Making a list of missing music files

My hard drive crashed and Apple store was able to recover my files from my Time Capsule I thought completely but as I am now trying to listen to music I am missing all kinds of files.
How can I have iTunes make a list of all the files it cannot find so I know what CDs I need to have reloaded? Then delete the blank files it can't find so I don't end up with duplicates?

Thank you! I don't know why I couldn't find this when searching the help documentation.

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ITunes stops working when I try to import missing music files

I don't know why, but every time I try to import missing music files into iTunes, a pop up suddenly comes up saying iTunes has stopped working. Does anybody know if it may just be a bug in the program or anything like that? Because of this, I am now having to manually reimport the missing files which takes forever!! Please help!!.

Hello, onedirectionlover1993.
Thank you for the question. Try the steps in the article below as they may help you resolve the issue that you are experiencing with iTunes becoming unresponsive.
iTunes for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8: Fix unexpected quits or launch issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1717
Cheers,
Jason H.

Missing music files in iTunes, but music IS on my iPod

I have a very large number of the exclamation points in my Music category in iTunes. The music is also missing from my harddrive - so I can't just "relink" it. Some of it is on a backup from months ago - but not all of it.
However, the vast majority of it IS on my iPod. So how can I move those files back to iTunes? I tried the simplistic approach of deleting the music listing from the Music category in iTunes, thinking it would be fooled into believing that the music on my iPod is a new purchase and it would transfer it back over. But before I hit the final delete it gives me the warning that this music will now be deleted from my iPod and that is the LAST thing that I want given it's my only copy.
Does anybody have ideas as to how to get these missing files from my iPod back to iTunes?
Thanks!
Kim

I should also add that not all of the music is from iTunes so I cannot just re-download. Some IS from iTunes, some is from Amazon in the days before I had an iPod and some are my own CDs.

Missing music files on iTunes

Some iTunes music files on my PC have become corrupt or disappeared and I would like to know how to force a sync from my iPad to overwrite replace these files. iTunes recognises that an album exists and what the tracks are but fails to find them when I want to tranfer them to my iPhone.

This happens if the files are no longer where iTunes expects to find them. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the files, or that the drive they live on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then cancel when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. Or if you post back both paths I can usually spot if it is a layout problem and suggest an easy fix.
Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes.
tt2

Missing music files since iTunes upgrade 7.7.043

I have several problems right now with my iTunes. It appears that maybe it could be related to my recent upgrade to iTunes after reading through other posts about lost files.
My problem is that I have all my music on an external drive which used to read as the E:/ drive. I just recently signed up for wireless internet with Verizon and have an USB modem. When I first installed that and then opened my iTunes all of a sudden my external drive became the F:/ drive. So then all of my music in my library could not be found. So I changed the location of my iTunes library to the F:/ drive.
So I reinstalled my music into my library and unfortunately doubled my music because it duplicated all of it. So I slowly began the process of deleting duplicates.
I got to about H in my albums...and the next time I opened iTunes to continue this tedious process....the files couldn't be located. With those lovely ! symbols next to each song.
So now I have duplicates of my music....26,000+ songs and they can't find their files.
I then decided before I delete everything...I would reorganize my iTunes library because for some reason all my music seems to be in multiple folders. But during this process I was not able to locate almost half of my music files.
This was my last attempt tonight...I opened iTunes while pressing the Shift key and created a new iTunes library and imported my iTunes folder. I now have 10,000 songs but am missing about 3,000. Is it really possible that iTunes lost some of my music. Can I get my music off of my iPod?
Any ideas...or am I screwed?

After weeks of working out what the problem was I finally found out. In my case I had recently purchased Paragon NTFS for Mac so that I could write to an NTFS formatted external hard drive. This was where the issue was when iTunes tried to write to the external drive where I keep my iTunes library and iTunes media folders. Every time I tried to download a song from iTunes, it could not write to my external drive and said that the file or folder was in use. The Paragon NTFS for Mac software 'driver' was causing this to happen and as soon as I turned the driver off on the Paragon software admin tool, my problem was solved! Seemed like the driver was locking out iTunes when trying to write. So if anyone else has this issue, turn off the driver when using iTunes. If you are not running Paragon, then perhaps you have a similar conflict with another application.

Restore missing music files

Can someone PLEASE help. When I launch itunes all of my music is there and available and can be played. However when I go to my external hard drive (I:\My Documents\iTunes\iTunes Music) and try and locate the physical music file it is missing. Example I can play a song from Bad Company but the Bad Company folder is not located on my HD. How can I restore these missing files?

In itunes, right-click on one of those Bad Company songs and choose "Show in Windows Explorer".
Make sure it isn't in some kind of nested folder that looks almost the same, such as I:\My Documents\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music

Missing Music Files - How Can I Retrieve Them???

