Lost Itune library from laptop

We have our song libraby (mostly purchased music) intact on the desktop computer. When we recently got a new laptop, I was able to duplicate the same library on there too. I don't remember now exactly how I did that, but I know I had to "authorize" that computer.
Due to letting the laptop battery run too low, I lost the Itunes library there and would like to restore it. I don't want to move the desktop library, I just want to copy it back to the laptop.
Thanks,
Lenny

Probably the most straightforward way to copy iTunes from one computer to another computer is to network the two devices and copy over your iTunes folder. This works fine if you have been using iTunes to completely manage your music and all your songs are in iTunes Music not in different folders.
Copying the whole folder brings with it the iTunes Music folder and also the iTunes Library (iTunes Library.itl in Windows) database file which holds all the information about your songs (Playlists, Ratings, Play Counts, Last Played, Date Added, etc). You'll get more information including the Folder/File structure in this article: What are the iTunes library files?
On the PC you'll find the iTunes folder in: \Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Music\. When you copy the iTunes folder make sure you put it into the same location on the new computer. When you open iTunes on the second computer it will be the same as on the original one Songs, Playlists, Play Counts, Ratings etc. When I moved iTunes a while ago for my daughter I was also using the same version of iTunes, not sure how important that is but it's probably worth keeping them the same.

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Transferring itunes library from laptop to a PC which has itunes library

I have had a search for the answer to my question. A little while ago I transferred my itunes library from my old desktop to my laptop as I was moving house. I now have the desktop set up again, and basically want to copy the itunes library from the laptop to the PC.
Do I simply copy it to my external hard drive and then to my PC, or will this result in some of my library items being deleted from my PC? I have read a few threads and I'm a bit (or a lot) confused!

I am having a problem. My husband has a new laptop and wants to transfer his library from his pc (running xp) to his new laptop. I have followed the apple guide to step by step but when i get to the step where you drag the music icon to the ipod e: drive location in my computers there is no sign of the ipod as any lettered drive all that i can see are the usual c:, printers/scanners and iphone as a camera? How do i get the pc to recognise the ipod as a drive to allow me to drag and drop the library.
thanks in advance.

Help please Lost iTunes library from my MacBook Including both itunes purchased songs and uploaded from CDs. everything is still on my iPad is there a way to transfers it please.

there is a list of the songs on my MacBook but the media files have disappeared, also from my back up.
Tried to down load from iTunes Match but no success.
Any help much appreciated

iTunes won't transfer or download a track if there is an entry in the library for it, even if that entry is no longer attached to a file.
See Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
iTunes Store > Purchased > {Media} > Not on this computer may allow you to download all missing items.
tt2

HT4623 My iphone wont import itunes library from laptop

My iphone won't import the itunes library from my mac. How do I fix this?

Please read this article on syncing data from itunes to your mobile device.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386
Good luck friend.

Cannot access Desktop Itunes Library from Laptop

I have my Itunes library on my desktop pc which I access from my laptop with my ipod classic with no problems. My wife now has a 4th gen Ipod touch and i am trying to set up her laptop so she can access the same library and manage =her music via a playlist. From what I've read this should be pretty straight forward but I can't get it to work.
The laptops are running vista and the desktop XP, all with the latest version of Itunes.
The library was in my account on a user disk on the desktop. The system disk does not have enough room for the library (about 100 GB) so I moved it to a top level directory on the user disk. The user disl is shareable and I have ade the itunes library sharable. When I point itunes on my laptop to the new location I can access the new library. When I point my wife's itunes to the new library, itunes seens to accept it (no error message) but itunes stays on the local laptop library. On both laptops a drive is mapped to the user disk.
Any ideas what may be going on and how to fix it. I'm assuming itunes can be open on several systems at once? I also have home sharing on.
Thank,
George

Welcome to the Apple community.
What are you doing when you get this message, are you trying to set up homesharing or trying to access your library.

