Unable to Retrieve iTunes Media!!

Hi there,
I recently had my laptop wiped because of something. However, I downloaded a couple of movies and apps. Although I have no idea how to retrieve this data back!! I really want it back but I have no idea how!! Help me please!
Thank You Very Much

Unless you backed it up, you stand scant chance of retrieving it. The only option open to you would be to call Apple and beg that they let you download it again....
0845 600 1683
Regards
Paul

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How do you retrieve iTunes media from many locations to one file

I have all Mac devices.
The particular item I have a question about is my itunes media file.
Since I have a very large collection, I was advised by apple support to move my Itunes Media folder to the 1.5T wireless WD hard drive I have.
All was going well, until either itunes update occurred or my Macbook Pro OSx had updated that is when I started to notice I have many, many itunes media folders and I want and need to know how to stop this default from occuring and the hardest part is to accumulate all my media that is in itunes media files many on my MacBook Pro in subfolders and on my WD wireless Hard drive that essentially has done the same.
It has produced most cases many, many copies of each of media, and due to the many places that the media got switched to, some items need to be located to play. Especially Movies. None of the data is on cell phone, ipad or icloud. It is mainly conflicts somewhere from files on my Macbook Pro and what is on my WD wireless hard drive. (I only save media on this hard drive)
I have attempted to organize itunes, but it seems to perpetuate the problem.
Is there anyone who knows the best way to find and consolidate media for itunes and place it in one folder. Is there some App out there that deals ONLY with itunes media consolidating?
Thanks,
Tina C.

What do you mean "retrieve"?
If you mean previously purchased music, then you cannot, unless you are in the U.S. Then you can use the recently released icloud ( beta version).
Tap itunes, then tap purchasd

HT201625 iTunes unable to locate iTunes Media Folder after transfer from PC to Mac?

Hello
I recently purchased a new Mac Mini, and have been attempting to transfer everything from my old PC to it.
One of these things is my extensive iTunes library, including all of the media, and my iOS devices back-ups. I've been following these first two articles to the letter, as I was using an external drive to transfer my media (my iTunes library and Media folder were already on an external hard drive when in use on my PC):
How to move your iTunes library to a new computer - Apple Support
Back up your iTunes library by copying it to an external drive - Apple Support
Create and delete iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch backups in iTunes - Apple Support
However, after following the second link all the way through without issue, i've run into difficultly at the final stage (screen shot below):
I am able to find the iTunes Library file. It is called 'iTunes Library.itl'. I click, and it seems like everything is fine as iTunes opens up.
However, none of my media can be found. The only media shown is that which I have purchased via the iTunes store (as I have logged in, which has been successful). I have tried checking in preferences, but I have definitely linked to the right folder as well (see below screenshot).
I'm at a loss at what to do next! Any ideas why this might be happening appreciated.

It seems you have done everything correctly, with the iTunes Music folder in your iTunes folder like this. When you double-click the iTunes Music folder do you see all your songs etc.?
If so, leave everything as is and try a reinstall of iTunes. It might just work.
OS X Yosemite: Reinstall apps that came with your Mac
Edit: I just noticed your music folder is named iTunes Media, which may be the Windows way. Rename it as iTunes Music.

Unable to retrieve iTunes music video once minimized

Hi,
When i play a music video and minimize just the video i am unable to resume video playback (can still hear it playing) even when i right click on iTunes icon on the dock and left click on now playing, the only time i can resume viewing video is if i change settings and untick minimize windows into application icon.
I always have iTunes 12.1.0 on full screen
iMac mid 2011, Yosemite 10.10.2

Try restarting your router. It occasionally helps.
Thse network issues are difficult to pin down - might be AppleTV, the computer, itunes, security software, router settings and so forth.
AC

HT1203 I moved my Itunes media folder to my public folder in my home folder so that my wife can share my music when she logs on to my computer. Since then aperture has been unable to locate the music files and I cannot add any of my itunes files to a slid

