Using time machine to recover iTunes database for metadata

In short, when I go back beyond a week in time machine I cannot find any .itl or even any of the .itdb or .xml files on my mac that I can restore with time machine. The only version that is there is for the current library which is missing 99.9% of the content.
The context:
1. I had itunes folder on my hard drive and an external with all of the content. Over the years the external must have been disconnected or what not as a sizeable media folder had also developed on the hard drive.
2. In order to free up space on the hard drive I consolidated the media and moved the library to a second external that had much more free space.
3. I ended up deleting the iTunes library on the hard disc on or around 6 april 2015. I believe I deleted the whole folder.
no dramas - everything worked for weeks
4. Today I noticed that the iTunes library was pretty much empty but for purchased music. All the podcasts, playlists and basically anything not purchased was gone.
5. I look into the iTunes folder on the hard disc and I noticed that there is a music folder with two songs that my kid likes to play. It leo has all of the usual library xml files and the .itdb / .itl files (which to be honest I have never noticed before, I had only remembered ever seeing the .XML files).
6. The "new" .itl file was created on Sunday 26 april at 5.30 pm. The whole iTunes folder it sat in on my hard drive also did not exist before this time.
7. If I use time machine and scroll back further in time than sunday there is no iTunes folder on my hard drive.
8. I thought I would just need to find the .itl file that predated this new library that was created on Sunday. Trouble is I can't find one. On any disc, hard disc, the first external or the second external. The only iTunes folder I can find with any of the database files needed is the one created on Sunday that is empty.
9. I have all of the media organised on the second hard disc however I don't want to reimport and lose all the metadata that I have built up since 2001 at least.
THE QUESTIONS
A - where should I be looking for the old iTunes database files using time machine if I used the advanced features of iTunes to move the database to the new disc
B - Can I perform some sort of system wide restore that would take me back in time to a point before last Sunday to get my old iTunes database back?
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Len

Similar Messages

How can I use time machine to recover my iWeb09 files?

I read that iWeb stores one's website pages in the domain folder which can be located at ~/Library/Application Support/iWeb. Can I use time machine to recover my iWeb09 files? If so, how? -I tried. I entered my Time Machine back up, and went back in time and brought the domain file forward but it opened only my current site pages, not the ones I am trying to recover. And it says the Domain file was last modified in October 2007 which is crazy because I've been using iWeb a lot and have published many pages. It seems like the uncorrupted pages, which I am trying to recover, existed somewhere on my computer at one point in time and space, less than a week ago, becuse I just published my site to a new hosting service since Apple will soon stop web hosting. So why can I not find them using time machine?

I continued searching and read another person's advise to down load an app named "Find File," then search for .sites. She said spotlight doesn't always find all files. So I did and sure enough, when I searched for .sites I found another Domain package, which I have no idea how it was created but which, it ends up, was the one actually being used by iWeb. So I went to that package then did the time machine and went back to before my web pages became corrupted. I had to delete corrupt blog pages out of my website menu to get iWeb to upload the other page changes even to a local folder.
So I went to that newly found Domain, went back in time, then brought that forward and as you pointed out the domain package had the parts of the pages, the files and jpegs, but not the structure/layout of the pages. So, I guess I gave up on finding the old pages.
Those pages still exist on the Apple hosting server but iWeb doesn't not reverse publication. Cyberduck would bring back the files and bits and peices but again not the pages as a total entity. I'm preparing for the end of Apple website hosting (next month?) and am republishing my old site. I decided to use a new domain name. So my entire original site is still totally intact on the web under the original domain name, on my mobile me site, I guess it will be there till sometime in June?
My problems started when I tried to publish my website to the new server. It just would not publish the whole website in one session. So I decided to do it a few pages at a time. Some pages went up, but as I added more, for some unknown reason the, blog pages, (about 70 subpages), which had aleardy uploaded just fine to the new server, became corrupt and locked up iWeb. Of course once I deleted the corrupt pages I didn't want to continue publishing the site to the host until I found and reinserted uncorrupted pages, knowing publishing changes would delete the already published pages.
At first I thought it was the hosting server's fault, but when I discovered that it wouldn't publish even to a local fold I was able to locate the cause within iWeb, deleted those pages then tested by publishing to a local folder. iWeb worked locally, so I knew I had found the problem pages. Well this is way more than you wanted to know. Thanks for your advise but I'll just start the blogging pages over.

