Songs Disappearing from iTunes

See Hide and unhide iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store purchases - Apple Support in case you've hidden some of your purchases, and above all backup everything you have, ideally in a way which allows you to spot and immediately recover any file that gets unexpectedly removed from the media folder. Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy suggests a tool for this for Windows, but similar tools exist for Mac.

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Have you scoured the drive in case the tracks have been relocated? Are you running Windows Media Player or any other software that could reorganize the files differently from the way iTunes does? Why didn't you start backing up after the first time?

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If you have a backup then you can both restore from it, and attempt to reproduce the problem. If someone can show what actually happens and can reliably repeat the behaviour then it might be possible to report the problem and get it fixed. Ideally it would help to know what iTunes shows for the track path under Get Info > File tab before you attempt to play it, and then again afterwards, assuming iTunes is now showing the track with an exclamation mark. See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy for a suggested backup method.

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See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy so you are able to properly identify and document any unexpected changes in your library.

See this list of iTunes installers for links to past builds and details of how to roll back the library. You will likely need to rebuild the library from the XML file if you want to go back to a significantly older version.

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What apple doesint tell you is .

The artist makes changes to there music album then it becomes a different album

Not one you purchased so you need to buy the new one now. So why is this happening Apple and artist will make money on there sneaking change and say

Oh we didn't know. I've had 6 Music videos disappear because artist created an new better vs in Hd an deleted the one I purchased. Crooks at apple.com

And what does that have to do with what i was told i Bought?!…..i did spend money for the original song

So my question is, when i BUY a song do I not own that version on my computer or are you leasing it to me? What gives the right to STEAL it from me!

When I go to the store and buy a cd, it is not taken when the band makes a new version for sale.

Ford does not take my mustang when they release a new one.

If an artist removes an album from the iTunes Store that doesn't remove the copy on your computer. It does however take away the ability for you to redownload a copy of the album from the iTunes Store. As long as you keep your own copies of your media, and keep those backed up, you're good.

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This discussion seems to have strayed off-topic to purchases which Apple has taken away.

Regarding the OP's topic of actual personal files disappearing, this is STILL an issue eight years later with the latest iTunes for Windows. I have been doing some fairly extensive reorganization of my music library, updating artwork and tags. I've discovered over the past month, several random tracks from various albums have simply disappeared from my library.

When I look in the hard drive folder structure, the files are still there, but sometimes in an older folder or with older artwork and tags. It appears that iTunes occasionally misses a track when updating artwork or tags within albums. Sometimes this is obvious, because iTunes will break out a single track into its own album after a change. But in this situation, tracks appear to have been completely dropped from the .itl library file.

Seeing no simple way of ferreting out the offending tracks, I dragged the entire library folder into iTunes and let it sort through the dupes. This seemed successful, and resulted in about a dozen tracks being reunited with their albums, but it also resulted in several settings being lost, such as "skip when shuffling." A few other tracks that appeared were ones that I had deleted within iTunes, but were still hanging around. It's possible I clicked 'keep files' instead of 'move to recycle bin,' but I have my doubts.

This is a situation which has gone on too long, and it still doesn't explain why occasionally I find an album completely missing both in iTunes and on my hard drive, and I have to resort to digging out my backup drive and re-add it.

In my case, it always specific albums that I download from Amazon, always a few large classical collections. Over 500 titles vanished last time (there is a little apostrophe mark next to the song title).

I really wish I knew, but I've had very little luck getting any details which might point to a bug over user error.

Select a track that now shows with an exclamation mark. Press Ctrl+I or Cmd+I to get info, cancel when asked to locate the track, then look at the file tab. What is the full path shown as the location? If your username is in the path replace it with <User>. Perhaps something in the path will suggest what the issue might be. In some cases, for example, iTunes might have been connected to media on a different drive that is no longer connected.

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I Used to have this problem as well, but that was when I was using a Windows-based laptop for my iTunes library. I haven't had the problem since switching to a Mac. Given that you are experiencing it with an iPhone and Mac Pro makes me cautious, again.

Sorry. I don't have a solution for you. I wanted to contribute by saying why back-ups performed by a sync process may not be a solution. During a sync, any change to the base is transferred to the backup. The sync software can't tell whether you intended the deletion or if iTunes deleted it on a whim. Either way, the sync software will see the file as deleted, and delete it from the back-up.

what I did when I had the problem was periodic manual copies of my music folder (and all subordinate folders). And, this is key, do those immediately after checking your entire library for those exclamation points ( ! ) that indicate missing songs. If any are present, retrieve those songs from they copy before overwriting your back-up copy. I would even make two two copies, alternating which gets overwritten (perhaps I'm overly cautious). I know this is a lot of work, and shouldn't have to be done. iTunes should be reliable, but it isn't.

One other thing I do is never buy music online. I buy CDs, and rip them into iTunes, and keep the CDs packed away in a box in the closet. That way, I have

an original back-up to work from if my other work fails. These days, when I buy from Amazon, they give me a digital copy as well as sending me the physical CD.

i Wish you luck as you work through this.

I too just started experiencing this phenomenon of iTunes deleting tracks from within iTunes and off my computer's hard disk bypassing even the Recycle bin. I went to a file under a certain Genre and right-clicked Open in Explorer to see that it was there. I then went to play it and it disappeared! I first noticed this when I clicked shuffle play and songs didn't start playing, it was like going through songs, almost starting a millisecond in and then removing it and then going on to the next, continually removing the songs!

And no, restoring from a backup is not a solution. What is to say it won't happen again, and I shouldn't have be doing this in the first place if Apple is messing around with my songs that I purchased with hard-earned cash.

I may have stumbled onto what part of what may be going on here. It seems Apple has decided they will overwrite my change of Genre of each (m4p) song. For some reason it's checking their servers, and if it doesn't match the Genre it has the gall to rename the genre. If I go to my purchased songs that aren't in my library I have seen some of them appear there. I don't want to have to redownload each and every song and then go back and change each and every genre to my preference, since that's how I've setup my playlists.

Ive had this problem recently and was about to raise some serious arguments to itunes and apple but i looked through my account and found something odd. in our profiles we can hide music but for me i know i didn't tell itunes to hide any song. but to get to here you need the desktop version of itunes and the menu bar on your itunes, select Account and just login like you would if you haven't already and then scroll to View my account. once the page loads up look for the section Itunes in the cloud and you will see in this section called hidden purchases. just hit manage to the far right of it and select your song that have been hidden by clicking the Unhide button below the song of choice. i hope this helps you guys from your song frustration.