Moving iTunes library from laptop to new desktop

I'm thinking about getting an iMac desktop, and would like to move all my music and video files from my iBook to the new setup. What is the correct procedure for doing this? I'm reading on these boards that there's a way to just plug the computers into each other, but will that copy everything onto the new hard drive? I'm thinking about doing this because my 60 GB laptop's capacity is maxed out from my iTunes library (33 GB and growing); once I move it to the desktop can I trim down my laptop's iTunes library and still play from there? Can I then only update my iPod to the desktop (if I want the full library)?
Should I run it all through an external HD as a sort of middle man/back-up? Is this all much easier than I'm thinking it is?
I know...so many questions.
Thanks.
Lindsay

get the two, system prefs, click sharing, make sure personal file sharing is checked on both
second in finder click go in the menu bar and click connect to server, click browse
enter your login name and pass for the user account you want music from from the old computer . .
that computer will appear on your desktop, double click it, find your music folder, open itunes on the new computer and go to user/music/itunes/itunes music and drag itunes music into the library source on your new itunes . . . it will do the rest and this is also the best for the new computer, to create new files while coping not moving and taking all the old bagage with it.
then just clear your ipod and set it for the new iMac and back everything up from there and clear off the ibook. keep it authorized and when they are on network if iTunes is open on the desktop you will be able to play music from it, worked great i use it on 4 computers in my house . .
then as far as travel goes . . no music on the old laptop . . who cares, you have an ipod . . enjoy!
hope i understood your question, please feel free to ask if you have any more!

Itunes library from laptop to desktop

I want to take my itunes library that is on my backup drive from my laptop and put it on my desktop. Is it as simple as just dragging the library off my external drive and dropping it in the itunes library on my desktop?
Thanks

Place it in the location of the current library after moving or renaming the item which already exists. You cannot add items to or merge iTunes libraries in the Finder.
(30292)

HT1386 i have followed your instructions and still i cannot add my itunes library from laptop to iphone

I have gone over these instructions numerous times and I still cannot add music from itunes library on my laptop to my iphone. What am I doing wrong?

Is it on a NTFS drive?
Mac can read but not write to NTFS, and it does not see all NTFS drives equally well.
To write to NTFS I use and recommend Paragon Software $20 NTFS for Mac OS X.
Ideally move iTunes to a Mac HFSX format drive though.

Want to access desktop pc Itunes library from laptop pc

Hi,
I have my Itunes library on my desktop pc, on a dedicated user disk. I have mapped the disk to my laptop and can see all user disk folders and files on my laptop (wireless). I want to be able to manage the desktop Itunes it from my laptop but can't seem to do it. When I go to advanced in my laptop Itunes and enter the desktop Itunes as the default file, it accepts the location but the Itunes library does not chamge. Any ideas? I do not want to do Home Sharing, I want to access the desktop library just as if it was on my laptop. I was able to do this befor but had to reinstall Itunes on my laptop and now accessing the desktop library no longer works.
Thanks,
George

There are a few things you could do, from networking the two computers to using an external hard drive. Have a look at this User Tip: Migrating iTunes for Windows to a new PC
If you can network the computers there is also this one: Copying songs over a network to use with iTunes for Windows
There are also a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists directly from your iPod, this is just a selection. Have a look at the web pages and documentation for these, they are generally quite straightforward.
iGadget Windows Only
iPodCopy Mac and Windows Versions
iPod Access Mac and Windows Versions
YamiPod Mac and Windows Versions
PodUtil Mac and Windows Versions
iPodCopy Mac and Windows Versions
PodPlayer Windows Only

Deleted iTunes library from laptop - help!

I have just (stupidly) deleted my iTunes library instead of transferring to my new external hard drive... the recycle bin was already full so there is nothing in there. I followed the instructions on recreating a library but nothing happened ... is there anything I can do?? I have all the songs/downloads on my iPod - is there anyway of restoring the files from there or will iTunes just delete them if I plug it in?? I also purchased some new music today just before deleting - can I still get them back?
I'm not massively tech-minded so if anyone can help me using simple words (!!) I'd be really really really grateful!!!
Nicky

You should find this post from Zevoneer helpful if you want to recover music from your iPod.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9990366#9990366

I just had to have my toshiba laptop hard drive replaced and I am unable to move my itunes library from my ipad back to the laptop. It says it is linked to another library and I can only transfer purchased music etc and not the rest of the library.Help!

I have just had my Toshiba laptop hard drive replaced. This has resulted in all previous content held on the laptop to be lost. I wanted to try and transfer my music library from my ipad to the laptop, but it will not allow me to do so. The message is that the ipad is linked to another computer and it will only allow the transfer of the items purchased on through the ipad and nothing else. Does anyone know if the full library can be transferred back to the computer?

You need to transfer the iTunes Library from the most recent backup you made before the hard drive was replaced.
You can't transfer the full iTunes Library from the iPad back to iTunes.
There are third-party Windows applications that will transfer data from an iOS device, but they don't re-create the iTunes Library exactly as it was before.

