NOW What?! My Entire Music Library GONE?!

It's not as bad as it first sounds but scary enough. For no reason known to me I suddenly get a pop-up that announces a damaged Library file. Then, go on to open iTunes and... Nothing. Nothing listed WHATSOEVER! I do a Find search at Finder level and find that my music files are still around (WHEW!), but how do I get the listing to reappear? Thanks.

[EDIT: I spend so much time in the Windows forum, that I accidently provided the solution for iTunes for Windows. Sorry. The procedure is the same, except some of the paths are different on a Mac.]
As you probably can tell, iTunes maintains a database of your music separate from the actual files themselves. It does this to enable many of the powerful features it offers.
iTunes actually does a backup of the database, giving you a chance to restore a corrupt library, should you ever need to.
1. Choose "Import..." from the File menu.
2. Choose "XML files" from the "Files of Type" list at the bottom of the dialog box.
3. Browse to:
My Documents > My Music > iTunes
4. Select the file called "iTunes Music Library.xml" and click open.
That should fix you right up, unless you've been messing around long enough to render that method useless.
If the problem is still not solved, choose "Add Folder to Library" from the File menu and select the "iTunes Music" folder at the same location from above. All music files in that directory will be re-added to your library.
Note: if you have music files elsewhere on your computer, you'll need to add them back separatly.

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I have used the same laptop for all three of my iPhones but awhile back this laptop had a virus so my husband wiped it out and now when I sync my iPhone I no longer get my entire music library ( including purchased songs) on my iPhone. How do I fix this?

I have always used the same laptop for all of my iPhones but awhile back this laptop had a virus so my husband wiped out the laptop and now when I sync my iPhone I no longer receive my entire music library (including purchased songs) on my iPhone. How do I fix this?

kimberlyfromtopeka wrote:
Ok,thanks but, I should be able to something so that I am able to sync the entire library again not just the purchased songs.
If the non purchased music is not on your computer, how can it Sync to your iPhone...

Hello All, I have recently made the switch to all things Apple and still feel quite the rookie so hoping I can find help here! I'm a bit in shock as 0f now because my entire music libra was deleted by accident and I am completely stuck as to what to do

Hello All, I have recently made the switch to all things Apple and still feel quite the rookie so hoping I can find help here! I'm a bit in shock as 0f now because my entire music libra was deleted by accident and I am completely stuck as to what to do now..I just got the 4s and haven't transferred much music over at all..I figured i could just export it all back but to my Mac...Any advice guys , is it even possible?

Restore from TimeMachine back-up.

HT201272 I recently added my entire music library to the "cloud" for an annual fee. Now I can't listen to anything unless I have an internet connection. I want my library back on my laptop, the whole thing (original laptop got erased). How do I do this?

I recently added my entire music library to the "cloud" for an annual fee. Now I can't listen to anything unless I have an internet connection. I want my library back on my laptop, the whole thing (original laptop got erased). How do I do this?

Hello ggjsa,
Congratulations on your new laptop! I understand that you have copied your old iTunes Library to your new computer, but you are still not seeing the music. I recommend reviewing Part 5 in the section titled "External drive" in the following article:
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
If you are still having trouble transferring the library using this method, you may want to try using the Home Sharing method in the article.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

HT4527 I have my entire music library (purchased and burnt CD's) on my iPod Touch from one computer and I wanted to sync it all to my new computer. I was hoping it would all transfer via sync when I plugged it in but it doesn't seem to work. Please help?!

I have my entire music library (purchased and burnt CD's) on my iPod Touch from one computer and I wanted to sync it all to my new computer. I was hoping it would all transfer via sync when I plugged it in but it doesn't seem to work. Please help?!

