Music completely disappeared from itunes and computer

I got on my iTunes today and my music all said that the location could not be found. I don't know how or why, for I haven't changed anything or moved my music folder around. Out of over 2000 songs, only 800 remain. But all my folders are still there. All the artist folders in my iTunes folder are all there...but I have no idea where the music went. I did a search and the songs didn't come up. WHY did my music disappear from iTunes and WHY only some of them?! I'd love to say I have them saved on my iPod but my iPod is only 4 gigs and I had over 12 gigs of music so obviously I can't recover all of them. Someone help me find my music!!!

Nobody likes replying to posts like this - if you've searched all your hard drives and the music files are gone, then they're gone.
I assume you looked in the Recycle Bin and did a Win Explorer search instead of just looking in the known folders?
Who knows why this happened! Disasters like this usually convince folks to make regular backups.

Similar Messages

  • Please help.  Music files missing from itunes and computer!

    I know that this isn't exactly a new issue, but I have scanned the discussions and nothing that I have read seems to help. My son has a nano (4th gen). He isn't sure but he thinks that maybe he disconnected his ipod before a sync was complete or something because all the music was deleted from it. He's not positive that's what happened but that's his best guess. No problem -- thought we'd just pull songs over again to it from our library. However, when we try to do this, on about 50% of the songs he wants (all were purchased, not from CDs) there are exclamation points next to the songs when we try to drag them and it says the file can't be found. I have looked in the itunes library on our computer and while I can find the libraries, they also don't have these specific songs we are looking for. I've tried to search and I just come up empty. Is there anything we can do beside buy the songs again? There are about 16 songs or so. A couple of them I have on my itouch. Could I somehow transfer the couple of songs to the computer? And would that work to get them to his ipod? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    +It appeared to do that as there are now duplicates in our library, but when I tried to drag the new song to the ipod, that darn exclamation appeared again and the song wouldn't transfer.+
    It's easy to get rid of the duplicates. iTunes menu > View > View Options
    Check the Date Added box, then click on the column name Date Added twice. Eveything you added to day will be at the top.
    Then click File > Show Duplicates and only delte the one from today.
    Do NOT delete both duplicates, or the song will be entirely gone.
    As for dragging songs to the ipod, it has to be set for "manually manage music" for that to work. I don't understand about the exclamation point showing up again, unless you were dragging the 'old' reference that got deleted. Tyr dragging over the copy from today.

  • IPod Shuffle disappeared from iTunes and computer

    I did a silly thing...while charging, my ipod shuffle the charging light was blinking. Booklet said that it meant it was using it as an external data storage disc. It asked if I wanted it to, I said no. Now it has disappeared from my iTunes and from my Computer. I've reset it. Don't want to restore it and lose my songs on it (it says to backup first, but how can I when I can't find it on my computer?). I'm thinking to reinstall itunes program. Important Question, if I do that, will I lose all the songs in my itunes library? I've checked all my USB hubs in Device Manger, they all appear to be working, yet none show ipod. Help please and thanks! Denise

    what file do you mean? My entire library is still there and working on iTunes. My iPod still has all it's songs and still plays on its own. itunes program just doesn't show that ipod is connected to it. Anyone else know? Thanks, D.

  • Music has disappeared from iTunes and from my external hard drive

    I store my music on 2 separate external hard drives. I have a lot of music and didnt want to choke my system drive. I do not have iTunes organise my folders. I have a lot of classical and iTunes doesnt understand classical music.
    I began to notice a while back that music files were not accessible to iTunes giving the annoying ! when I go to play them. I thought it was because one of the two drives is regularly swopped out for a back up drive. So I recently became aware that many more files were missing and when I search either drive the actual file has gone.
    I ran Dougs MIA script and a total of 2600 files are missing out of roughly 17,000. These are a mainly things I ripped myself from CD and alot of it is stuff I dont even listen to/ has never been in a play list so I couldnt have accidentally deleted them.
    I notice a lot of comments about this stuff over the years in the other questions here but not much is so recent.
    I'm on 10.6.8.

    Hey idw3,
    Welcome to Apple Support Communities, and thanks for the question. Follow the instructions on this article to move your iTunes Media folder to an external hard drive:
    iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
    Regards,
    David

  • HT1451 Music has completely disappeared from ITunes library! Please Help!!

