iTunes Media Folder Location Reset

This worked for me! Thanks!!

I'm running iTunes on Windows, and have same problem. Original location was G:\iTunes\iTunes Music. iTunes changed the location to:

C:\Documents and Settings\TVA\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music

I changed it back, but now all the files cannot be found, and have addresses like this:

file://localhost/C:/Documents and Settings\TVA\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music

If I understand the solution that teunis proposed, it was to consolidate everything back onto my C: drive, and then move onto G: again. This isn't an option, because C: simply doesn't have the space.

Do I have any options to recover my library? Or has iTunes trashed it beyond repair?

Thanks, it worked for me!!!

Hey sput_nick, I had the exact same issue, and it was driving me up a wall. I had thirty gigabytes of music, and only ten gigabytes of space on my primary hard drive (C:), so I moved my library to my second hard drive (D:). BUT ITUNES KEPT RESETTING THE MEDIA LOCATION FOLDER!!! I had to manually change it back every time I opened the program, and re-add all of my files. I noticed something strange, too. All of my settings were also being reset, like the name of my library, grid colors, things like that. I even contacted Apple Support team twice, but they couldn't figure out the issue either.

But then I noticed something else: in my default folder, where iTunes was trying to force my library to be, I had the iTunes preference and library folders (iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Music Library.xml, ect.) but they weren't being created in the iTunes folder on my new drive. Here's what I did (and what worked for me!):

I had the following setup for the folder I wanted my music to be (D:\iTunes\iTunes Media). I went back into iTunes, changed the preferences and media folder to how I wanted it again, and re-imported all of my songs.

Then, **leaving iTunes open**, I created a new folder like this (D:\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media). I only did this to differentiate one from the other, and give it a structure similar to how iTunes prefers it to be. You can name the folders whatever you want. I went back to iTunes, and changed the media folder location to the new one I has just created. Then I went to File>Library>Organize Library>Consolidate Files. This made an exact copy of my initial folder into the new folder.

I then grabbed the iTunes Library.itl file from the folder in the drive (you'll probably find it in the first folder you had on the drive you want it to be on, but it may already be in the new folder) and make sure it's copied to or already in the new folder.

Then close iTunes. This time when you open iTunes, before you click on the program, hold down the SHIFT key. You should see a box open up that has options like "Quit", "Choose Library...", and "Create Library..." Click on "Choose Library..." and locate the iTunes Library.itl file you just saw, and select it.

iTunes will re-import all of the songs again, but if you go to where your new folder on your desired drive is located, you should also see all of the iTunes preference files that weren't there before.

What I realized with this is that iTunes doesn't use the iTunes/iTunes Media/Music folder to keep track of your library. It uses these .itl and .xml files instead. When we created our new media locations on the new drives, iTunes didn't re-create these files onto the new drive. Since iTunes didn't have these files on the new drive to point to when it was restarted, it silently reverted back to the main drive, where it knows those files can be found.

Once this lengthy but worth it process is completed, test out iTunes. You should be able to open and close the program and have your iTunes library there every time without it ever resetting again.

Then go back and delete all the files you had for iTunes in the first folder you created on the new drive. Also make sure that you don't have any iTunes files or folders on your main drive that you don't want your music on. You should have just one copy of your files once this is all over.

This worked for me, and I really hope it works for you, too. For ALL of you!

Happy music listening!

cbello727 wrote:

Hey sput_nick,

sput_nick posted this two years ago.

Yeah, but if anyone comes across this in an internet search, looking for a solution, maybe it'll help them.

A few notes...

cbello727 wrote:

I had the exact same issue, and it was driving me up a wall. I had thirty gigabytes of music, and only ten gigabytes of space on my primary hard drive (C:), so I moved my library to my second hard drive (D:).

You moved the media files (not the library) to the D: drive.

had the following setup for the folder I wanted my music to be (D:\iTunes\iTunes Media). I went back into iTunes, changed the preferences and media folder to how I wanted it again, and re-imported all of my songs.

...

You could have simply copied the /Music/iTunes/ folder to the D: drive and used that.

What I realized with this is that iTunes doesn't use the iTunes/iTunes Media/Music folder to keep track of your library. It uses these .itl and .xml files instead.

To be correct, iTunes does not use the iTunes library.xml file. It is created by iTunes for other apps to access the iTunes library.

Once this lengthy but worth it process is completed, test out iTunes. You should be able to open and close the program and have your iTunes library there every time without it ever resetting again.

Unless the drive with your library is not ready/mounted. Then iTunes will go back to the default location with an empty library.

sooo, what's the solution then, Level 9? Why not tell us how to fix it instead of picking apart someone else's attempt to help, hm?

I posted the correct answer in this thread two years ago, Level 1.

The correct answer was also in the post you repsonded to, Level 1.

Is it correct now? I cant find Login items in Users & Groups..