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos.

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos. I wanted to see if I could view them from the hard drive. Thanks

Hello, eco1.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
This sounds like you are wanting to move your iTunes media folder to an external drive and have iTunes this folder from this location. If this is the case then I would recommend taking a look at the article below.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
Cheers,
Jason H.

I used Time Machine to recover my Pictures folder. This created a folder called Pictures (original) but I cannot open it. There is a do not enter roadsign, red disk and white bar on it. How can I see the contents?

I used Time Machine to recover my Pictures folder. This created a folder called Pictures (original) but I cannot open it. There is a do not enter roadsign, red disk and white bar on it. How can I see the contents?

Repairing the permissions of a home folder in Lion is a complicated procedure. I don’t know of a simpler one that always works.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
chmod -R -N ~
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. When a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) appears below what you entered, it’s done. You may see a few error messages about an “invalid argument” while the command is running. You can ignore those. If you get an error message with the words “Permission denied,” enter this:
sudo !!
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
Next, boot from your recovery partition by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the recovery desktop appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar.
In the Terminal window, enter “resetpassword” (without the quotes) and press return. A Reset Password window opens. You’re not going to reset the password.
Select your boot volume if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.

Can I use Time Machine to recover my Aperture License Info

Out of the blue my G5 started asking for my Aperture License again. I just finished a move and don't know where I have that info/box. Can someone tell me if I can run Time Machine to recover it? AND IF SO... EXACTLY HOW? Much appreciated.

Unfortunately, it has been my experience that Time Machine does NOT backup the license info on Aperture. I say unfortunately because of other issues (now resolved; not dealing with Aperture, however).
I had to use my original installation Leopard Disk, then go through the Apple Icon Software Update (as Time Machine also does not back up Apple Operating System Updates). Then I had to initialize things such as iTunes, test my printer, and other things. To my surprise, the first time I opened Aperture after it was restored by Time Machine I too had to enter the serial number
Other Apple applications, such as iWork and iLife worked fine without the necessity to enter their original serial numbers. But Aperture would not work until I entered the serial number. I don't know why that is, but that has been my experience. And I have done the above procedure three (3) times due to other issues (now resolved).
Summary: When one reinstalls Aperture from Time Machine, it has been my experience that once reinstalled, you must have the serial number handy in order to get Aperture to function. I now placed the serial number of my Aperture on a label, and I affixed that label to the CD Jewel Case of the original Aperture install disk so that I know an easy way to find the number if I should need it again.
Good luck in your search for your serial number

Can I use Time Machine to recover backed-up files from a stolen computer?

Hi everyone,
I used Time Machine to back up my MacBook Pro but unfortunately it was stolen this week. I'm going to buy a new MacBook Pro and would like to recover the backed-up files from my old computer via Time Machine, though not necessarily transform the new computer into a clone of the old one. Can anyone point me to step-by-step directions for how to do this with Time Machine? Is there a way of using Time Machine to select, a la carte, which backed-up data you want to restore to your new machine, or is it an all-or-nothing deal?
Thanks for your help and advice!

Yes. Use the migration assistant.
First, I'd set up the new computer and choose not to migrate any data (this sometimes causes issues). Run all software updates, then run the Migration Assistant (In applications). It will allow you to choose a time capsule to migrate information from. You will be able to choose what information to pull from the time capsule: it won't simply clone the old computer.

When I used time machine to recover lost photos, iPhoto lost my recent photos.

