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.

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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.

Podcast file missing from itunes and ipod

I uploaded an mp3 file to my ipod and changed the media type from music to podcast. Now the file doesn't show up in any category of my ipod on itunes, and it doesn't show up anywhere on my ipod. However, if I do a search on the ipod for the name of the file, it shows up as a podcast and I can play the file, even though it doesn't show up in the podcast directory. If I can't find the location of the file, how can I delete it after I've listened to it? Syncing my podcasts made no difference.

I uploaded an mp3 file to my ipod and changed the media type from music to podcast. Now the file doesn't show up in any category of my ipod on itunes, and it doesn't show up anywhere on my ipod. However, if I do a search on the ipod for the name of the file, it shows up as a podcast and I can play the file, even though it doesn't show up in the podcast directory. If I can't find the location of the file, how can I delete it after I've listened to it? Syncing my podcasts made no difference.

I have recently had some music files removed from itunes. The originals are still on my ipod. How do i restore these missing items to my itunes......

I have recently had some music files removed from itunes. This was not supposed to happen! However the originals (consisting largely of playlists) ae still on my ipd and I do not want to do any syncing until I have resolved the issue. Is there any way to restore these missing tunes from the ipod to my itunes? Grateful for any input........

You cannot transfer song files from iPod to computer using iTunes (except for songs purchased from the iTunes Store). However, there are third-party methods and utilities that can transfer song files from iPod to computer. If you do a Google search on something like "ipod transfer," you should get some links.
NOTE: Songs previously purchased from the iTunes Store can also be re-downloaded at no cost, from the iTunes Store Purchased screen.

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

Recover lost deleted corrupted music files tracks from iTunes match icloud

Just spent an hour on Apple's tech suypport line, all to figure out how to recover lost/deleted/corrupted music files/tracks from iCloud / iTunes Match. Here's how to do it:
ASSUMPTIONS: You're in iTunes on your computer, logged into your iCloud account.
Within iTunes, in the left-hand pane, select your Music library. Alll your tracks should appear in the right-hand pane. Those that are missing from your disk should be marked with an asterisk icon to the left of the track. Do the following...
...select all the missing/lost/deleted tracks (using the option button), and hit the delete button.
NOTE: when the delete dialog box comes up, make sure you do ***NOT*** click the "Delete from iCloud" selection!!!
...once deleted, select all the same tracks again, then hit the right mouse button, then select "Download".
All the tracks should start downloading, one by one, from iCloud.
NOTE: If I were you, I'd perform this operation on discrete chunks (no more than 500 at a time), just to be safe.
Good luck!

You can also recover the missing tracks from the backup you are keeping on an external HDD. You are backing up, aren't you?

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.

Now my music is missing from iTunes...please help

OK, for today's fun and games: I synced this morning like I always do, but all the music in my iTunes library on PC is missing. After syncing, it still appears on my phone though. I went into the music tab in iTunes with my phone plugged in and for some reason, the "sync music" option is unchecked (no idea why it is unchecked). I am afraid to check it because it says it will replace all the music on my phone with what's in my iT library which currently appears to be nothing! Where did the music on my PC go and how can I get it back!?
Thanks

Well all my music is on my hard drive in its various original locations.
Thanks a lot Apple! I really appreciate having to REIMPORT, Re-link, and get album artwork FROM SCRATCH all over again. Kind of p!ssed off right now.

I have itunes 12 and protected acc music files will to play- and computer wont authorize- 2 plus hour on phone w/ apple and no help.

Apple authorized retailer just transferred my data from "dead" late 2009 macbook pro to my new matchbook with retina. Now itunes12 will not play songs listed as protected acc files that i bought from iTunes. so i know what that term means but spent over two hours on he phone with apple trying to resolve with no luck but the rep swears they should play and the protected part is not the issue. Songs were purchased when i had a pc ( he said thats not the issue) and i had no issues with previous computer playing them. Also when i try to play them now it prompts mo to authorize the computer and it will NOT let me . (not sure if its b.c they were bought when iTunes let you use a user name only and not needing @ .....email address.) And i dont have the password and cant get it though find my apple id b/c its not really a true apple id- tried adding the @ and my email but tray did not work.
SO , 1. Anyone else have this issue or suggestions on what to do?
2. was told i need to find old password to authorize computer but cant , as i said , find it though apple id site.....so have no clue whist to do .... already spent 20.00 repurchasing some out of frustration.
This came to my attention when i tried to since my phone and was told id loose 60 songs b/c computer not authorized- so i stopped and they play in the phone then tied to sync iPod and same issue but by accident pressed wrong key and lost songs off iPod that would play on that. so now they are on my purchased list and can see they were purchased with just a same / no address when i fog to about file.....any suggestions. help...please ...was already in the phone with someone various times for total of over 4 - 6 hours trying to fix multiple apple id issue so i could at least back up my phone which is dying so when i get new one if anything goes wrong i have my picts. and music backed up to computer.
3.last issue - was told by one person that now i have to either do family share b/c of songs bought with different id's(at that point dint know about first issue but knew i had used @me and @ mac by accident to buy songs and was told they now would not play if i was not signed in with the id it was purchased with?? is that true?
b/c i have play list for my car that have songs from both ids .....so hen said that would be an issue ? its not now on my phone (old 3GS) they all play.
any help one anything would be so appreciated! thanks- sorry for so may issues in one question. del free to ask more questions as what I've tried b/c i feel I've done everything they they told me on phone multiple times and cant get any answers. or get stuck back in loop of need to authorize computer and cant and dante get apple id from forgot password b/c it only gets to second step and then says info is not correct?