    Music has completely disappeared from ITunes library! Please Help!!
    Hours and Hours of renaming, adding cover photos and so on have been for nothing. Itunes cannot find the files since they're not in the library at all!
    I still have the music on my computer but don't want to add it as it is, as I have spent a lot of time "fixing" it! PLEASE HELP!

    Did you use spotlight to search? (I'm assuming you have a Mac as given above despite this thread being in the Windows forum). How long have you used iTunes on this computer? Is there a backup to your library, perhaps an only copy of it on a machine you've "retired". Is the media present in the media folder? (Yes, you've answered that earlier.) If so then the media files should have absorbed all the tag changes that you made and reimporting the media into a new library might not be a complete disaster, though playlists, playcounts, ratings etc. would be irretrievably lost.
    tt2

  • I made a mistake by pressing autofill and all of my music was gone from itunes and from my iphone 5s, how can i get my music back on my iphone 5s?

    I made a mistake by pressing autofill on my hp windows laptop and all of my music was gone from itunes and my iphone 5s, how can i get my music back onto my iphone 5s?

    Have you checked to see if the media files are still on the computer? See Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash.
    tt2

  • HT4623 The iOS 7.0.6 update failed, my iPhone 5S disappeared from iTunes and now is displaying the picture: iTunes and a USB plug. Turning it Off and On didn't fix it. iTunes doesn't see it. Any suggestions?

    The iOS 7.0.6 update failed, my iPhone 5S disappeared from iTunes and now is displaying a picture iTunes logo and a USB plug and black backgraound. Turning it Off and On didn't fix it. iTunes doesn't see it. Any suggestions?

    Thanks, Lawrence.
    I've tried http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808 and other suggestions first, which turned out unrelated.
    I've finally fixed the issue by plugging the cable in the USB 3 ports in the back of PC instead of the ports in the front, the iTunes saw the phohe and the recovery started automatically.
    In the hindsight, I realized that the either the required prerequisite iTunes 11.1.5.5 update installed a USB driver incompatible with my PC's front side USB ports that I always used for my iPhone syncing prior or it was always
    incompatible, but worked in all modes except the recovery.
    Cheers,
    Michael

  • Music completely disappeared from my iPhone 4S... Four Times!!!

    I own an iPhone 4S.  Since I've upgraded to iOS 8, the music player function has been buggy.  I am also a subscriber of iTunes Match.
    For the fourth time today, and in 3 months, ALL the music that I have downloaded from iTunes Match have completely disappeared from my iPhone.  It's EXTREMELY frustrating to have to re-download my songs and albums again and again.  Even that is an issue in itself.  The downloads are buggy as well as the songs don't download well.
    Does any know how I can avoid my songs from being auto-wiped out from my iPhone please?  And what is wrong???

    Try this support document. iTunes Match on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support  at the bottom of the page there are several more links, and one is for troubleshooting. I do not use Match, so I cannot tell you anything else about how it works, etc., but the troubleshooting link should help.

  • HT1296 Hiya, I am thinking of buying my first Apple Ipod the new 32gb Ipod Touch. Will I be able to import the music that I currently have in the form of CDs and other music not purchsed from Itunes and if I can how do I go about doing this? I have heard

    Hiya, Im thinking of buying my first ipod the Ipod Touch 32gb model. Will I be able to transfer the music I currently have stored in the form of CDs and already on my laptop onto the Ipod and if yes, how would I do this? I have heard from some friends that Apple and Itunes is notoriously limited in the types of formats that are accetable? I dont want to pay £249 on an Ipod only to find that Im locked into buying all my music from Itunes and I cant use the music that Ive already paid good money to buy from other sources. Many thanks for any help and advice that you may give me?