Ok, I had a glitch, forced to restart, and lost my train of thought.
Reinstalling iTunes should fix the major issue that might have gone wrong, perhaps your explaination points will disappear and everything will be peachy again.
But if they don't, you can open the XML file in iTunes Folder using a Text edit program to see what the common pathname is to the iTunes Music folder or where your content is located.
If you moved the itunes folder, it needs to go back.
I can't download iTunes to my Vista virtual machine to test it out right now because iTunes is down, so I can't verify the pathname, perhaps your issue and the iTunes being down are related somehow?
You don't want to import all your music again, but it's a option, but you lose all your playlists, that's what I'm trying to recover.
If oyu don't have a whole lot of playlists, then simply select all the explaimation point music and delete, select File from the menu and import your itunes folder again.

I am trying to sync my iphone with itunes music and have selected 'entire music library', which shows a large amount of potential music data to be transferred. Trouble is after sync, the bar shrinks back to just the content of one particular Playlist!?

Please can anyone help? I am trying to sync my iphone music with itunes, but am finding that as soon as the sync is complete the data bar shrinks back from almost full (my entire music library) to just 100 songs, which happen to be the contents of one playlist I have. i cannot seem to change the music content on my phone no matter what? PS when I hit sync the capacity bar fills up, but when I apply, it drops back to just those songs I already mentioned :- (

thank you randers4, unfortunately these restrictions aren't to blame. Now I realise the problem - I tried to play some of the music and found out that the source data wasn't attached. The computer was rebuilt and backed up - and it seems perhaps hasn't all been copied back. I am currently attempting to copy accross some itunes files from my backup drive. Bit confused, too many itunes files of different types but fingers crossed getting closer to the solution......?

I just accidentally wiped out my entire music library. How can I get apple to help me download the purchased songs again? The songs went to my recycle bin and I immediately restored them but the files seem to have dissappered!

I just accidentally wiped out my entire music library. I sent everything to recycling bin and then immediately hit restore all items as I knew what I had just done. Now I can find where those files went. Is there anyway Apple can just send me my purchased songs again?

See Here > Download Past Purchases
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519

Why would iTunes 9.2.1.5 automatically DELETE my iPod's entire music library???

Hi everyone,
   I have an iPod Classic running software ver 1.3. I keep (kept) my entire music library on the iPod rather than on my laptop. I've used the iPod this way for nearly 5 years now. This morning I connected the iPod to my Windows Vista laptop, running iTunes 9.2.1.5, which I do almost every day.
   Today was unusual. When iTunes started up, it told me it was "syncing your iPod," then DELETED everything in my iPod's music library which wasn't purchased on the iTunes website. Because I only bought a handful of songs from iTunes, this reduced my music library from 25 Gigs to a little less than 15 Megs. Then iTunes crashed.
   Why would iTunes DO this??? I feel like I've been mugged. That library took years to collect and organize and I don't have access to a lot of the original sources. The worst part of it all is I had no inkling nor warning that anything was amiss until it was all too late. And why would iTunes spare only what I'd purchased from the iTunes store??? Is this some sick way of ensuring Apple is the sole gateway to our music access?
         Beyond frustrated,
                  - Red Apples Only

It sounds like your iPod did an automatic sync. Whether or not you had it set up that way or not I'm not sure. Anyway, when your iPod automatically syncs it makes sure your iPod MATCHES your iTunes library. If you have no songs in your library (because "I keep (kept) my entire music library on the iPod rather than on my laptop") then it will delete all the songs on the iPod to match the iTunes library. The only exception is that it will copy any iTunes purchased songs from your iPod back to your computer as a way of safe-keeping your iTunes purchased songs.
As a side note, there are way too many people on this forum that don't keep their library on their computer (25 Gigs doesn't take up that much room) or at least store it on an external hard drive (they're cheap). Too many things can happen to your iPod such as; theft, damage, malfunction, or your experience that not keeping a back-up copy is risking losing a "library that took years to collect and organize". I know that I have all the CDs that make up my 31,000 song library that are all on my iPod Classic but I still keep them on my computer AND my backup hard drive. I know if I lost my iPod I really wouldn't want to rip all those CDs again, not to mention hunting down missing artwork.
CDJunkie

Contents of Playlists - Show in Entire music library?