I moved my itunes media folder to my public folder in my home folder so that my wife can share my music when she logs on as a user. Since doing this Aperture cannot locate any itunes music files and so I cannot add any music to a slideshow. All of my existing slideshows no longer play music. Can anyone help?
Thanks

Thank you for your prompt response - I did as you said and did a drag and drop into the iTunes window - it imported and got my album art from the net. When I started Itunes with the shift key down I was prompted to choose a library but since I copied over the media folder and not the library folder I was unable to select that so I guess I will have to create a new library and add in all the music, videos, etc. unless I wait for my laptop and export the library or at least that seems to be the case? In short, all my data (iTunes media folder) is on my external drive and can be added to the blank iTunes screen but I can not choose a library folder. Is there anyway around completely making all those playlists again? I am not sure my laptop will survive the shop with data intact and really hate to start over on those.
In an unrelated question - I collect old TV shows from the 1950's. Can I make playlists within the home video folder somehow? In other words like one for Quiz shows, one for comedies, one for police and detective shows, etc. while I am remaking all my playlists for my music if I end up having to go that route?
Once again thank you for helping me out. I am not too Itunes savvy and really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

Itunes seems to be unable to locate original file to play songs. Songs are in the itunes media file and playable direct from file. Preferences/advance file location is correct. Some files are playing and others aren't with no obvious pattern.

Itunes is unable to locate original file when attempting to play music. Songs are in the itunes media file and playable direct from there. Preferences/Advanced file location pointer is correct. Some songs play but most don't. I did move files around a bit in an attempt to share music with another account on same computor, however this did not work so have returned file to original location. Please help, I am way outside my feild in this one. Ta.

I have solved the problem. i think when I moved the media file back out of public to my account, I put it back into the wrong place and ended up with a media file inside a media file, inside another media file!! So I moved it again and fixed!! Now I just need to work out why i can't share with another account user of same computor.

ITunes doesn't play files stored in iTunes media Folder

Hi, have this problem:
I had deleted my files from iTunes media folder, but as luckily I had the same files located in other place I just copied them to the iTunes Media but iTunes rejects to play them (in my iTunes Library). I'm only able to play them if I go through the procedure as followings: Play - "iTunes unable to open this file because the original file not found. Do you want to find it?" (or smith like that) - Find - Open and then it plays, but I have to perform these actions with every file separately and I have quite a lot of them. Oh, and after that first popping-up window the next one appears "Would you like iTunes to find other missing files from the same location as [the file's name]?" But when I click on "Find" it says "iTunes were unable to find other missing files". Why? How do I accomplish the same task but with all my albums at once without necessity to add them one by one? Does there some way exists to tie the tracks from my albums with original files without importing them to my iTunes library?
Thank you

Understand how iTunes works. iTunes does not actively look for files. When you add a file to iTunes the location of that file is saved in the iTunes database (library file). When you try to play a track iTunes looks in its database for where the linked file is to be found and tries to play the specific file it has listed in that location. If you deleted the file then it no longer exists. I think even if you replace it with one that is identical, iTunes is still looking for that specific file. You can link the track listing to a new file using the process you have done. In theory iTunes should be able to find others but the files have to have been organized by iTunes in the past because it will be working on the basis of how it thinks they should be arranged. Additionally the files you replaced have to have exactly the same name as the ones you deleted because iTunes will expect them to be named how it would name them when they were first entered into your library

How do I restore iTunes media to a new folder?