Yesterday, I noticed that iPhoto was missing all the photos from one event that was actually a number of events that I had merged together fairly recently. I used time machine from an external drive to recover them, but when I restored the photo library from time machine, instead of having that photo library in addition to the one I had before, the archived version replaced the current photos, so that any photos more recent than the event I was trying to recover have gone missing. I tried to use time machine again to recover the photos that I lost while recovering other photos, but now it seems that all of the photo libraries that would be recent enough to have the photos I'm looking for now match the version of the photo library with the most recent events deleted. When I tried to bring the more recent photos back using time machine, I opened the photo library and iPhoto said it detected inconsistensies in my libraries and that it would merge and correct them, but after it did so, the library was still missing my most recent photos. Is there any way to recover these photos? I uploaded them before I connected to the backup drive, but I think they should be stored in the time machine backups that are directly on my computer, I just can't figure out how to get to them.

1. You need to read up on TM and post detailed TM questions in the TM forum
2. When you restore a file (or folder) you either restore to a new location or overwrite the existing file. You make that choice when you restore
3. Not sure what error message you saw but iPhoto does not have any capability to "merge" photos or libraries
4. I am not even clear on what you have. Your post rambles a lot. Are you running TM with default settings. Is it always running and is the TM backup volume always connected?
LN

Can I use Time Machine as a backup drive for my Vista 32 PC?

I cannot see any of my Mac computers or Time Machine on my network through my Vista PC, even though I have a wireless card in the PC which can connect wirelessly. I have my PC sitting next to my Time Machine that is the hub for my network. I am connected to the internet via ethernet connection daisy chained through my Time Machine which is connected to my cable router.
I cannot figure out why my PC cannot "see" my Imac, emac, Time Machine, and macbook that are all connected to my wireless network. The PC and Time machine are the only devices with an ethernet wired connection.
I would like to use the Time Machine's 1 terabyte drive to back-up my Vista PC.

I would first set up my mac and vista to do simple file sharing and then work my way from there. If you are unable to figure out simple fire sharing i would go look on other forums or advice. Its rather simple to do but it can also cause a lot of headaches. I have wanted to connect my mac and windows server to my network for a while and just recently figured it out.

Using Time Machine to Restore iTunes Library

Has anyone had success using Time Machine to restore their iTunes library? When I try, I get a message saying that my library is "damaged".
I have tried restoring the iTunes application in addition the iTunes folder in the users/Music folder. Same result. All of the music is there as well as the playlists; however, iTunes thinks it is damaged and creates a new, empty, library.
I know it would be possible to build a new library from the music files but I do not want to have to rebuild the playlists as they are very, very extensive.
Can anyone help? Please??

I'm having the same problem! I moved from a 2007 20" iMac to a new 15" MacBook Pro, so I bought a new external HD, copied my Time Machine backups to the new HD, and tried to restore my iTunes library from TM to my new MBP. iTunes claims my library is damaged and creates a new library file. My 80 gigabytes of media are clearly there, but they will not show in iTunes and won't play in QuickTime either. Did you happen to get this issue resolved?? It's very stressful. I have essentially lost all the music I have collected over many years.

In Lion how does one use Time Machine to recover files from one's old trash?

In The Leopards you opened your current trash window and then slipped into Time Machine; your open trash window followed you into the past. Not anymore, in Lion your Trash window morphs as you enter Time Machine into a finder window of your HOME directory, and you just can't get to Trash from there. My recollection is that Trash(es) are housed in ROOT's domain. In The Leopards the Trash icon had special permissions to follow you there in Time Machine. Something changed in Lion. Does this mean one has to log in as root to enter Time Machine to recover one's own trash ?

Try the Time Machine Tutorial

How do I use time machine to recover an older version of Viber?

I have an old iPhone 3, running OS 3.1.3. I use Viber extensively on it. Recently, after a Viber update, the app won't open. I tried downloading it again, no good. I tried powering down and then restarting. No good. I'm assuming my OS is too old for the update. So I went to time machine on my PowerBook and tried to get the previous version of Viber, going through an iTunes restore from before the update. The problem is that the restored iTunes still opens the latest version of Viber (and everything else).
Is there a way I can restore the older version of Viber from Time Machine?
Thanks for any help you can offer.

See if this is of use to you
How do I view or restore selected items?