Hi
Quite a simple thing, but explaining it may prove complicated, but here goes...
I have quite a few thousand tunes in my entire library now, I also have many playlists. What I would like to be able to do is click on a playlist then click on my entire music library and have one of the columns show the tunes that are in the playlist I just previously clicked on.
This would enable me to be able to scan through my entire library and see immediately what tunes were in the playlist I previously selected. This would make it very easy to find any tunes I had missed, or wanted to add to that particular playlist.
I hope that makes sense. I cannot see any way of doing this at the moment, but for those of us with large music libraries it would be an absolute godsend. Perhaps Apple would consider adding this functionality.
In the meantime does anyone know of a workaround other than the obvious way of blindly going through the entire music library again and adding tracks only to be told by a message box that the tracks were already in the playlist and did I want to skip the duplicated tracks.
Cheers
Jem

PocketJem wrote:
In the meantime does anyone know of a workaround other than the obvious way of blindly going through the entire music library again and adding tracks only to be told by a message box that the tracks were already in the playlist and did I want to skip the duplicated tracks.
Compared to anything else we could suggest, that is pretty darn efficient! In older versions of iTunes, you did not even get that warning.
If you want to see everything that is not in PlaylistA, you can make a new playlist with the rule "Playlist" "is not" "PlaylistA" and it will show everything that is not in PlaylistA, which will make it easier to scan as you wish, and then drag what you want into PlaylistA.
Hope that helps. If you want to make an official suggestion to Apple, you can use their feedback page.

HT204406 I just enabled Match to my iphone 4S...It seems to have wiped out my entire music library. I bought two new songs and those are the only two songs showing up in my library. Please help!

Match lost my entire music library. It isn't in my music on my phone. That's over $1500 in music, lost Please help.

" When I did this, my library showed all the music I have "purchased" from itunes but did not have the music that I downloaded a long time ago through itunes from my old CDs."
Correct.
" How can I get that music to show up in my library now on my new computer? "
Copy it from your old computer or your backup copy of your old computer.
The sync is one way - computer to ipod.

Library total song count different than available "Entire music library" number for mobile devices?

If I go to my iTune library and display the song count I see I have 3094 separate songs. However when I connect my iPhone or iPad and I choose "Sync Music" with the option "Entire music library" it shows 2963 songs. I have 10GB+ of available space on both devices, so it's not a space issue. Concerned I had songs in my library that were not mapped to actual files on my drive I audited them. I highlighted all the songs, chose "Get Info" then changed the BPM to 999, once they processed I sorted by BPM and they all read 999, there were no gaps that would indicate a broken file association.
I can't seem to find any other possible explanation. If any one has any ideas, and an option to resolve the problem I'm definitely open to suggestion, thanks!
OS X: 10.9.5
iOS: 8.0.2
iTunes: 11.4

Possibilities are that unchecked songs are not being synced to the device, or that your library contains what I refer to as "logical" duplicates, two or more entries in the database that point to the same physical file on disc. If you have logical duplicates only one copy of the track is left on the device after syncing, but you may see the same set of tracks being added each time you sync even though nothing has been changed in your library.
tt2

Backing up Playlist (Or the Entire Music Library) on a Second Hard Drive

I know there are many solutions for this subject online, but neither suits my needs. I have already read many tutorials on how to backup your entire music library using your ipod as a hard drive, but I have a different matter. I have all my music stored on my second hard drive (witch has a capacity 80 Gigabytes), the size of the music folder is about 49 Gigabytes; my ipod has a capacity of 30 Gigabytes, and my first drive (where Windows runs has a capacity of 20 Gigabytes.) On my current library I have all my playlists the way I like them. My problem is that I constantly need to re-install Windows for testing matters, so I would like to keep all my playlists, my ratings, and my play counts when I reinstall windows. I can not use my ipod as a hard drive, because all my music won’t fit. I have also read that it is necessary to have the option (Keep my Itunes music folder organized), but I am not able to do that also, because of the lack of space on my 1st hard drive. What would be my best option to backup my library?
Thanks in advance,
Dirk Breeuwer
[email protected]