I opened my computer this morning and was shocked to find everything in my iTunes library was gone, and all the default settings had been restored. I attempted to do a search for my music files, and found nothing, but the strangest thing is I still have the same amount of hard space available, which leads me to believe that my files are still somewhere on my computer, but I can just not see them forr some reason. Can I find my files, and if so how? I also tried to connect my iPod touch in the hopes that i could restore the files from there, and my computer did not even register that the iPod was connected.

Could you please give me the exact product number for your computer? What version of Windows are you using?
If you need help finding it, you can use the following link:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?tmp_renderType=findModel&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=c00033108&...
Thanks,
Kyle
-------------How do I give Kudos? | How do I mark a post as Solved? --------------------------------------------------------

Can The iPod music files by imported back to iTunes To replace missing music files?

My iTunes library is missing many of the files that I have saved. Is there a way to import the files from my iPod back into iTunes to replace the missing original files?

Use the backup of the computer to put the files back.
If no backup exists, the content was purchased iTunes, and you are in the US, they can be redownloaded from the iTunes store.
Downloading past purchases from iTunes.

How to highlight or make a Smart Playlist of missing music files?

I recently converted my library from Mac to PC and out of the 45000 songs there are around 1500 missing. It'll take forever to search my library for the ! next to each missing sing. Anyway to simply get all the missing songs in one list?

You really don't get it, do you.
I really do: You can't bring yourself to say "OK, my solution is not practical or helpful". You're dancing all around it.
I wasn't meaning to "lecture" you but I was - and am - really annoyed. I'm sorry, but I honestly felt that your solution was more about you feeling a need to be technically correct when clearly it was an unhelpful answer and I'm not going to go along with that. And it looks like you're not going to admit your solution was unhelpful.
I might seem to be over-reacting but the thing is it's not just this thread.
I have noticed that there is a lot of this going around on these forums and it's annoying because it derails perfectly sensible questions and wastes a lot of time. It's happened quite a few times to me and the common thread seems to be those who engage in this behaviour have a whole lot of "discussion board points".
What you should have asked is, "Is there an available field in the tags of a movie file that I can use in a Smart Playlist to select for only HD movies". And I would have given you a one-word answer. NO
Yes, I should have. Technically. Semantically. I suppose. Sure.
But anyone can get that from "How can I make a smart playlist of only HD movies?" without assuming I'd want to first manually select all the movies. That's the purposes of the joke quote which seemed to be lost on you. I wasn't just randomly quoting you know, I was making a point.
If only you'd given me a one word answer. Now that would have been helpful.

Missing music files when loading iPod Classic.

I just finished converting all our albums and 45's to MP3 files. These all list and play fine in iTunes, but when I load the files on our iPod Classic, there are always about 50 songs missing. I have done this 4 times, and it's not always the same files, but always about the same number of files. The missing songs are about half missing at the beginning of the list, and half missing at the end of the list. I have 7455 files in iTunes, but after loading the iPod, there are around 7400 files actually on the iPod.
There is plenty of free space left on the iPod, The missing files are never the same songs as I try different times. The files are not corrupted, as they list and play okay in iTunes.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help you might give.

"Other" means files that have become corrupt and the iPod no longer knows what to do with them.
The usual procedure is to move (or copy) your iTunes Library from your old computer to the new one. If the computer (or its hard drive) is not available, the procedure is to use the backup of the Library.
I'm guessing that you don't have a backup of your Library. Although your old computer has "died", do you still have the hard drive? If so, you could put the hard drive into a hard drive caddy, use it as an external device and copy the iTunes Library from that onto your new computer. A local computer repair shop should be able to help you with that.
Failing that, you will have to re-build your Library again.
If you purchased music from the iTunes Store, check in your store account to see if your country allows you to download the music (that you purchased) again.
If you purchased digital music from other stores, check with them to see if you can download the songs again. In Amazon UK, you can.
For music that you imported into your iTunes from CDs, you will have to import them again, from the CD.
For the future, I suggest you maintain a backup of your iTunes Library. If you now have an external hard drive in a caddy, use that. Otherwise, buy one, the larger the better.
Also, as you are now finding, an iPod cannot be put back into a new iTunes. Nor is it a backup of your Library. Everything should be in your iTunes Library - and backed up onto an external drive. The iPod is simply a portable "copy" of your Library, only for playing the music.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Missing music files

Hi,
I have some missing files in iTunes. There is an iTunes bought audiobook and a CD of my own that appear on the list as dead links ( an ! appears when track is highlighted ) but they don't seem to be on my hard drives anywhere. There is also an entire album ( iTunes bought also ) that is gone from both list and hard drive.
Anyone know how this could happen? I definitely did not delete them.
Thanks in advance.

