Lost itunes library..what to do now?

Ok I am very confused! I have an ipod mini, and have my itunes library on my computer. Well something is wrong w/ my computer. Now my question is. Can I login into itunes from another computer or something to still get music and stuff? Or do I have to wait until I get my computer working again and find my itunes on there.
Or if I can't get my old itunes library back, what should i do from here? I have ALL of my songs that were in my library on my IPOD, so I dont know what my best bet is. I do not want to loose my songs on my ipod because i paid for alot of them. Please help guide me!

I am experiencing the same problem. My computer crashed and ALL of my songs (over 500!) were deleted and are irretrievable. They are still on my iPod and I know that there is some way to transfer the songs from your iPod to your computer by converting it to a hard disk but I have no idea how to go about doing that. Anyone know?

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TS1967 When trying to recover a lost iTunes library file, the programme moved all the normal contents of iTunes folder to the desktop. Now what must I do?

When trying to recover a lost iTunes library file, the programme moved all the normal contents of iTunes folder to the desktop. Now what must I do? There is no iTunes Library.itl file. On the desktop it is labelled iTunes Library.xml. Several others files have appeared there too including iTunes Music Library.xml
Before I can use the programme is it necessary to take another step?
Thanks for advice.

Don't worry. I'm all for caution. I guess I should have asked a little more about what steps you took while trying to recover your lost library?
The permissions thing may be a red herring, but if there is a problem with file access rights to the designated media folder iTunes has been known to place files on the desktop instead since it can access this location. The most common cause for such problems is working with a folder on an NTFS drive via a differnt account or on a different computer. In the normal course of events folders created inside user profiles have limited rights for other users.
Here are the typical layouts for the iTunes folders:
Normally the iTunes folder will be created at <User's Music>\iTunes with the media folder inside it. The library files should all appear in the same place so your comment about there not being an iTunes Library.itl file is confusing. Is it just the case that the .itl extension is hidden? The two .xml files makes sense from the above and indicates that the active library is not in <User's Music>\iTunes, but you have a recovered file from when it was.
If, in fact, the situation is that your desktop is acting as the main iTunes folder, and contains the library file, Album Artwork, iTunes Media and (optionally) Previous iTunes Libraries folders, with all other content being inside the iTunes Media folder, then it should be relativly easy to rearrange your into the correct shape and move them to the correct location.
If things are more complex, with something other than a library folder containing a media folder, then reestablishing the normal order is more complicated. The iTunes consolidate function is used to bring copies of files stored outside of the media folder into the media folder. It may sometimes be needed as part of the process of tidying up, however it leaves behind originals. There are circumstances where there isn't room for two complete sets of the media files on the same drive which is why I suggested the script might be useful as it produces the same results for the library without leaving the originals for manual clear up.
I think before you do anything however, we should get a clearer picture of exactly what is where. Could you perhaps take a screenshot of the desktop and post it here? Take a look at this post on making a split library portable. The same techniques I outline there can be used to lick your library into shape, it is just a question of working out which to use in which order for the best effect.
tt2

While trying to update my Ipad mini to iOS8.0.2 , I lost my net connection and Ipad just hung up with iTunes logo, what to do now?

While trying to update my Ipad mini to iOS8.0.2 , I lost my net connection and Ipad just hung up with iTunes logo, what to do now?

Try this - Reset the iPad by holding down on the Sleep and Home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons. (This is equivalent to rebooting your computer.) No data/files will be erased. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430
Frozen or unresponsive iPad
Resolve these most common issues:
    •    Display remains black or blank
    •    Touch screen not responding
    •    Application unexpectedly closes or freezes
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/assistant/ipad/
iPad Frozen, not responding, how to fix
http://appletoolbox.com/2012/07/ipad-frozen-not-responding-how-to-fix/
iPad Frozen? How to Force Quit an App, Reset or Restart Your iPad
http://ipadacademy.com/2010/11/ipad-frozen-how-to-force-quit-an-app-reset-or-res tart-your-ipad
iPad: Basic troubleshooting
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3274
 Cheers, Tom

My itunes won't launch even after reinstalling. Looked in itunes folder and somehow lost itunes library? HELP!

My itunes won't launch even after reinstalling. Looked in itunes folder and somehow lost itunes library? HELP!