My iTunes folder was located under C:\Users\UserAccount\Music\iTunes when I backed it up. Now that I'm restoring it on a fresh Windows 8 installation I have a different user account folder: C:\Users\UserAccount_000\Music\iTunes. Not sure why the folder didn't just have "UserAccount" but for some reason Windows chose "UseAccount_000". Anyway, in the past I've been able to simply restore my iTunes folder intact to the same path and everything has worked. Now I can't do that. I've tried a few things to work around this:
1. Restore and edit the "iTunes Music Library.xml" to fix the paths.
2. Restore most of the files to the "C:\Users\UserAccount_000\Music\iTunes" location but move "iTunes Media" and "iTunes Music" to the "C:\Users\UserAccount\Music\iTunes" folder (that I had to create because "C:\Users\UserAccount" didn't exist).
3. Do #2 but then try to move everything to the "C:\Users\UserAccount_000\Music\iTunes" by consolidating the music library.
Why these didn't work:
1. After making the change and starting up iTunes it seemed to simply ignore the paths that I changed and it went and rewrote the xml file with the old incorrect paths as soon as I exited it!!!! *ARGGGH*
2. This one actually "works" if you call "works" as being that I've created a purely fictious account folder just to keep iTunes happy. Not a valid long-term solution, especially given that I now have to backup 2 separate folders.
3. I was hoping I could trick iTunes into consolidating my music back into its proper location. That worked, but the side effect was that it also consolidated my MP3 collection that I had ripped from my CD collection. I don't want that as I had a great folder structure that I wanted to retain. Not a valid solution- way worse than #2.
So, I don't actually have a way of handling this new Windows set up. I also don't want to go down the road of trying to get Windows to change my account path. To me iTunes should be able to handle restoration to a different user account folder.
This is incredibly frustrating- I've wasted many hours on this already and Apple support wants to charge me to get their help which under the circumstances seems completely unreasonable.
I'm hoping there's a way to get #1 to work- can I force iTunes to rebuild its database entries from the xml file instead of retrieving them from the other database files it has?
Thanks!

One thing that I find odd is that iTunes used to rebuild the .itl file when you deleted it. It seems as if the newer iTunes somehow broke this old capability. If you delete the .itl file it can't rebuild it- it simple treats this as if this is a fresh installation and completely ignores the fact that the .xml file has all the data in it. I think Apple needs to bring back this old "feature". Of course, the negative with that was that you lost all of the "Date Added" info along with some other stuff but at least it still kept the favorites info etc. (and I think maybe even the path although I don't believe I ever tried that because my account path has never changed until now).
One side note: I can't find where the iTunes Windows SDK is. I was hoping to try to use that to access the .itl "database" and write a utility to fix this situation. Seems like this has moved from its original location...

ITunes 10.6.1 update does not show newly imported music in viewer but files are in iTunes media folder, how to correct?

Updated to iTunes 10.6.1.7 today from 10.5 on a Win 7 SP1 64-bit machine and attempted to add new music to the library by both drag-n-drop and import files; this new music does not show up in the library viewer but has been added to the iTunes media folder. My iTunes 10.5 version was working properly prior to the update. Any recommendations to correct this issue? Thanks!

Immediately after the install, Windows was rebooted. I also attempted multiple variations of closing and restarting iTunes and/or reboot Windows. iTunes was unresponsive to mp3 files being added. Since I was unable to see the added music files to the library, I did not try to add other files.
Out of frustration, I let iTunes run over night and to my surprise the added music appeared in the library viewer the following morning. I can now add new mp3 (and AAC also) music files to the library and it immediately appears in the viewer. How or why it now works is a total mystery.

PLEASE HELP ME??? Lost itunes trying to downgrade back from 11.0 & unable to get itunes to work at all now..

New Itunes setup is the worst one yet!!! I couldn't stand it, so I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling older versions, but now I am unable to get it to work in any version. I have uninstalled & reinstalled several times (trying this with multiple versions). Strange thing is that ever since I uninstalled 11.0 I have not been able to get any of the other versions to open at all.. Sometimes an error message box dings & pops up that says something about how to adjust the volume through your itunes, or unable to open file.. other times when I click on the icon it just does absolutely nothing. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME??? I'm going crazy without my music & I am panicking because I am afraid I may have lost all music (I have thousands & thousands of songs on there).. I'm hoping to find a way to reinstall an older version, but at this point if I can't find a way to bring back the old version, I'll take 11.0 if I absolutely have to (meaning if it's the only way to retrieve itunes without losing my entire library)

Have latest version of iTunes installed and running. Also make sure you have internet access working and can access Apple websites. Also, make sure you don't have any entries in your hosts file referring to gs.apple.com....If your not sure about how to do that, go ahead and do the rest first. You can come back to that later.....Plug in phone. Put phone in DFU mode.(google put iphone in DFU mode for instructions) Then restore the phone in iTunes by highliting your device in the left column and click on the Restore button. The latest iOS version is 4.3.3. That's what iTunes will restore it to. When it's done restoring, iTunes will ask if you want to restore from a backup or setup as a new phone. I would use the Setup as a New Phone option. Once it's done, you should have a clean install of the iOS and an operating phone, as long as there are no hardware issues with it.