    Many thanks JEM24 for your help.  Ive just spent the best part of six hundred pounds on a new Sony Rx100m2 compact camera, so I have no interest in the Ipods camera at all really. I doubt Ill be watching many videos on it as Im very lucky in that I have a good Android tablet. Its more as a stock music player that Ill be buying the Ipod for, if indeed I do end up buying one. I dont like the idea of paying the exorbitant amount added for more memory space that Apple along with most other companies charge. In fact I read an article on this very subject just yesterday in the tech section of Flipboard. It stated in the article that in the case of the Iphone  the actual cost of each additional  gigabyte of storage  to Apple et al is something in the order of 60p.. This is certainly not reflected in the price us the customer has to pay at the till.. Its for this reason primarily that Apple in particular, because their products do not allow adding expandable memory of your own in the form of cheap to buy cards, that nobody in their right mind buys the 64gig etc Iphones..I am aware that we are discussing my potential purchase of an Ipod Touch here but you see my point. Many thanks again though for helping me.

  • My music has almost completely disappeared from iTunes

    I had a resonable amount of songs and albums I had purchased and/or uploaded from CDs in iTunes and now the only songs that appear are from the last four albums I bought in the last few weeks.
    WHERE IS MY MUSIC?

    I had a resonable amount of songs and albums I had purchased and/or uploaded from CDs in iTunes and now the only songs that appear are from the last four albums I bought in the last few weeks.
    WHERE IS MY MUSIC?

  • A few of my playlists completely disappeared from itunes.

    I have all of my devices (my iPad, my iPhone, my kids' iPod Touches and my wife's iPhone) set up to sync wirelessly when connected to wifi.  Just yesterday, all of my wife's playlists disappeared from her iPhone.  When I went onto to iTunes, they were completely gone as if they had been deleted.  She didn't delete them (she never goes onto iTunes)  Any thoughts on how this could have happened?  None of the other playlists are missing.  Only the ones synced to her phone.  Also, this is not a new phone.  It is my old one, and I never had an issue with it.

    Perhaps what happened is that your kids may have (accidentally) deleted those particular playlists on their devices, and that deletion then cascaded through your sync setup to all your other devices.
    Something similar happened to me, in that our little guys were playing with one of our iPod nanos and deleted a couple of playlists. When I synced (via cable) that device with my computer, those playlists were wiped from my iTunes library, and then via iTunes Match, also instantaneously deleted on *all* of our family computers and iPhones! So not only were those playlists gone, but I didn't even have evidence of their existence from which I could manually re-create them.
    Automatic syncing (whether via Match, or your wi-fi setup) is really great, although it does permit accidental deletions from causing some hard-to-fix, hard-to-identify damage to your music library.
    That's just my suggestion, although I certainly don't want to impugn your good kids! :-)

  • How can I get music (not purchased from iTunes) and photos from my iPad onto my MacBook?

    I just recently had my hard drive replaced and lost all of my music and photos from it. I have all of my music and photos backed up onto my iPad and iPhone via iCloud.
    I was able to download all of my purchased music from iTunes, back onto my MacBook. The problem is, how do I get the other music and photos from my iPad, back onto my MacBook?

    Is there any possible way to backup music that I did not purchase from iTunes on to iCloud?
    No.
    ... if I happened to break my iPad, or if something happened to my Laptop.
    If you like your music library, back up your laptop.
    If you lose or break your iPad, you can sync your iTunes music library to a brand new one. You will lose nothing.
    If you lose your laptop, or it crashes, or becomes virus-infested, you can restore your iTunes music library from your backup. You will lose nothing. Without a backup though, your music resides only on the iPad, and extracting it will require the assistance of third party (paid) utilities. Worse, there is no guarantee they will continue to function after some future iOS upgrade, since the iPad is not designed to work that way.
    There are dozens of questions every day from people who lost their iTunes music when their laptop crashed. Your laptop will crash - it's only a question of when.

  • All of my music is gone from itunes and backup will not work. Help!

    I opened my computer yesterday and everything was fine, except for itunes.. all of my music was gone. There's nothing in my music folders and my back up CDs aren't working!! Help!!!

    Well there is malware going around that turns Windows users files invisible.
    Your burned cd's are likely just fine, thats write protected media so malware can't do anything to that, but it can disable your cd drive or do something to Windows to make your files not appear.
    So if your capable you can boot off a "recovery cd" access those invisible files on the boot drive or recover them directly off the boot drive using software that read's the 1's and 0's of the files themselves (not what Windows says as it won't be running) and transfer them to a external drive.
    Windows will then have to be reinstalled to remove the malware completely.
    Your backup cd's are safe I'm pretty sure. Good thing you backed up.
    So until you get your  Windows fixed, there really isn't anything we can do for you.
    Good Luck

  • Movie artwork and movie extras disappear from iTunes. How do I fix this?