The first thing I'd suggest is to get a good antispyware checker and give it a go at your system. Some recent spyware has been reported by other users to shut down iTunes or prevent it from launching. From user reports, Ewido seems to be the best at catching it. You can download a free version of Ewido here.
If that doesn't cure the problem, try deleting the iTunes preference files:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunes.pref
and
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Data\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iTunes.pref
You might have to turn on "show hidden files" to find them. (Right click "my computer", select open, select Tools menu -> Folder Options. Select View tab, "show hidden files" radio button is in the center scrolling panel.) Delete them or if you want to be able to put them back if it doesn't help, drag them to some other location. This will force iTunes to run the setup assistant the next time you launch iTunes. Note that you'll have to go back and set any preferences you've changed from the default.
If that still doesn't work, try this:
Bugie: Perform a Thorough & Complete Uninstall and Reinstall of iTunes/QuickTime.
Hope this helps.

I'm trying to sync my old ipad to itues on my laptop but it keeps saying ipad synced with another iTunes library what can I do I don't want to lose these photos?

I'm trying to sync my old ipad to itues on my laptop but it keeps saying ipad synced with another iTunes library what can I do I don't want to lose these photos?

You can only sync an ipad to one computer at a time.
You can look to something like dropbox, upload your photos there, then do the sync and since your photos are backed up it won't hurt if they are deleted.

I've had an iphone for a whlie now and its been synced to another computer. i've finished syncing it to my new computer but can't seem to import my songs from my phone into my itunes library. what do i need to do?

i'm not very tech savy so a little help would be really appreciated.
i've had my iphone4 for several months now and it was synced up to a family computer. i have just gotten a toshiba satellite somthing or other and i have synced my phone to it already. my problem is as soon as i disconnect the phone i can no longer play the music that i bought from itunes on my phone and i can't seem to import any of them into my itunes library. how can i fix this?

On the new laptop, launch iTunes. From the menu bar click Store / Authorize This Computer.
iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to a computer

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.

Hard Drive Failure, so I've lost ITunes Library. Ipod more up-to-date how do I transfer music from IPod to library?

Hi,
I had a hard drive failure on my old PC and I couldn't retrieve anything. I have purchased a new PC and downloaded itunes (Version I'm not use to which isn't helping) and signed in however it only has my purchased songs on the cloud which I need to download into my library from cloud. However I have thousands of songs that I imported into my old library from CD's etc which is no lost apart from all the data held on my ipod.
So my Ipod is more up-to-date then my library now. When I look to sync my ipod it says everything will be removed and will be replaced with content from the library. I've had a look around and I can't see a way to get my music from my ipod to my library.
Is there anything I can do, please help?
Thanks

See:
Syncing to a "New" Computer or replacing a "crashed" Hard Drive: Apple Support Communities
or
Recovering your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device: Apple Support Communities

Moved itunes library to external HD now major issues

I moved my itunes library
(6080 songs) to a external (mybook 160 gig) hard drive
now when I startuo Itunes- it tries to "determine gapless payback" and freezes about 1/2 through and i have to force quit
-try 2-
when I start up Itunes and stop the "determing gapless payback" i will be paying music is freezes randomly when playing (middle of first song played , play for an hour , or at any other random time
this is the machine that it is on
- G4 533
- OS X 10.4.10
- ram 384 megs
- mybook is connected via a usb 2.0 card
- create alias of external music folder and placed in itunes folder to point to external hD with music
have verified/repaired permissions
have verified/repaired disk via booting up from
OS X install disk
trashed all itunes preference files
what is going on==what do I need to do??

ok when i go to prefs----Advanced--General-- it states the location for import is F:/Backed up Music [which is a folder on the external HD that has the rest of my music on it]
For some reason the folder[or itunes] on the HD is not creating new folders for artists and albums imported.
does this help anyone troubleshoot the issue?

Moved iTunes Library to external drive- now can't move iPad purchase to Mac

I moved my iTunes Library to an external drive because I didn't have enough internal HD space to move a movie purchased on the iPad to my Mac. Now iTunes won't sync my iPad - and wants to reformat it - because it says it was formatted on another Mac.
I've tried Aiseesoft iPad Manager but the movie - a iTunes+ movie, so I assume it is a package of some sort - doesn't show up in the movie pane.
This is a really crappy position to be put into. If I could re-download the movie I'd just reformat my iPad and be down with it. Unfortunately, this is not an option.
Help!