I transfered my music into my new mac into itunes media folder from an external, but it dosnt show in itunes. I have to click on each one to activate it on itunes. there has to be a better and easier solution. help

i transfered my music into my new mac into itunes media folder from an external, but it dosnt show in itunes. I have to click on each one to activate it on itunes. there has to be a better and easier solution. help

Thank you for your prompt response - I did as you said and did a drag and drop into the iTunes window - it imported and got my album art from the net. When I started Itunes with the shift key down I was prompted to choose a library but since I copied over the media folder and not the library folder I was unable to select that so I guess I will have to create a new library and add in all the music, videos, etc. unless I wait for my laptop and export the library or at least that seems to be the case? In short, all my data (iTunes media folder) is on my external drive and can be added to the blank iTunes screen but I can not choose a library folder. Is there anyway around completely making all those playlists again? I am not sure my laptop will survive the shop with data intact and really hate to start over on those.
In an unrelated question - I collect old TV shows from the 1950's. Can I make playlists within the home video folder somehow? In other words like one for Quiz shows, one for comedies, one for police and detective shows, etc. while I am remaking all my playlists for my music if I end up having to go that route?
Once again thank you for helping me out. I am not too Itunes savvy and really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

I have moved my Itunes media folder to an external drive and Itunes does not find the items in the folder

Running Win7. I moved my entire Itunes library to an external drive to free up space on my laptop. Itunes recognized the change and all was well. That worked fine and I have synced several times from the laptop with the library on the external drive. Now the laptop is in the shop (sigh, not Itunes related a dead network card). I connected the external drive to my desktop, made sure my software was up to date. opened ITunes went to edit/preferences/advanced. Went to change Itunes media folder location and navigated to the proper folder on my external drive and clicked OK. None of the music, videos, etc, that are in that folder show up in iTunes on the desktop. Restarted ITunes, no help, reboot computer, no help. Have I done something wrong or left out a step. I could copy all the media onto the desktop individually and build new playlists but that seems like something that should not be needed? One of the reasons I moved my Itunes media folder to the external drive was so I could use the laptop for iTunes while travel and the desktop for iTunes while at home. Do I have to copy the entire folder to my desktop and take up space there? That would be counterproductive to using the external drive. I searched and saw a hint to hold down shift while starting ITunes but that did not change anything. Any help would be most appreciated!
Jim in WV

Thank you for your prompt response - I did as you said and did a drag and drop into the iTunes window - it imported and got my album art from the net. When I started Itunes with the shift key down I was prompted to choose a library but since I copied over the media folder and not the library folder I was unable to select that so I guess I will have to create a new library and add in all the music, videos, etc. unless I wait for my laptop and export the library or at least that seems to be the case? In short, all my data (iTunes media folder) is on my external drive and can be added to the blank iTunes screen but I can not choose a library folder. Is there anyway around completely making all those playlists again? I am not sure my laptop will survive the shop with data intact and really hate to start over on those.
In an unrelated question - I collect old TV shows from the 1950's. Can I make playlists within the home video folder somehow? In other words like one for Quiz shows, one for comedies, one for police and detective shows, etc. while I am remaking all my playlists for my music if I end up having to go that route?
Once again thank you for helping me out. I am not too Itunes savvy and really appreciate you taking the time to answer.

Is it possible to use my Time Capsule as an iTunes Media Server?

