Q: Song shows as "Purchased" in iTunes and won't let me re-download it, but it doesn't show up in my Purchased list. I want the song back, don't mind re-downloading, but it won't let me

Apple does not hide your albums. This is how Albums or other media gets hidden:

Hide and unhide purchases in iTunes or iBooks on your Mac or PC - Apple Support

Cheers,

GB

Thanks, that does help although it would be nice if Apple made these things far more obvious considering that is what we always loved about apple was the near fanatical adherence to quality UI and "It just works".  However, I tried to do this to stop it from trying to auto-download TV shows from ages ago on a new Mac - it beachballed with a systemwide modal dialogue box (always on top even in other applications), unreachable due to the beachball and iTunes hard crashed had to force quit.  Will try again later I guess. 

Thank you for this - I was at least able to determine where my purchases were on a brand new Macbook Pro.  Totally agreed this is jaw-droppingly bad, at the very least with the entire iTunes window open there is more than enough screen space for a button or something about this so that we don't waste hours trying to find out what happened to our stuff.  Also annoying is that it appears you cannot select more than one at a time in the list on the left column?  I tried with shift and apple key and it only selects *one at a time*.  This is hugely annoying and time consuming since even after having to do the same thing to unhide what they hid without telling us, we then have to go through each one, one at a time to re-download.  "Download all" button only works for one artist at a time highlighted in the left column.  TOTALLY annoying and just a huge regression from the Snow Leopard days... sigh! 

You da man!  Thank you!

My current problem is that in iTunes on my PC, I authorized the computer but when I went to Purchased in the store, there's nothing there.  It even says that I don't have anything.  I choose Not on my computer and it still says I have nothing.  I've gone to Unhide and the only hidden thing there is that U2 album everyone was forced to download in an update and then later was able to just hide it.  I've seen a thing in another forum where someone said to delete the program data by putting it in the search menu, opening the folder location and then turning off Hidden files and folders.  Everytime I do this it says that I need to have admin permission...I'm the admin...I give myself permission and then it fails to show hidden stuff.  I've uninstalled the program and everything, went back to a restore point.  Nothing works.

So now I'd just like to know what I'm doing wrong or at least what's the correct thing to do?

Are you absolutely certain that you have the correct Apple ID signed in? The one that you used to make those purchases?

Cheers,

GB

Yes.  I've only ever had one account.  It's been on the same AOL email that's I've had since AOL 2.0...yeah...that sounds sad now.

Dave

In my case the song showed up in my iPhone and the iTunes store as purchased, but the song in iTunes on my computer was missing.  What worked for me on this one was I needed to 1) delete the song from iTunes on my computer first, 2) have my iPhone plugged into iTunes and active on the screen, 3) and then use iTunes File>Devices>Transfer Purchases from my "iPhone".  Good luck!

You did change the AOL Apple ID user name to an actual @aol.com email account name, correct? About a year ago, the original AOL username for your Apple ID was phased out. Did you follow the instructions in this (now archived) in this article, or is the Apple ID still using the old AOL username?

Cheers,

GB

There we go...I forgot about this.  Now I feel dumb.  Yeah, apparently my Apple ID was made into 2 account names and the one I thought was correct based on my email address was the one without any purchases.  The correct one ended in @aim.com.  Thanks for the help.

For those that come across this, here's the link that I was given on my iPad: AOL Usernames can no longer be used with the iTunes Store - Apple Support

Dave

Thanks for linking the article. I meant to, but as you can see, I forgot! Very helpful for you to have done that - THANKS!!!

And glad you are all set now

Best of luck,

GB

Spot on thank you.

You are my hero. You saved my music library and my sanity.

I have exactly this problem.

None of the proffered solutions work:

- the purchased songs are downloaded in my phone and work there just fine

- iTunes 12.4 many of the options are different now

- the computer is authorized; other purchases appear in the computer

- going to the purchased songs in the store shows "purchased" but no option to "download"

- using "check for available downloads" produces an "all purchases have been downloaded for this apple id.

- the songs are not hidden

- looking at my purchase history clearly shows the songs were purchased

- the songs are not present on the file system is Music

- signing out and back into the account produces no change

Thank you!

This solution worked 100%