Making iTunes library find missing tracks in multiple, not one by one

I followed your instructions and so far seems to have found all 1616 out of 1616 songs. So cheers!

worked for me

Based on what I read here i did this with success:

First I

- left the setting for copying, organising etc. iTunes under Preferences ON, i.d. check-marked.

Then I

- Doubleclicked to /play/ a "missing file" song

- Choose Locate in dialog and locate the file

- Pop-up asks if iTunes should locate other missing files - choose Yes

It takes a wheel and you get a spinning wheel...

After some time iTunes informed me that 1600 of 1850 files had been located.

iTunes had successfully found and reorganised the missing files except the last circa 250. So part success.

I synced my AppleTV1 with iTines at this point but according to the info in the top panel didn't sync any songs.

Next I closed iTunes and - just for good luck - waited to make sure the program was completely closed. Opened iTunes and - properly by magic - the last 250 songs was correctly assigned and in the new place on the new drive.

Hope this helps someone out there.

Thanks. As a music professional, my library contains approximately 1,000,000 mp3's mp4's and aiff's across numerous USB drives hooked up to an Airport Extreme (4th gen) via a powered USB splitter. Organization through iTunes Media folder copying and management is simply not an option for me, so I don't have this option checked. Despite this, locating and playing a file and then closing/restarting iTunes will relocate any files on that disk assuming the pathnames are correct. You have to repeat for additional disks.

Just wanted to add...

iTunes has fairly limited way of automatically scanning files.

To make it scan effectively, first. all of your files must be tagged properly, next, the files must have the exact name and track number as its file name.

Example:

Mp3 Tag:

Track number: 01

Track name: Track name

For iTunes to automatically get the information:

File name should be: 01 - Track name.mp3.

IT HAS TO BE EXACT.

I just tried adding an artist on the file name, iTunes didn't detect it. Probably it's scanning logic is just track number and track.

My experience is that iTunes stores files, and will therefore attempt to detect them, in the following layout: <Album Artist>/<Album>/## <Name>.<Ext> where <Album Artist> is replaced with <Artist> if blank or "Unknown Artist" if <Artist> is also blank. Likewise "Unknown Album" is used if <Album> is blank. Various illegal characters are replaced with underscore and on Windows machines file and folder names are truncated to 40 characters. Note the current tag of the file isn't important as such, what matters are the details that iTunes holds regarding the file and therefore its likely location.

Not quite sure why you've resurrected this dormant thread however. 😉

tt2

Thanks tonybrasunas!!! The way you did it worked for me too!!! 🙂

I followed theToaster's instructions and it found 1686 of 1689 of files, which was good enough.

What I did:

- Edit > Preferences > Advanced, and uncheck "Keep iTunes Media Folder organized" and uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Media Folder"

- Exit iTunes

- Restart iTunes

- Click to play a file that is in its new location

- Locate it, click OK

- It should eventually if not right away go look for other files when you confirm to find other files

- Recheck the boxes unchecked above.

I got so frustrated, reading all these replies. I had lots of missing songs, with those annoying exclamation points popping up every time I wanted to access a song I know I bought from iTunes... and some I had just uploaded from a CD as well.

I finally did a free download and install of the first software that popped up for just this situation -

some software from http://copytrans.net/itunes-missing-songs-fix.phphttp://

I don't know if it fixed all my problems but it fixed some, which makes me one step ahead of where I was before, which was nowhere.

I had this problem too when moving all my music files to a NAS drive. This is quite simple, just locate the copied library file in its new location, then view your music in song list view. Then double click on a file showing an exclamation mark. You will be prompted to locate the file. Once located a new pop up with prompt to locate all other files, confirm this and away it runs. Before you know it, all the unlocated files will be found.

Check out this video to help.

http://youtu.be/jNvhYP5fhGg

Perhaps the MOST frustrating feature of iTunes is that Find Missing Files thing. It has never found more than 2-3 tracks. Even tracks missing in the same folder as the one I just located will not be found. I assumed it did nothing for anyone. I have been trying that feature for at least 2 years and it never, ever does anything worth reporting.

If iTunes can't find your media perhaps my FindTracks script can. Probably best to disable Keep iTunes Media folder organized (if you use it) while using the script so nothing needs to move around...

tt2

I am on a MAC. But that would have been a useful page otherwise.

Oops. 😊

tt2

Liverpool Red Fan wrote:

I had this problem too when moving all my music files to a NAS drive. This is quite simple, just locate the copied library file in its new location, then view your music in song list view. Then double click on a file showing an exclamation mark. You will be prompted to locate the file. Once located a new pop up with prompt to locate all other files, confirm this and away it runs. Before you know it, all the unlocated files will be found.

I just used that method to convince iTunes to relocate a batch of video files after moving them between volumes (which, of course, orphaned them in the iTunes Library). I'd remembered doing it several years ago but had forgotten the key step of attempting to play one of those files instead of running Get Info on it. Thank goodness I found this topic to jog my memory; it eluded extensive searching a few days ago.

i did these step, its seems not work to my iTunes, iTunes say that could not found missing files with a mark "!".