    When downloading a movie from iTunes store the movie artwork image will appear as intended for the remainder of the download, but once finished the artwork disappears and does not allow you to add artwork yourself. Same happens for movies with Extras, but it is the entire extra that disappears from iTunes and the only way to get to it is actually visit the movie folder located within the iTunes folder on my computer. This is an obvious issue to the most recent iTunes update because all movies downloaded prior have the artwork still. Also, any movies added other than purchasing through iTunes allow me the abillity to add or change artwork.
    I have not been able to find any post similar to this situation other the most recent update to iTunes was rushed and not properly tested as a lot of other posts suggest unique issues that are annoying.
    If someone knows how to solve this issue it would be much appreciated.

    Hello daddyleon75,
    Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
    For more information, take a look at:
    iOS: Forgotten passcode or device disabled after entering wrong passcode
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1212
    Alternatively, place the device in recovery mode and restore it to erase the device:
    Disconnect the USB cable from the device, but leave the other end of the cable connected to your computer's USB port.
    Turn off the device: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds until the red slider appears, then slide the slider. Wait for the device to shut down.
    While pressing and holding the Home button, reconnect the USB cable to the device. The device should turn on.
    Continue holding the Home button until you see the Connect to iTunes screen.
    iTunes will alert you that it has detected a device in recovery mode. Click OK, and then restore the device.
    Have a nice day,
    Mario

  • Airplay icon disappears from iTunes

    Hi,
    I recently bought an Airport Express (last generation) to be able to hear my iTunes music collection on my stereo. The Airport Express is connected to my home router via ethernet cable (WiFi is disabled) and is configured to only work as an Airplay device. It works flawlessly from my iPhone and iPad, either using the builtin iOS music app, Spotify, or any other app that supports Airplay.
    But that's not the case with iTunes on my PC (Windows 8.1). The Airplay icon keeps disappearing from iTunes and the only way I can get it back is by disconnecting the ethernet cable from the Airport Express and connecting it again. There are two situations where the Airplay icon disappears. One is if I put the computer to sleep. When it wakes up the Airplay icon is gone and I can't get it back unless I disconnect the ethernet cable (or reset the Airplay). But sometimes I'm hearing some music via PC, then switch to Spotify on the iPad, and when I get back to the PC the Airplay icon turns orange and I can't connect to the Airport Express. Then it disappears. It doesn't always happen.
    I've already tried every solution that I read in these forums but nothing works. I've disabled the windows firewall, disabled IPv6, configured the Airport Express with a fixed IP address, etc. etc. Nothing seems to work. The only thing I haven't tried is connecting my PC and Airpor Express via WiFi to the router, because my PC is a desktop and doesn't have an WiFi card. Right now it is connected via ethernet cable to the same router as the Airport Express, so it shouldn't be a problem, I guess.
    Can anyone please give me any advice? I'm really frustrated, because having to disconnect the network cable from the Airport Express every time I turn on my computer so I can hear to some music is very annoying.
    Thanks in advance for any help.
    Best regards,
    Pedro

    Hello, I have this exact same problem -- Airport Express bought Feb. 2014 (not sure of firmware version?) Windows 8 PC, multiple iPads, iPhones in home. Wireless provider Comcast in S.F. Bay Area (using their Xfinity modem / router) extremely reliable and very fast for 10+ years.
    Every few days Airport Express icon in iTunes on Windows PC turns orange and requires PC reboot. Upon reboot, streaming music works fine. Have also tried all other fixes found on Support forums, etc.
    On iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4S and both iPad 2s Airport Express icon is always available and always seems to work fine.
    Strangely enough, after replacing iPhone 3GS with iPhone 5s (yesterday!), Airport Express was not available on new iPhone, but after quick reboot of Airport Express, new iPhone was able to stream music...
    Windows 8, iTunes, etc. updated w/ latest versions, etc.
    Definitely a pain having to re-boot PC every few days to re-connect to Airport Express...

Maybe you are looking for