As a best practice, you should move your content to an external drive and import references to into iTunes rather than moving the whole database and app files. In iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library". This will keep all your music and movies on the external drive, but iTunes and all references to the content on your desktop.
I know that's not what you wanted to hear as a fix, but this is how I have my MacBook Air setup and it works fine with the iPad. My son tried to move the whole app and database to a hard drive and we had endless problems with it.

Tried to burn backup of iTunes library--crashed mid burn, now won't burn

Last night I was burning a backup of my iTunes Library to DVDs. It was supposed to burn only what's new or changed since my last backup (over a year ago). iTunes estimated that it was going to take 27 DVDs.
I got through the first 10 DVDs and then went to bed. When I woke up this morning, my iMac had powered off. I turned it back on and went to start the backup again. iTunes processed what needed to be backed up, gave the warning that it can't backup a couple of podcasts, and told me it'll take 17 DVDs--the same info as before. But then I get this error message:
"The attempt to burn a disc failed. The device failed to respond properly, unable to recover or retry. If you want to retry the current failed burn, Click on Retry. If you want to go to the next disc burn, click on Next. Otherwise click on Cancel."
Regardless of which option I chose, nothing works.
I've called Applecare about the problem. They've had me
-reset the PRAM
-unplug everything from my iMac
-delete the Library > Caches folder from both my hard drive and user account
-test burning a backup from iTunes in another user account (it worked find)
The last suggestion was an archive and reinstall, which I don't want to do (I want to be able to backup my music, but it's not worth it if I have to spend a day reinstalling all of my third-party applications).
(And it's not a problem with the blank DVDs: one that was rejected by iTunes in my account worked fine when I backedup to it from another account.)
Any idea what's causing iTunes to get the aforementioned error message and how I can fix it?
Thanks!
Message was edited by: The Zach

Ok sounds like one of two things happend here
1. iTunes lost its activation during the update. Try clicking on one of the songs in iTunes. Will it play them? If so they this is not the issue. If not it should ask you to provide the user name and ID for your account to activate that copy of iTunes.
2. The other thing that may have happened here is that the iPod was connected to another computer and synced with another instance of iTunes. If this is the case then the iPod will only sync with that computer. You will need to delete the songs off the iPod and reload them from iTunes.
NOTE : DO NOT DELETE YOUR SONGS OFF THE IPOD UNTIL YOU ARE SURE YOU HAVE THEM ON A PC SO YOU CAN RELOAD THEM ON THE IPOD. Once the music files are lost they can not be replaced.

I deleted my itunes library (after backing up) now i want to restore from TM to my MBA but its saying there is not enough room even though the library is 22GB and there is 27GB free on my MBA??

Hi everyone,
I deleted my itunes library (after backing up to my time machine) to download a large torrent, now i want to restore my itunes library to my MBA from time machine but its saying there is not enough room on my MBA even though the library is 22GB and there is 27GB free on my MBA??

Here's something else to consider:
Since Snow Leopard, OS X uses a Decimal count for file size. iTunes however still uses a Binary count. What that means is: your iTunes library shows one size, while the folder shows another. Depending on the size of your library, this can be a pretty big difference.
Yours won't be that much, but it may be enough to prevent it from moving to the MBA from the TM.

Lost ITunes library in Windows XP Home Edition

Hi:
It took close to 10 hours reconverting all my music from an external hard drive to a new installation of ITunes on a new laptop so I can put the music on a new IPod. All the music got converted--my husband and I both saw it. Then I went to my husband's desktop and the music was not in his ITunes library--so I changed the folder to look in--still no luck. When I returned to my desktop, the music was gone!! Can someone please help me--I cannot see the music anywhere. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling ITunes with no luck. Don't know what the heck is going on

