Songs in Library are Not in iTunes Music Folder

I just had to Re-create my iTunes Library, which took quite some time since each song had to be selected individually and imported (per the instructions). Anyway, I have the box checked in Edit>Preferences>Advanced to automatically Copy Songs in Libary to the iTunes Music Folder; however, I just purchased two new songs and when I went to the ITMF to check to see if they were there neither the artists nor the songs are there. I then tried to add them manually by clicking on Add File to Library, but that did not add them to the iTunes Music Folder.
If anyone knows what I need to do and why iTunes is not automatically adding the new songs to the iTunes Music Folder, please let me know how to fix this.
Thanks.

Ardwych
Yes, itunes just sets a pointer to the Windows files in its ITL database.http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1660
If you have itunes preference to copy files to your itunes music folder, then it does copy them there and you might now have two copies of the same song. But itunes will probably be using the copy in the itunes music folder.
This section of this article might explain it better
*How iTunes Manages Media Content*
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive

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When syncing my iTunes to my iPad from the laptop, I get a list of missing songs; they are in the library, but not in the music folder on my HD. In particular, I uploaded 3 CDs at the same time, all are in my library - but two are missing from the folder.

When syncing my iTunes to my iPad from the laptop, I get a list of missing songs; they are in the library, but not in the music folder on my HD. In particular, I uploaded 3 CDs at the same time, all are in my library, and all synced to the iPad - but the music from two of them are missing from the music folder. Questions are (a) where might they have gone? and (b) is there a way of "reverse loading" them back to my hard drive from the iPad? Thanks in advance!

Hi dones49,
It sounds like your issue here is that iTunes can not find the files for some of the songs you have brought into it. This happens occasionally even if the songs have not been moved from the location that iTunes places them on import or purchase. When you try to use the song, iTunes prompts you to find the file, as you have seen.
To find the file, use the information in this article to navigate through the iTunes media folders -
Locate and organize your iTunes files
If you are still unable to locate the files, you may need to download them from the iTunes store again, or rip them from your CDs. See this article for assistance with downloading your past purchases -
Download past purchases
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
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I'm having a huge issue with itunes locating my missing files..and it's too many for me to locate 1 by 1..It says I'm missing over 3,00 songs and They are all in my music folder..What can I do to fix this issue?

I'm having a huge issue with itunes locating my missing files..and it's too many for me to locate 1 by 1..It says I'm missing over 3,000 songs and They are all in my music folder..What can I do to fix this issue? I've looked at all the tutorials on youtube and none of it works. I recently got a new computer and I Back-Up all my music and itunes playlist and I import it on my new computer with the new itunes and I go to play a few songs, it says I'm missing them I locate a few but it's still like 3,000 missing and again they are all on the computer and in one folder..Please Help !

I did that and nothing changed half my songs still have examination marks beside them
I also just tried dragging my folder of music int he playlist and it duplicated all of my songs? My playlist was at 5k now it's at 10k becuz of 3 duplicates of songs. Is there a way to delete multiple duplicate files?

Why would files that are in my iTunes Music folder not show up in iTunes?

Downloaded emusic.com files show up in my iTunes Music folder like usual, but iTunes doesn't seem to detect them. Then, each time I quit iTunes I receive a problem report saying iTunes quit unexpectedly. Help?

iTunes is a data base manager and as noted needs a reference.
If I am adding tunes not purchased from the iTS then I d/l to a folder on my Desk Top then as noted 'Add to Library'.
I also have the iTunes prefs>Advanced>copy .... option enabled. This way iTunes will copy the tune into iTunes and then you can delete the Desk Top copy.
MJ

Using external hard drive for music files NOT in iTunes music folder

Hi there. Due to lacking disk space on my computer I have all my music files (that I had before using iTunes) on an external HD. I can easily import these drives to iTunes (v.8) without copying them to the iTunes music folder. But when I want to synchronize my iPod the next time, iTunes cannot find the files on my external HD and I have to import them all again, delete all the duplicates and - worst of all - do all the playlist sorting again! Is there a solution to this without putting all my music into the iTunes music folder (I would like to keep it separated)? Thanks in advance!

