How to fix the issue of songs missing after moving Music to a new PC?

In Windows Explorer double-click the missing song, so that it begins playing in your iTunes Library. Now look in your library, at the Now Playing window, where I would expect the song to be listed. (If the details of the song are not shown, that suggests that the tags for the song have not been filled in.)

Move your mouse over the Now Playing window and a three-dot menu icon will appear. For ease of use, use the Songs view (1.) as shown in the screenshot below. Don't worry if the top browser window is not shown - the one with the headings Genres, Artists and Albums):

• • left click the three-dot icon (2.) which will only appear when you move the mouse over the window
  • right-click anywhere in the Now Playing window and a context menu will pop up:

• • select the Go to Current Song option from the menu
  • the song that is playing will now be at the top of the songs list (3.):

You can now inspect the song's details and hopefully spot why you did not see it before now. If there is no information for the song when looking at this, it suggests that there is no tag information within the song's file, which is why you could not find it before.

I think the issue was probably caused when you moved your library to the new PC.

Consider this:

the music listed in your iTunes Library is not "in iTunes". Instead, iTunes lists the files that you added to it. The actual files are stored on your computer, usually in the Music folder. When you moved to the new PC you needed to copy (rather than "move") all the files that were in the Music folder to the new computer and store them in the Music folder on the new computer. That would have also included the .itl file that iTunes uses to manage the library.

If you failed to copy any of the files from the old computer because for example, they were not in the Music folder, or you put the files into a different folder (path and folder) to the old library, then iTunes would not be able to find the files when asked to play them or copy them to your devices. Note that neither you nor iTunes can copy music back from the iPhone to iTunes.

SW-13 wrote:

All songs ARE in my music folder on my PC and if I press play from there, they will open iTunes and play.

Next point, I have been using the Add 'file' or 'folder' function on iTunes to try and (re) Import the missing songs.

If you double click on a file in Windows Explorer and it opens iTunes and plays the song, then it sounds as though iTunes is your default player and this is what I would expect to happen. The song should then stay in your library, but as a new addition, which means that there may still be the previous listing in your library.

Again, if you use the File/Add File (or Folder) option, you will create a new entry for the song, possibly leaving the old entry there too. All these old not found entries will then get an exclamation mark next to the song's title, either when the song is supposed to be synchronised with your phone or when you ask iTunes to play the song.

You can use the locate file option for each song as a method of relinking the original entry with its file, but if you have already added the song, you can delete the entry with the exclamation mark. Be aware though, that the new entry will not have any of the following information from the old entry:

• • rating
  • play count
  • last played
  • playlist
  • modified start and stop times
  • modified sorting options

(I think that's all of them)

SW-13 wrote:

... some of the songs missing (they were on iTunes, in my music folder and on my iPhone).

If a song is listed in iTunes, but you regard it as missing, check to see whether it plays in your iTunes Library. If it doesn't, is there an exclamation mark next to the song's title and do you see a message telling you that the original file cannot be found? If the file is listed as not being found, check in Windows Explorer to confirm that the file itself is still in the music folder (that you referred to) on your computer.

That is in effect, a question. Your answer should help diagnose the problem.

In trying to resolve that, it now appears that my iTunes has 'synced' with the iPod and the songs are now missing on iTunes, the iPod and my iPhone BUT are still in my music folder on the PC. I have tried drop and drag and I have tried to import them again. And I have tried several methods I have found online but nothing is working. HELP!

To continue on from what I've previously mentioned, if the file itself is in a folder on your computer, it seems that for some reason it's no longer where iTunes thinks it should be. You menton that you've tried importing the songs again, but how do you do that as it appears to have been unsuccessful?

But before we get into that, what is the answer to the first point, above?