Using Time Machine and external USB drive for multiple Macs

I just bought a 1.5TB external portable drive. I have 4 macs in the household that might have about 400 - 500 GB of total HD capacity for the four of them. I am very confused on whether to create a separate partition for each mac, or let Time Machine manage the entire, single-partition drive.
The reason I ask is because I have run into issues with a smaller external HD where it didnt seem to know to remove old backups to make room for new ones. But, its' possible the 750 GB drive was too small to do what it needed to do.
So, I am looking for some definitive information on the best way to do this. Obviously, i'd rather leave the 1.5TB as a single partition, and hope (and expect) Time Machine to manage the backups of the four macs in such a way that it can properly make room as backups are added to the drive.
THoughts?

D/FW wrote:
Use a 1TB Time Capsule to backup wirelessly and a FW800 external drive for speed in case I need to reinstall. Therefore having 2 backups?
You can do that, but not simultaneously. TM only has one destination a a time; you can back up to the TC, then select the external HD via TM Preferences, then switch back.
I've been down the road of using SD (cloning) and am ready to move on to another backup strategy. Cloning works fine but it dedicates a drive 100% of the time where TM doesn't.
I don't know what you mean by that. I use CarbonCopyCloner (similar to SD) in addition to full TM backups, so I have two separate, independent backups, on two separate drives, and get the advantages of both. You can partition an external drive (but not a Time Capsule), so you could have your clone on one partition, and other things in one or more additional partitions (I do that as well). As long as the "clone" partition is the same size as your internal HD (or at a minimum, at least 15% larger than the amount of data on it), you can use the rest of the space for anything else.
See #5 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum for detailed instructions on setting-up a drive for Time Machine. The same procedure works for setting one up for a clone and other partition(s), too.

I need to use Time Machine to recover my old Mail Folders

I switched to a different ISP company for my email. When I setup the new account, it removed all my old Inbox and other folders (Drafts) in Mail. I've been using the Apple Time Machine - so I'd like to retrieve the proper file(s) so I can get some much needed DRAFTS in my old mail account.
What file(s) is needed to copy back so I can see my old mail folders? Thanks!

Csound1's comment may have some bearing here.
Although Time Machine backups to a network share are not officially supported by Apple,, a lot of users try it anyway with the AirPort Extreme...an equivalent Apple router with similar features to the Netgear...and they report mixed results.
Works fine for some, not for others. No one can really explain why this is, other than Apple does not support it.
As a test, if you connect the drive directly to your Mac computer, can Time Machine "see" the drive that way?
If Time Machine can see the drive when it is directly attached to the computer, but not see it when connected to the Netgear, then the options may have run out.
Other than trying a post on the Netgear forum to see if any users have been successful with this, I'm out of ideas at this point.

Using Time Capsule to host iTunes library for use by multiple user accounts

I have recently purchased my first Time Capsule (2TB, delivered December 2010). I have also recently begun to share a single iTunes library with my partner (ie. we have separate user accounts, but following the instructions found at http://steve-on-sakai.blogspot.com/2009/07/really-sharing-your-itunes-library.ht ml, both of our iTunes apps open to the same library).
I think i've done everything correctly, as everything will work as expected ... once we are able to force our way into iTunes.
My knowledge gap seems to be with my understanding of how Time Capsule and its "Data" folder work.
I've moved our entire iTunes folder into the Data folder on the Time Capsule, and i understand that only one of our user accounts can have iTunes running (that one must quit iTunes before the other user will be able to launch iTunes).
What happens sometimes, seemingly dependant on who has signed into their account first, or who has launched and quit iTunes first, is that iTunes will not launch; we are required to choose an iTunes library. This is easily enough done, except when the Data folder is unavailable to that particular user at that time (indicated by the "do not enter" symbol). I've noticed that disconnecting and re-connecting to the Time Capsule will get around this.
I stumble through these steps whenever possible, but my partner is nervous about having to do all of this when i'm not available.
Naturally, what i would like is for either of us, at any time, to be able to simply launch iTunes without issue.
iTunes preferences on each accounts show that our iTunes Media folder location is "/Volumes/Data/iTunes/iTunes Music", and both checkboxes are checked for keeping the iTunes Media folder organized and copying files to the iTunes Media folder.
I suspect that my problem might stem from the fact that i initially followed the instructions given at the above steve-on-sakai blog post, using our Shared folder. Since then, i have moved everything to the Time Capsule, and i wonder if the Terminal command in Step 7 should be repeated for the Data folder ... but i'm not "literate" enough to know what i'm doing there (but wise enough to know i shouldn't mess around with Terminal if i don't know what i'm doing).
I have spent hours browsing the discussions here and elsewhere, and i can't seem to find anything that specifically addresses my issues. I have learned a lot from my searches, but i felt that posting a new question was my best option. I hope that i haven't duplicated anything.
I hope that someone will be able to fine tune my efforts so that everything will "just work".
Thank you so much, in advance...
Bill.