I've bought a macbook air, which is awesome, but a bit lacking in space, it's already filling up.
At the same time I bought a 2TB time capsule. Although I think the back up features are great, I always had the intention that I'd be able to use the Time Capsule as a wireless, and even remotely accessible, personal cloud, to store some of my bigger files. Namely, my iTunes library and my iPhotos library.
I've been into the Apple Store, and the genius there told me it was a simple as copying the two libraries onto the TC, and then redirecting the apps to look at those libraries. Dead easy.
In theory, this creates a perfect system. I realise there might be a bit of lag retrieving stuff, especially if I'm trying to get a movie off the TC while I'm travelling. But if I've got half a day spare to download it, then it's great to have that option if I've forgotten to copy it to my Mac Book before I leave.
In practice, it doesn't work. Because the TC is being used to keep a back up as well, I can only copy the libraries into the Data folder. And I've read somewhere that this can confuse issues a little bit. Now when I try to navigate to the libraries, connection to the Time Capsule always fails.
I realise I could probably achieve this by plugging an external hardrive into the Time Capsule. But I've got two terabytes of space on the TC, it'll take forever to fill that up with just back ups. I don't feel I should have to buy another hardrive, when I've got a TB and a half of free space waiting to be used.
The only idea I can think of is if I partition the TC harddrive, keeping one half for the back ups, and one half for my media library.
Has anyone actually succedded in doing this? Any ideas or help anyone can offer, this is getting really frustrating, and if it doesn't work, I think I'll have to return the Time Capsule, or scrap the idea of backing up, and just use it as an iTunes server instead.
Thanks.

Hi Latitude Journey
Make sure you do the following if you are planning to load all your library on TC:
Step 1: make sure that you tell iTunes where your media folder is located, under preferences, advanced, chose the location of your media folder (assuming you are using iTunes 10+.
Step 2: Once you are done telling iTunes where your media folder is located (music, etc) make sure you go to users & groups under system preferences (assuming you are running Lion or Mountain Lion OSX) and choose login items, then click the + sign and locate your time capsule from the shared drive section in finder, just chose it (no specific folder) just any folder.
the reason why you should do this, is that if it happen that you restart your mac! iTunes will try to look for the drive that has your media/music that you set earlier in step 2: , and since TC is not an actual NAS drive, it is more like a shared drive, it will take few seconds for the hard drive on it to load, where iTunes will not be able to locate it before it is ready, and thus it will revert to the default location of the media folder which is under music/itunes/itunes media/, and eventually none of your songs will actually work since they are on the TC and not your mac.
doing what i told to do in step 2: will make sure that your TC hard drive is ready before your iTunes try to locate the media folder, where you will be able to play your library without any issues.
failing to do so, most probably you will face the problem where you try to play songs in iTunes and finding that they have exclamation mark next to them, which means that they are missing from the library.
my music library is all located on my Time Capsule, and iTunes runs on my Mac mini (with home sharing enabled), and my iTunes is set to lunch on start up under system preferences/users & groups/login items/.
My mac mini act as a server (don't worry about your mac going to sleep, it will wake up once you try to access your media from other devices) assuming that you have the option wake on LAN enabled under network in system preferences.
This is my setup.
- Mac mini mid 2011, running Mountain Lion and latest iTunes set to launch on startup in case of computer power on or restart so i don't have to worry about launching it manually.
- Time capsule 2 TB, used as network shared hard drive
- MacBook Pro early 2011 running Mountain Lion and latest iTunes
- 2 iPads
- iPhones 4s
- Apple TV 1 and Apple TV 2
all my devices having home sharing enabled under the same account.
i can access my music library from any of my devices easily and problem free.
hope this will help you and other users.
Many thanks

I am unable to load ITunes, get Message:The ITunes library.itf file is locked

I am unable to load ITunes, get Message:The ITunes library.itf file is locked on a locked disc or you do not have write permission on this file.
This seems to have happened after an upgrade of ITunes. Have unistalled and reinstalled a new version, but get the same message. Can y ou help?

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So I had my computer stolen is there a way I can retrieve my media from another computer?, So I had my computer stolen is there a way I can retrieve my medie from another computer?

So I had my computer stolen...is there a way to retrieve my itunes media through another computer?

See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your PC and into iTunes.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
B-rock

Unable to Retrieve iTunes Media!!

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