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

The solution by siamlessworked perfectly for me.  I had moved to my new MacBook from a crashed XP laptop by copying the files from the hard drive.  All the files were originally in a path starting with "c:\" and now are on an external hard drive to the Mac.  First went to preferences, then advanced, then I unchecked "keep iTunes Media folder organized" & ok.  Then I chose a song that was "missing" with the "!" next to it and tried to play it.  It prompted me "would you like to locate it?", I chose "locate", then I navigated to the location of the file & "open". Then when prompted "would you like to use the location of "song" to find other missing files in your library?", I chose "find files".  After some patience, it indicated "iTunes was able to find 4860 of 4860 missing files." and I chose ok.  I could play my missing music.  Then I went back to preferences, then advanced, then I checked "keep iTunes Media folder organized" & ok.  A few minutes later, the files were properly organized in the iTunes Media directory.  Problem solved. 

Thanks a million siamless!

I did that and…

“iTunes was not able to locate any of 1821 missing files.”

The file I used to ask is in a folder of at least 1500 of those files that are currently marked as missing. They couldn’t be more local.

This has been kicking my butt for hours now.... however, I did go back to the old PC days and closed and restarted itunes after I had unchecked "keep itunes media folder organized" and it found 20% on its own... lets see how many times i have to restart

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.

Someone told me to do that already. tried it and it didn’t change anything. maybe I should try again with the new system install?

Are the files in the same file structure (same file names, album names, etc.)?   I don't think the algorithm is smart enough to map whole new file directory structures, but if it's the same structure in a new (root) location, you might have luck...

Well, they have the right names, etc… and are in the same folder on the machine even. However, the script sounds like it can try and find missing files from all over. BUT for sure it should be able to find missing tracks in the same **** folder as the one you just found.

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.