I use an external firewire drive to store my iTunes library on. One thing to be aware of...
You need to go into your iTunes preferences, then to "Advanced", then select the location where you want to store your iTunes Music folder. In my case it is in a folder titled "Music" on my external firewire drive. The iTunes "Library" file is stored on your internal hard drive.
The thing that can cause you problems it that....if you forget to turn on the external drive before you boot up your Mac, the iTunes library file will look for your music folder and won't be able to find it. So a new iTunes Music folder will be created on your internal hard drive, with nothing in it. You'll see all of your songs listed in your iTunes program...but if you try to double click on any of the songs to play them, you'll get an exclamation mark saying "cannot find file".
If this happens, you need to delete the new iTunes Music folder on your internal drive (but not the iTunes Library file!), then quit iTunes, turn on the external drive, then relaunch iTunes....and it will find the original music folder.
It's a hassle that I have had to go though many times, I keep forgetting to turn on that drive before launching iTunes.
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Then, I did some research & found how to change my settings for importing to mp3 format. I am not sure what I had checked before, but it was not that, but anyways, before I could in fact burn CD's and play them elsewhere.
My problem now is every song I click on in my library, if I create burn folder, these songs are all .m4a at the end with a little icon saying mpeg4. Please what does this mean & how can I get back to before.
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Message was edited by: Tiffany O'Neill
Message was edited by: Tiffany O'Neill
Message was edited by: Tiffany O'Neill

Okay I have it set to what you said but I still cannot hear anything playing on the blank CD that I burned onto.
What a bummer.
Do you have to create a playlist to burn a music CD? I just created a Burn Folder & dragged the songs from my library. They appear to have burned but no sound on the CD
I must have changed something by accident cause I used to be able to do it.

Song on my hard drive but not in iTunes music folder

Actually, I have two questions.
First - there is a song that I can do a search and find on my hard drive but it is not listed in iTunes. How do I get it into iTunes?
Secondly, I moved my library to an external hard drive then moved it back to C drive. (Didn't like the hard drive I took it back and got a different brand.) However, all my music had an exclamation mark beside it. So I manually clicked on the exclamation mark located the song and clicked OK. The stupid thing I did was click on any exclamation mark and OK'ed moving a song that was not the one with the exclamation mark. Now I have lots of songs, for instance, in Purchased that were from a CD etc. A lot of my music in not where it was originally. Stupid I know, but is there a way to put the songs back where they were??
Thanks for your help.

Kimo@13 wrote:
A lot of my music in not where it was originally. Stupid I know, but is there a way to put the songs back where they were??
Take a "missing" file and *Get Info.* When iTunes asks to locate the file click cancel. One the Summary tab will be a line that says Location: file://<some path>. Now compare that path with the current location of the file. If you are lucky it should be obvious what you need to do to put that file, and all the others, back at their original paths, e.g. rename or move a particular folder.
tt2

Many songs I purchased are not in my "purchased" folder and not in ICloud. Why?

Where did they go and can I retrieve them somehow. I've spent a lot of money over time and don't want to have to re-purchase them.

You will need to contact support. Audiobooks cannot be re-downloaded using your purhcase page. Sorry about your lost iPhone by the way.

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When I deleted unwanted songs from my iTunes Library I selected the option to Keep Files instead of Moving Song to the Recycle Bin. As a result I've now got a load of unwanted music files clogging up my music folders.
So how can I identify music files that are in my iTunes Music Folders but have been deleted from the iTunes Library and then remove them from my hard drive?
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Here's a thought, have you added any new items to your library recently?
If you add your iTunes music folder to your library, anything not already in your library will be added.
Now go to your library view and make sure you have the date added column visible. (Right click in the header row to get a list of columns that can be selcted).
Now sort by date added and everying you just added will be together and can be easily identified for deletion.
Note this only applies if files are in the iTunes Music folder, files in other places have to be deleted in Windows Explorer.
PS iT is usually a good idea to make a copy of iTunes Library.itl before experimenting. Copy it from your iTunes folder to somewhere else.

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I purchased a specific Styx album, One with Everyhthing, a few minutes ago. My iTunes library indicated that a download was in progress. After the download finished, I ran several searches in my iTunes library using Styx & the title of the album, & couldn't locate this purchase in my iTunes library. I went to Finder, & ran a search for this CD. Sure enough, all of the associated files for this CD are in my iTunes music folder. I have moved the files to the desktop, & have tried to drag/drop them into my iTunes library. They will not add. How did I get this CD moved to the iTunes library? In all of the years I've been purchasing from the store, I have not seen this EVER happen.
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Hi, b! I occassionally drop by from time to time, especially when I have an issue that I can't resolve myself. Anyway, yes the files will play in iTunes when I click on them. Now, the weird thing is that when I was playing around an hour ago, I could have sworn the files had not added to iTunes. I went to double check this when I saw that you had responded. I don't what happened, what I did, but the the whole album is now in iTunes. Previously, it would play, but not add to iTunes.