The faster way would be to just move the files from the 'My Pictures' folder into the 'My Music' folder. Then just do a 'FIle=>Add Folder'. No need to delete them. Too late now...
After you convert the files to an acceptable iTunes form, make sure you know where they are located on the PC.
Here's some general info on iTunes and its music organization:
iTunes operates as a database of information for your music files. The actual music files are stored on your PC, not within iTunes. iTunes keeps absolute references of the music file location and other information in its database file. This allows iTunes to use music files from any location on the PC: different directories/folders on the main HD, another internal drive, an external drive, or a network drive (or any combination of the above). Each song reference has a specific and hardcoded path so iTunes can find and play (or sync) it. Move the file, change the path, re-map the drive it is on, and iTunes will lose the file (giving you the '!' of a ‘Broken Link’). Lose, move or corrupt the ‘iTunes Music.itl’ file and your complete Library will ‘vanish’.
If you delete, corrupt, or otherwise lose your ‘iTunes Library.itl’ file, you will end up with a ‘blank’ Library within iTunes. Nine time out of ten, your underlying music files are still on the PC. They can be ‘re-Added’ via the File==>Add Folder/File menu command, but you will lose some of the music meta-data. Recovering your Library via backup copies of the iTunes database file, or from importing the XML file is always preferable.
The iTunes music information (meta-data) is stored in two places: the actual individual song files themselves, and the iTunes Library database file (‘iTunes Library.itl’). There is a corresponding XML file that is created by iTunes, but not directly used. See: What are the iTunes Library files?.
Song attributes stored directly in each music file are as follows: Artist, Album, Song Title, Year, Comments, Compilation tag, Lyrics, Genre , Grouping, Composer, BPM, Album Artwork, Bit Rate & Kind (Both not tags - inherent to the file itself).
Song attributes stored in the iTunes Library database file only are: Playlists, Ratings, Play Count, Last Played, Date Added, Date Modified, Equalizer, Volume Adjustment.
Changing (or designating) the 'iTunes Music folder' location in the Preferences does not instruct iTunes where to look for existing songs it currently knows about. It directs iTunes where to store any new songs it Imports, or 'Adds' and copies to its Library organization (if that attribute is selected). This is an important distinction.
See: About the Add to Library, Import, and Convert functions

Broken Hard Disk, lost iTunes library

Recently my hard disk stop working. So I lost my iTunes library. It was practically empty since I manually managed all songs.
So now I have to create a new library but when I try to check the option "Manually manage music and videos" iTunes ask me to format my iphone.
Why should it delete the iphone content? Will I loose all my apps?

iTunes Store: Transferring purchases from your iOS device or iPod to a computer - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1848 - only media purchased from iTunes Store
Sync transfer is one way, computer to device, matching the device content to the content on the computer (except purchased content as mentioned above). For transferring other items from an i-device to a computer you have to use third party commercial software. Examples (check the web for others; this is not an exhaustive listing, nor do I have any idea if they are any good):
- MusicRescue - http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/products/musicrescue/ - Mac & Windows
- Sharepod (free) - http://download.cnet.com/SharePod/3000-2141_4-10794489.html?tag=mncol;2 - Windows
- Snowfox/iMedia - http://www.mac-videoconverter.com/imedia-transfer-mac.html - Mac & PC
- Post by Zevoneer: iPod media recovery options - https://discussions.apple.com/message/11624224 - this is an older post and many of the links are also for old posts, so bear this in mind when reading them.
Syncing to a "New" Computer or replacing a "crashed" Hard Drive - https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141
In general do not regard your i-device as a reliable unique storage for your media. It is not a backup device and everything is structured around you maintaining a backup of your media on a computer backup.

Help! Lost iTunes Library and all playlist

Last night I discovered that my entire iTunes Library was gone except for about 100 songs and that all my playlists and iPhone apps as well. I had no idea how it happened but when I examined it further I saw a new shared "limewire" playlist. I do not have limewire but I have not seen that shared folder at my house before. Apparently, after much freaking out, my roommate admitted to downloading it. He said that nothing was downloaded because it wasn't functioning after he installed it but still the damage was done.
I checked my music folder and it looks as though all my songs are still there. I backed up my library not to long ago too, thank goodness.
First thing I did was spotlight all the files with limewire in it and deleted them. However, and this concerns me greatly, and file "LimeWireOSX.dmg" in my documents folder can not be found, except for in spotlight, and so can't be deleted.
I then tried to import my library through iTunes which added about two hundred songs, far from the few thousand I had, as well as my podcast and iPhone apps.
This is where I am at now. I am scared that whatever else I thought of doing such as uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes could have terrible ramifications due to whatever limewire could have given my hard drive.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
JD
p.s. my roommate is on dishes duty for a month

The Limewire file may be in your "Downloads" folder.
Do you still have all your music, etc. in your iTunes folder within your music folder?
If you do, look as this: How to re-create your iTunes library, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451.
Think about creating a separate user account for your roommate (if still living).

Lost itunes library..what to do now?

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