Dirk Breeuwer,
It sounds like you may have your songs stored on the external hard drive, and linked to the library on the internal hard drive. Is that correct?
You can move your iTunes Library folder to the external drive, and then tell iTunes to keep the library organized. This article discusses creating a different library, and how to switch between them. (This is a feature that was added as part of iTunes 7)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304447
The initial configuration of that option may take a while, but once setup would be the easiest way to accomplish keeping the library intact through reinstall of Windows with the songs stored on a second hard drive.
Personally I would try this if you have sufficient space on the second hard drive free for all the music:
1. Copy the iTunes folder from My Documents to the external hard drive
2. Hold down shift when launching iTunes as directed in the article above
3. Select that iTunes folder on the external hard drive.
4. If you music doesn't have !'s next to it when you try to play songs you know are on the external hard drive, then go to Advanced->Consolidate library.
5. Consolidating library will copy all the songs into the iTunes folder on the external hard drive, as long as the links were not broke by copying the library to the external hard drive.
Hope this helps,
Nathan C.

Want to import entire music library from iTouch to new HP laptop

I have an iPod iTouch with a music library of about 2500 songs and I have a new HP Pavillion DV6000 Entertainment notebook computer (which runs Vista). My original iTunes library is in my desktop (which runs XP). The iTunes n the desktop is the one the iPod is officially affiliated with. Apple policy states that an iPid can only be affilaited with one computer. I want to import the entire music library (not just songs purchased through iTunes store) from my iPod iTouch into the empty iTunes library on the new notebook. I've heard mention of iGadget, iRepo and IpodAccess but I don't know how to use these to get what I want. Can anybody give input or specific directions to help me?

tell iTunes not to update iPod when you connect it to your computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1205?viewlocale=en_US
Sync Music
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1351?viewlocale=en_US
Importing (forum thread with tips)
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7065803#7065803
Importing music and video already on your computer
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesMac/7.6/en/15349.html
About Add to Library
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301509
iPod touch
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306418

Tried syncing entire music library to ipod but some albums were skipped. tried click and drag album but device does not get highlighted when i drag album there. any suggestions?

I tried syncing entire music library to ipod. some albums were skipped. tried clicking and dragging but device does not get highlighted when i drag the album to the device. How can I sync album to ipod? the album is imported and not purchased thru itunes store.

Does it play in iTunes on the computer? What is the format of the album?
Right click and select Get Info. Look under File in iTunes 12

Selecting any Playlist Folder lists the entire music library

I recently switched to a new computer from an old one (both were XP Professional, iTunes version was not completely up-to-date on the older computer) and after migrating the old iTunes library and reconfiguring automatic playlists dependent on others, I found myself with a problem. Some of my playlists didn't show correct information, and after poking around for some time, I noticed every playlist folder, once selected or added as a dependency on an automatic playlist, listed the entire music library. Most of my affected playlists now depend on a workaround, and automatic playlist that corresponds to whatever the folders are supposed to list. This, however, is extremely inconvenient as I have one folder containing easily over a hundred playlists, the number of which increases nearly daily. As it happens, I have several playlists dependent of this folder. There is no workaround I can think of short of creating an automatic playlist with over a hundred separate rules, updated as the playlists grow.
Help would be appreciated.

I'm not quite sure how a screenshot would illuminate the issue. I can, however, try to explain this in simpler terms.
I have my playlists in their folders (the sort created by selecting File -> New Playlist Folder). I imported (through File -> Library -> Import Playlist) my music library from an other computer. The playlist folders imported showed every item in my library (automatic playlists didn't). Apparently, moving any playlist out of a folder fixes this problem.

NOW What?! My Entire Music Library GONE?!

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