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

Since making the previous post I've actually found a tool called Dupin (or Dupin Lite on the App Store) that is intended for finding and removing duplicate songs in your iTunes library, but one of the included tools can also remove dead track entries.  It is by Doug Adams (a.k.a. Doug of dougscripts) and so far it appears well worth the $7 (Dupin Lite) or $15 (Dupin) fee to keep a large iTunes library organized.

I know it is not directly intended to solve the orginal question, but maybe it solves more than one problem.

http://dougscripts.com/apps/dupinapp.php

This worked perfectly. I was individually locating every album, which would've taken me days with my 5000 songs. Thanks!

thx a lot man! you saved my day! had 6703 files missing

I have a work-around that I use to eliminate the "missing files" after I relocate folders not using iTunes approved methods.  I select all files for a genre, [get info] and change the name of the genre by adding a character (usually "2").  When this is done, all of the missing duplicates are sorted from the relocated duplicates that iTunes can see. Then I just delete the records for the missing duplicates.  Not that many genres, so this is relatively easy.

Thank you so much!!! I was about to smash the screen on the ground! Unchecking "keep iTunes Media folder organized" was key to finding the vast majority of my files!!! Thanks again!

Just found an even easier way to sort this with out any software or anything else.

Move your music folder to your desktop. I renamed it out of habbit but not sure you need to.

In iTunes in the song tab highlight all the tracks and delete.

Move the music folder back to its original file structure and rename.

In iTunes go to add file to library and add the music folder.

It re-imports (without copying) all your music without a single missing file.

I think itunes just needs a helping hand remembering the file structure.

Good luck.

That works, provided you don't want to preserve ratings, play counts, playlist membership, date added, etc.

tt2

I've tried the unchecking trick - one and both and it doesn't work for me. Do I need to restart my computer or just restart iTunes?

I've only managed to find 2-3 in one go. Any other ideas? I don't want to lose my ratings etc.

Windows or Mac?

Select a broken track in your library. Get Info, say no when prompted to locate it, then look at the location given on the summary tab. Where does iTunes think that file ought to be? Where is it really? With the two paths I might be able to guess what has happened and suggest ways to reconnect the library to the media.

tt2

Thanks tt2.

I'm on a mac.

It says it should be:

~ iTunes Media / Music / Ital Tek / EE Compilation / 30 Gold Tiger.mp3

It turned out to be:

~ iTunes Media / Music / Compilations / EE Compilation / 30 Gold Tiger.mp3

So I guess I must've marked the album as a compilation recently. As I look, the other missing songs are also from compilations so it must be. Would that cause it to move and not find itself / relocate itself?

I still need to find another 600 odd songs. Any ideas? It still seems strange to me it can't find it's way to the music folder and find them.

Under iTunes > Preferences > Advanced what are your options for Keep... and Copy..., and is that what they used to be? I've a vague feeling I've seen a situation before where iTunes has started to rearrange content when it wasn't being asked too, and then has ended up with the database pointing at the old location when the files have been moved to a new one.

You could manually drag the affected albums back where they should be (creating the Artist folders if needed) or find some renaming software to do that for you, or restore the folders from Time Machine.

You could create a new empty iTunes library pointed at the same media folder, import the compilations folder, organize by date modified (which might help you to select the albums that need fixing), turn the relevant albums' compilation flags off so that the albums move to the correct paths, then reconnect to your original library.

tt2

At the moment both settings are unchecked. I've always had them both checked. Once I sort this mess out is it best to leave them checked or not?

Still mystified how I can show it the first missing song in an album then it finds 2-3 more, then show it the next one, then it can find 2-3 more, and so on... They're all in the same folder!

I'd normally recommend you leave them checked unless you have a particular desire to manually manage the media folder. What you really need is a clone as back up for when thing do go wrong.

I'm afraid I've not worked out the fine details of how the iTunes feature works. As far as I know it's not too bad if all you've done is move the media folder from one path to another without making any other changes inside, and assuming everything was previously managed by iTunes before the move. My script is a lot more flexible, and I'm prepared to customize it if needs be.

tt2

After trying everything else, I discovered a kind of weird workaround for this.

After disabling the "Keep My iTunes Library Organized" feature, I went to "Add Folder to Library", and selected every single folder in in the file structure where I keep my music.  This will add any missing files as new songs in your iTunes library but will skip over the ones that are already located, so you'll get duplicates of the missing songs ONLY.  You can then use the "Show Duplicates" feature to batch delete the old/ fileless songs and/ or copy over your star ratings.

I hope that makes sense.

You could probably make this even easier with smart playlist functionality, but I'm not that clever.

If your like me and have all your music in a playlist, U can export the playlist as a .txt format. Then later on if the directory changes lets say from C:/music you can go into note pad and have it find and replace "C:" to the new "D:"