Jaap74 wrote:
Two things that are not clear
- I think it is not possible to have iTunes running at the same time on two Macs in the discribed setting.
- I think over a wireless connection, it will reduce speed.
Anyone with experience?
I think what you mean is that it's not possible for two Macs to access the same iTunes library (ie. the same collection of media files) at the same time. From my research, this seems to be the case, and that's not my issue.
In my particular situation -- one that i'm sure is shared by many others -- my partner and i have separate user accounts on the same Mac, +entirely sharing a single iTunes Library+ (ie. same media files, same playlists, etc., as if we were a single user) and as long as we remember to quit iTunes whenever we walk away from the Mac (allowing the other to log in and launch iTunes and access our common library), this is not a problem.
And that is when my particular problem arises: when we launch iTunes, we are often asked to choose a Library (a series of navigations that my partner isn't entirely comfortable with), and occasionally the Data folder on the TimeCapsule is unavailable.
As for the wireless connection to our library, this has not so far proven to be an issue. Depending on what other activities are going on at the time (ie. TimeMachine backups or background Internet activity, i presume), i have only rarely experienced brief interruptions in music streaming from the TimeCapsule (<1 second). In fact, last night, we watched a movie on the laptop, with the file streaming from the TimeCapsule, and it only hesitated a few times, and again for less than a second.
Message was edited by: William Mclaughlin

HT201250 How can I use Time Machine to reinstall Itunes 10.7? Itunes 11 is just horrible.

Itunes 11 was installed by accident. I hated it instantly and after two hours with it, hated it even more. I removed it but didn't know that this terrible software is a virus. It infects dozens of files in the OS and you can not go back to an earlier version.. Any version I install won't recognize either of my Ipods and gives me all kinds of errors. There must be a way to clean my system of this terrible malevolence and get me back to a good version of Itunes. I have talked with two technicians at Apple. One didn't know what to do at all and the other told me to erase my hard drive. In other words, they have no clue what this viral software does or how to deal with it. I know there are people out there who know more than Apple technicians. That wouldn't be too hard. Can anyone help me rid myself of this nightmare?

I'll tell you why. It is not only the library that is altered by 11. I was told by Apple support that it alters root files deep in the system making it virtually impossible to remove completely. What is a virus? It is unwanted software that buries itself in the system so you have to get special tools to remove it. And a virus often also alters other files to make them ureadable and causes strange sustem errors. I have all of these problems
I was updating other software that had nothing to do with itunes when this happened. A window came up saying my software needed updating. I thought the window came from the software i was trying to update but apparently it was the Apple Software Update. Why it came up I do not know. I went ahead with it and it installed 11. Itunes 11 is not a "needed" update at all. So, I have software that is not wanted or needed that buries itself in the system, causes sytem errors, alters files to make them unreadable and can not be removed. That's a virus.
I don't care about the library. I can replace that anytime. What I want is a detailed procedure from Apple developers listing what files were changed and how to safely remove and replace them to give me a working version of Itunes 10.4 that I was using before.
This Itunes 11 update is terrible beyond words. I should not have had this forced on me and neither should anyone else. Apple had no right to create this monster that has caused hundreds of people to lose data by being forced to go back months to an old OS system that isn't infected by the Itunes 11 virus.
Thank you for the response. If I am forced, I suppose I will have to restore. A drastic step for something that was entirely the fault of Apple Computer.

Using time machine to recover iTunes database for metadata

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for