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Force iTunes to rescan library?

I've two Macs, and I just updated bunch of old songs to itunes plus on one of them. Then I used rsync to sync two libraries. However, now iTunes complains that it can't find old m4p files (they are all m4a now). Is there a way to tell iTunes to rescan what it has under iTunes Music folder?

MBP, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Aug 28, 2009 9:32 PM

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15 replies

May 10, 2012 9:11 AM in response to olivierventurini

Why is this such a hidden feature? I have been deleting the library and adding my folder back for years to correct my library as i update, add or change files or tags on my server....25000 songs and it takes forever! This is an awesome tip thank you so much. it only took about a minute to add 1800 songs and relink everything that had changed! Absolutely Awesome. post is in response to oliveirventurini's suggestion:


File, add to library, choose same directory and itunes scans and repairs, adds to library leaves everything else alone.


Edit: does not remove dead tracks but does put exclaimation mark beside them.....easy enough to find and delete

Jul 7, 2015 12:02 PM in response to Alex--

As of July 2015, neither of the above methods appear to work to update changed metadata. Re-adding the library folder appears to add duplicate songs in the case where an album was moved from one sub-folder to another (I have most of my music on a Windows-based server -- we have 4 Windows machines and 2 Macs in the house). Probably the "from" folder in this case will show missing tunes -- haven't examined the results of completely yet, since it's a lot of work to dig thru 18,000-plus songs.

Feb 4, 2016 6:33 PM in response to Alex--

I force quit iTunes then went to the iTunes media folder (mine was located at "/Users/*user*/Music/iTunes") and then deleted the library file. The library file should end with ".itdb". I think there were three of them. I deleted all three. Then I reopened iTunes, clicked "Scan for media" and voila... New library. Depending on how much media you have, your voila might take a while. I have over 600GB of movies and music so mine took a long time to repopulate.

Feb 4, 2016 7:23 PM in response to sanmiguel74656

sanmiguel74656 wrote:


I force quit iTunes then went to the iTunes media folder (mine was located at "/Users/*user*/Music/iTunes") and then deleted the library file. The library file should end with ".itdb". I think there were three of them. I deleted all three. Then I reopened iTunes, clicked "Scan for media" and voila... New library. Depending on how much media you have, your voila might take a while. I have over 600GB of movies and music so mine took a long time to repopulate.

???? The .itdb are minor support files for thing like Genius. The main library file ends in .itl. Of course if you get rid of that you start with a fresh library, but no playlists, no ratings, no play count, all dates added being that day, etc. This isn't "re-scanning" it is tearing down to the ground and building all over again.

Force iTunes to rescan library?

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