HT1751 I downloaded my Itunes library from old lap top to my new laptop and all my songs are doubled with a ! by one of the songs. Everytime it is asking to to locate the missing file, how to a get rid of the duplicate song

I my Itunes library from old laptop to my new laptop. When I transfered my itunes, they are now doubled in the library, with one song with a ! by it. Everytime I try to play that song it directs my to locate the song and it gives me a drop down menu. How do I end the duplicate songs on my computer?
Fairwind80

As long as don't have any metadata attached to the broken files which you would like to preserve...
You could use iTunes Folder Watch with its option to "check for dead tracks on startup"
Or
Robert Jacobson's script itunes_remove_notfound
Or
Create a playlist called Found, select everything in Music and drag it into the Found playlist. Create a smart playlist called Lost matching All the rules Playlist is Music and Playlist is not Found. Your lost tracks will be in this playlist. You can delete them all with a Ctrl-A to select them and Shift-Delete to remove them.
You can then delete the Lost & Found playlists.
If there are ratings, play counts etc. attached to the broken links, but you've since reimported the files from another location then I have a script called FindTracks that could probably repair the broken links, and another called DeDuper that could dedupe and gather up the stats while preserving playlist membership etc.
tt2

Migrating iTunes library from external hard drive to new laptop

Hi there, I am wondering if anyone can help me please? I am a complete newbie to this forum thing, I am just getting into this cosmic sharing world but find myself utterly frustrated with iTunes and my new laptop - with little help on the Support pages, so i am venturing into the unkown and seeking help from anyone out there.........slightly scary for me, this really is my first post on a forum - so be gentle with me :0)
On my old steam driven laptop I had to move my iTunes library to an external hard drive, my 250MB hard drive just wasn't enough (I know pathetic wasn't it). All ok there and I have been using it no problem. I have now upgraded (finally!!) to a new wonderful laptop (with webcam and all sorts!)but I am at the end of my tether trying to get my iTunes library from my external hard drive to appear in the Library on the laptop. boo hoo.
I have tried changing the file location in the Advance section of preferences, i have tried choosing the library after holding down the shift key on start up (you see not a complete numpty). They all appear to work as i don't get any error messages, but the songs just don't appear in the library. Am i being a complete numb nuts here? what am i missing?
If anyone can help i would be really grateful as this is spoiling the euphoric feeling i have of my lovely new laptop!
cheers Latte

tonybassplayer wrote:
Thank Chris I have just done that. How do I now get them in to Itunes ?
If you simply copy the iTUnes folder to /Music/ and launch iTUnes, everythign will be there. No need to import anything.
This will work the same with iPhoto.
Simply copy the Photo library to /Pictures/ folder and launch iPhoto.

I need to move my itunes library from a pc to a laptop in a different home, can I do this? help!

I had set up my original itunes library on a pc in my previous home. I have left this home due to a marriage split up and now live somewhere else.
I have a new lap top which I am desperate to update my ipod nano on.
I have set up home sharing, and authorised my laptop. Unfortunately, I no techno whizz, and I'm really struggling now with this.
I have plugged in my nano to my itunes on my lap top and it is offering to either delete everything off my nano for what is held on as purchased songs from itunes - a total of approx 30 songs, from approx 1400 songs on my nano, or just update to show my purchased songs.
Help!! I'm getting to the end of my tether with this. Yes, I have read the tutorials and help through itunes.
Nothing is making sense or working.
Can someone please explain this to me like I'm a 3 year old?
I'd appreciate any help anyone can give me!!
Thank you!!

A PC cannot read a Mac formatted drive without using special software (MacDrive).
iTunes: How to move [or copy] your music to a new computer [or another drive] - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
Macworld - How to transfer iTunes libraries between PC and Mac - http://www.macworld.com/article/46248/2005/08/shiftitunes.html
Move an iTunes library from a Windows PC to a Mac - http://www.macworld.com/article/1146958/move_itunes_windows_mac.html

I am a new iPad user who has transferred an iTunes library from my laptop to iPad. How do I sync my iPod touch with my ipad

I am a new iPad user and have transferred my iTunes library from my laptop. How do I sync my iPod touch with my ipad

You don't. You synch your iPod to your computer. There's no way to synch from iPad to iPod. You can tranfer the same playlists to your iPod from the computer.

Lost Itune library from laptop

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