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I have purchased a new iPod Nano and have tried repeatedly to set it up but iTunes will not recognise it. I have 5 other devices connected to my itunes account so is this the problem and what can I do?

There is no 5 device limit. There is a 5 computer limit.
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That's consistent with all the tickboxes to the left of the tracks (in Song view) being unchecked.
Go into Song view and Ctrl-click one of the empty boxes to do a "global recheck".
If you can't see the tickboxes, head into your General preferences tab and select "Show list tickboxes" as per the following screenshot (it's for an earlier version of iTunes, but the boxes are in roughly the same place in the recent versions 11.x):

Itunes will only recognise purchased music

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