reb101 wrote:
OK, I finally got it - do the following:
1. Connect Pre to your computer in USB mode.
2. Open search feature and search for "ipod controls" file in the Pre drive (on my computer this is drive E
3. On the search feature, go to advanced tab and tell it to search for hidden files.
4. It should find ipod controls.
5. DELETE, DELETE, DELETE
Keep in mind that this will delete all previously uploaded music installed by using *ughhh* itunes. I love it. Now I just drag and drop all music to my Pre drive. Hope this helps. It is nice to have a fresh start without having to wipe the entire phone. Good luck out there.
This worked brilliantly!!! Thank you so much!! Pre is set......only issue now is that fact that half my music in iTunes is in a Protected AAC file format that the Pre can't play

Some of my music is missing from iTunes Match and I can't add it manually.

I seem to have remembered being able to manually add any new music I got to the cloud by simply right clicking on an album or a song in iTunes. Now it seems as if that doesn't work anymore. I just got some new music and it's not showing up in my iPhone or iPad. Please help.

The issue lies with the info in each song/album. Since iTunes match tries to match your library with songs from their own library, the info in each album needs to show the specified artist and song names so iTunes Match can recognize it. (see this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/17055402#17055402)
That solved my issue. I changed the album artist to be the artist name only and re-logged in to iTunes Match, then checked my phone and it was there.
Thanks.

How do I transfer a music file (song) from iTunes list to my iPOD? The Apple help files do not make any sense in this regard.

How do I transfer a song from itunes to my ipod (they are connected). The Apple help files are truly pathetic in this fundamental function.
For example they say click on the "summary" button ... I find no summary button anywhere on my screen. How's that for a confidence builder?

This talks about iTunes 10, but it should work the same way in iTunes 11. Transferring purchases for an iDevice to your Mac.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2554
It should be File>Devices>Transfer Purchases, I think
You must be using the same Apple ID in iTunes on your Mac that your son is using on the Mini or the movie will not transfer.

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

Music File Formats from iTunes Store

Can you help me - I want to start building my collection of AIFF files as I'm about to get a Wadia 170i transport!
Can I only down load music from iTunes in ACC format? IF yes then can they then be converted to AIFF post downloading?
Cheers Nige

An audio component of that quality obviously needs good audio formats :
In terms of buying music, you would be advised to go for iTunes Plus, which gives you the music in AAC 256kbps (near CD quality, I cannot hear the difference).
Having got that, as long as the Wadia plays them - and it looks from the website as though it does - there is absolutely no point in converting to AIFF, which as Meg says will give you NO improvement in quality, only larger files. And if you ever did contemplate converting (pointlessly) to a higher format, then Apple Lossless is the same quality as AIFF but the file sizes are only half.

Please help! Deleting songs from itunes library & updating ipod

Must I keep all albums I wish to upload into my ipod on my computer? I have the ipod settings set to automatic and if I delete the album from the library (completely from my pc) the next time I connect my ipod the album gets deleted from the ipod.
I tried setting the ipod to manual but then I can't figure out how to update my ipod with the songs I want to add. It really doesn't make sense for me to have to fill up my hard drive with all of this music just to keep the songs on my ipod. I really hope someone can please tell me otherwise.

If it's on Manual update, you simply drag the songs from the library to the iPod in iTunes.
If you wan tot remove music, right click on it and select Clear. Do this with the iPod selected not a playlist on the iPod.

Files missing from iTunes, but still in iPhone - how to transfer them?

So, I recently had an issue where my external hard drive broke and I used my back up service, Mozy, to restore the contents of my iTunes Library to my new external hard drive. It seems that Mozy had not backed up some of the newer music files, podcasts, etc that I had in my iTunes library. These items are in my phone and show up listed in my iTunes library, but when I try to play them on my Macbook Pro, I get an error message that the file cannot be found.
Does anyone know of a way to fix this issue?

*Recover media from iPod*
See this post from Zevoneer for options on moving your iPod/iPhone data back to your computer.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7217190#7217190
iPhone Explorer should allow you to make use of the manual method mentioned towards the end of the post if none of the other third party extraction tools appeal to you.
tt2

Please help. Music files missing from itunes and computer!

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