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When in advanced iTunes preferences, I change the iTunes Music Folder location to that of the external drive and click "Change".
Okay. iTunes will use that folder for everything in the future. Anything added to iTunes will put into that folder if you have *Copy to iTunes music folder when adding to library* ticked.
If there is any previous items in iTunes, it will continue to look for them where they were.
I thought it might be an XML issue, so I moved the XML file but it didn't change anything.
The .xml is generated by iTunes simply for other applications. iTunes does not use it at all.
Is the "Add to Library" option my next best bet?
It's the only option since this is how you add files to iTunes (along with Import when RIPping from CD).
If you want to have the items in the new location in iTunes, you need to File -> Add to library and select the location on the external.
I'm ok with that as long as it doesn't actually add the files to my internal hard drive
See 1st comment in this response.
and keeps all of the items sorted correctly
Depends.
The sort in iTunes is whaichever column you are selected on.
If you are talking about the "sort" in the Finder/on the HD, then iTunes sorts by Artist/Album/Song name. If you do not want this, you need to to uncheck *Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library* and uncheck *Keep iTunes music folder organized*.

Best practice for iTunes' music folder

i keep my music on an external drive, but want itunes to be able to play the songs.
currently, the itunes music folder is set to its default location. i changed the preference to prevent iTunes from copying music to this location. i added music to iTunes using File | 'Add folder to Library' menu.
my friend, who also has his music on an external drive, set his itunes music folder to the Music folder on his external drive.
what are the differences between these two approaches? what are the issues?
is there a best practice for using iTunes w/ music stored on an external drive?
thanks for your time.
craig

Thanks Paul for helping
I am getting the symbol and can locate the song but it is very time consuming and I can't do whole albums .
I tried dragging the entire music folder into iTunes . Is this it , iTunes Music Library.xml ? These are all the files and folders I found
iTunes 3 Music Library Data file
iTunes 4 Music Library Data File
iTunes 4 Music Library (Old) Data File
iTunes Music folder
iTunes Music Library.xml document
Temp File Document
I unchecked the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder "
before I dragged the xml. doc into the iTunes symbol in the dock .
This seems to have made matters worse . Now I can't find the file at all except through the finder .
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HT1351 We had 2 computers: his itunes library on one, and mine on the other. We got rid of both of those and got a new computer. I put music on the new computer. My ipod songs are not on itunes. Will I erase them if I sync? How do I add new music?

We had 2 computers: his itunes library on one, and mine on the other. We got rid of both of those and got a new computer. I put new music on the new computer. My ipod songs are not on itunes on the new computer. Will I erase them if I sync? How do I add new music?

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I have 100's of CDs that I have downloaded to my itunes library and they are in the library playable but they do not show up in the C drive under the iTunes Music folder under users. Why are they in the libary and not in the itunes music folder. Win 7 OS

I have 100's of CDs that I have downloaded to my itunes library and they are in the library playable but they do not show up in the C drive under the iTunes Music folder under users. Why are they in the libary and not in the itunes music folder. Win 7 OS. When I look in the library under the get info screen it says they are in the folder itunes music, under the c: drive but when I actually go to that folder to look for them they are not there....HELP!

Hello RumDog,
I think this article will help you find the media in your library.
Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Discovering and changing the iTunes Media folder location
Note: You would usually only change the iTunes Media folder location to share music between accounts on the same computer. See this article for specific steps on how to accomplish this. Also, see this article if you want to know how to move your music to a new computer.
Mac OS X: Click the iTunes menu and choose Preferences.
Windows: Click the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
Click the Advanced pane. iTunes displays the location of your iTunes Media folder.
You can then:
Note where your media folder is, such as for backing up your media.
Use the Reset button to reset it's location to the default (which is the iTunes folder).
Click the Change button to select a folder for a new location. Once you change this location:
If you make a new or alternate iTunes library, the new location will be used by that library.
Existing files will not be moved unless you choose File > Library > Organize library and choose the option to "Consolidate files."
From: Where are my iTunes files located?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1391
Cheers,
Sterling

Songs in Library are Not in iTunes Music Folder

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