Missing album from drive and iTunes list no longer an issue.
Only why dead links appearing in iTunes

Help making a list of missing/not working features

Since Adobe isn't talking why not help me make a list of features that aren't in Premiere anymore as well as one's promised for premiere CS4 but aren't there until it's updated.
No AAF
No single click save stills - AECS4 still has this
No more stream hinting in quicktime
HDV and AVCHD audio synch problems
Track Matte effect doesn't work
Media browser doesn't preview 24p correctly,
XML to Final Cut doesn't work
No OMF
No edit with Audition,
No 3rd party codecs - Cineform, Quicktime dvcproHD, Blackmagic, Raylight
Have to 'Interpret Footage' for 24p and 24pa
These just off the top of my head and not bug related issues listed here http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Known_Issues

Here's another one from November 13th.
'Good morning one & all,
We've been cranking out code with the RED team, lining up for the same schedule.
Next week we'll ship a full native workflow for RED in Premiere Pro CS4, After Effects CS4 and even Encore CS4 (the RED to Blu workflow).
We've come a long way since the IBC demos --- more performance, more stability, more options, and tuning it to CS4 which is architected for 64 bit systems so that you can stuff it full of memory and get that smooth as butter experience.
Import your R3D files, change resolution on the fly, pop into full resolution for some detail work, drop all the way down to 1/16th for fast cuts on a laptop --- it's all there.
We're right up to 2K at full performance with the latest drop.
Oh, and did I mention that we're working the RED gang on exposing more control on the realtime de-bayering ? ... and of course with Assimilate on making it a full, clean, raw end to end workflow ?
Expect the importer to be posted with RED and linked from Adobe before Thanksgiving. Nov 20th is looking like the date (not that dates ever change).
Many thanks to our beta-testers ... you've been awesome turning things around and helping us shape the future.
It's cool.
It's Christmas come early.
Enjoy.'
Simon & the Merry Adobe Gang
Keeping you close to the lens

Missing music file links?

I recently copied my library from a PC to a Mac. Everything was working well, but today about 80% of my library is not available. I can see the tracks in list view, but the artwork is gone, and when I try to play the track I get a message "The song [blah] could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"
All of my tracks are locatable in the iTunes folder. Can I remap everything in one step?

Hello Ed,
It sounds like you have a purcahse that is not playing because iTunes cannot locate the file. You should be able to re download the purchase from iTunes in the Cloud free of charge but first you will have to delete the entry in iTunes that you see for the affected song, THEN download it with this:
Click iTunes Store near the top of the iTunes window.
Click the Purchased link at the right of the iTunes Store homepage (below Quick Links).
In the page that appears, select a category.iTunes shows you which of your purchases are available for download. You can view all of your past purchases, or just the ones not currently in your iTunes library. Items already in your library aren’t available for download.If you select Music, you can view your purchases by song, artist, or album. If you’re viewing by album, click an album to see which songs on it are available for downloading.To search for an item, type its name or a keyword in the search field, and then press the Return key to view your search results.
To download an item, click its Download button .
From: iTunes 11 for Windows: Download previous purchases from the iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12491
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Take care,
Sterling

Reinstall new computer, missing music files

I had my old computer backed up with Carbonite. New computer is Win 7 but when I attempt to transfer my music, many songs have an exclamation mark & when attempting to drag the song to create a new playlist I get message that the file is missing. How do I restore these files? Frustrated. Thanks :-)

Hi jackiesic,
When tracks in iTunes display a it means the file cannot be located; it may have been moved or deleted.
This may have occurred during the transfer of files to your new computer, as the iTunes Media folder was either omitted from the transfer, or was moved to the wrong location. For more information, see this article:
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
Alternatively, if your media was downloaded from the iTunes Store, you may be able to download it again free of charge:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
Thanks,
Matt M.

ITunes: Missing Music Files & After Adding Songs It Says It Can't Find Original File

Hi Everyone
I use iTunes to manage my music and after the upgrade just yesterday (11.0.2 (26)), my iTunes library now shows exclamations next to tracks that it can't find anymore.
The tracks are on my external drive where I have always had them, and when I try to add a song back into the library and try to play it, it says it can't locate the original file and asks if I want to try and locate it.When I go back to locate it on my external drive, it does not show up anymore on my external drive. But when I eject my external drive and plug it back in, the folder track is there again on my external drive!!!!
Does anyone else have the same issue here please?

After weeks of working out what the problem was I finally found out. In my case I had recently purchased Paragon NTFS for Mac so that I could write to an NTFS formatted external hard drive. This was where the issue was when iTunes tried to write to the external drive where I keep my iTunes library and iTunes media folders. Every time I tried to download a song from iTunes, it could not write to my external drive and said that the file or folder was in use. The Paragon NTFS for Mac software 'driver' was causing this to happen and as soon as I turned the driver off on the Paragon software admin tool, my problem was solved! Seemed like the driver was locking out iTunes when trying to write. So if anyone else has this issue, turn off the driver when using iTunes. If you are not running Paragon, then perhaps you have a similar conflict with another application.

Making a list of missing music files

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