GV20 wrote:

# Right click (or Ctrl click if you’re not using a mouse) on the “iTunes Music” folder on the external hard drive and choose “Make Alias”, the icon for this folder will look like a normal folder but with a little arrow on it
# Move the new “iTunes Music alias” folder back to the iTunes library folder on your internal hard drive (if you have not changed the defaults the path should look like “Music” > “iTunes” > “iTunes Music”)
# If you’re like me and don’t want to delete the existing files on your internal hard drive before you’re sure the new setup is working, change the old “iTunes Music” folder name to “iTunes Music Backup”
# Change the name of the “iTunes Music alias” folder to “iTunes Music” (so now everything is the same as it was before except the “iTunes Music” folder icon has the little arrow on it)
# Open iTunes

This works FREAKIN' AWESOMELY!!!!

My setup: I have a 2TB Time Capsule with a 2TB external HDD connected to it.

There's a folder on the drive that contains all my iTunes multimedia files all organised automatically by iTunes.

Doing this alias method has completely stopped itunes from reverting back to the default "/user/music/itunes/itunes media" folder.

Even if I disconnect the drive from finder (not physically disconnected), if I try to access a media file on itunes, it will automatically reconnect the drive to access it!

Super awesome tip! Cheers GV20

Tony

SO! This worked for me as well......

"GV20 wrote:

# Right click (or Ctrl click if you’re not using a mouse) on the “iTunes Music” folder on the external hard drive and choose “Make Alias”, the icon for this folder will look like a normal folder but with a little arrow on it

# Move the new “iTunes Music alias” folder back to the iTunes library folder on your internal hard drive (if you have not changed the defaults the path should look like “Music” > “iTunes” > “iTunes Music”)

# If you’re like me and don’t want to delete the existing files on your internal hard drive before you’re sure the new setup is working, change the old “iTunes Music” folder name to “iTunes Music Backup”

# Change the name of the “iTunes Music alias” folder to “iTunes Music” (so now everything is the same as it was before except the “iTunes Music” folder icon has the little arrow on it)

# Open iTunes"

BUT WITH ONE ISSUE

Whenever I sync up my iphone, it always does the sync to my music folder on my actual computer instead of the alias I have set up on my external hardrive. Does anyone have any suggestions for fixing this issue?

Hi tva123 (if you are still reading this) - I don't have any suggestions for recovery in your case, but here is a method I used to set up things for iTunes on a Windows PC:

I noted the solution (for a Mac user) proposed by GV20 to make an alias for

the folder. The equivalent doesn't appear to be available in Windows, but if you have a separate data drive you can mount that in any empty folder if using Windows 7.

What I did therefore was to move the entire contents of C:\Users\[my

name]\Music to a backup location, then Control Panel-Administrative Tools-

Computer Management-Disk Management-[choose data drive]-Right click-Change

Drive Letter and Paths...Add-Mount in the following empty NTFS folder: [C:

\Users\[my name]\Music]

I repeated the process for other users of my PC, adding other mount points for

D: so that they can also use iTunes with the music being stored in a common

area, with iTunes keeping to the default setting that it likes in each case.

I wasn't using the users' Music folders previously, preferring to keep

everything in Public Music (which incidentally was also on the D: drive). If

you are currently using music in individual users' folders the above method

may not be for you.

cbello727, a thousand thanks for the tip "when you open iTunes, before you click on the program, hold down the SHIFT key".

Without doing anything else (for the moment), I followed your suggestion and lo-and-behold there were all my albums and playlists once again. Magic stuff !

Just an fyi as to the similar situation I ran into and was able to reproduce. I was pointing iTunes to an alternate location but on the same hard drive, just a folder called Music at the root of C:. One morning I opened up iTunes and it had no music, and preferences were back to the default. I went through the process of getting iTunes back together then resynching my music to 3 devices. I attributed this to my computer suddenly shutting down the previous day with iTunes open.

Then the other day my iTunes music was empty again but the computer didn't have any issues prior to the last time I used iTunes. I was thinking about what might of happened and I realized that the day before I had iTunes open on my account, so I could use AppleTV. My wife was using her account for other things and then we shut down for the night. The next moring was when I noticed the problem

My thought was that this time it may have been caused by iTunes being opened and shutting down the computer. So I decided to try and make it happen and was successful. Not every time but 4 times in 10 attempts iTunes reverted to the default settings. We have a Window 7 computer with 4 login accounts. I launched iTunes on one account then shutdown the computer from another account. You do get the Windows message stating that others are logged in, do you which to continue.

For years I've never worried about anything running on the other accounts and have never had issues. I've only been using iTunes for the last 4 months. This is rather annoying since iTunes needs to be open to share the music with AppleTV and it's a multiuser computer. Since I knew this scenario would happen again, I decided not to change the default music folder location since it's a pain with over 3000 songs getting the devices resynched.

Hopefully this might help someone experiencing similar symptoms.