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Missing files in Music

Good morning,


I have over 11,000 songs in my Music library on my iMac. I have them backed up on an external hard drive. There are over 3500 songs that indicate the file (on my iMac) is missing, and I need to reinstall the file from my external hard drive.


This happens continuously.


Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you.

Posted on Jul 13, 2021 4:40 AM

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Jul 14, 2021 12:40 PM in response to bluespower21

The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks happens if the file is no longer where iTunes or Music expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, the drive it lives on has had a name change, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). It is also possible that iTunes or Music have changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place, or that you've been too aggressive when deleting duplicates at some point.


Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Cmd-I to get Song Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location the library thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drives. Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive label has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Mac - Apple Community.


In some cases the library may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info, or when playing a track, but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.


If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

  1. The location of the media folder under iTunes|Music > Preferences > Advanced
  2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Song Info > File > Location that begins file://
  3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2



See also FixLinks - an AppleScript to repair broken links in Music - Apple Community.



tt2

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Jul 14, 2021 6:47 AM in response to bluespower21

Hi bluespower21,


Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!


We are happy to help with the issue you are having white importing your missing music. Check out the simple steps in Import music from a computer to Music on Mac. "You can also drag a file or folder from the Finder to the Music window to import it."


You might also want to look at Change where your music files are stored on Mac.


Have a nice day!


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Jul 14, 2021 10:26 AM in response to bluespower21

Hi bluespower21,


Thank you for your follow up. Where did all the music originally come from? What happens if you import the missing music as a group?


You mentioned this happens often. Have you ever tried removing your entire music library and reimporting all your music again?


You also want to make sure your Mac is running the latest version of software. Learn How to update the software on your Mac here.


Cheers.

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Jul 14, 2021 7:52 AM in response to bluespower21

Hi bluespower21,


Thank you for your follow up and thank you for clarifying that you already imported your music. Is the music you are missing located with the rest of the music but not playable? Or did it just not import? Where did the missing music originally come from?


What are you seeing in place of the songs you are missing in iTunes? Do you see the song title or are the songs just completely not in your library?


Looking forward to details!



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Jul 14, 2021 9:09 AM in response to karina184

Hello,


Yes, I was able to confirm last night that even though Music (formerly iTunes) shows the song with an exclamation point within a circle, the actual file is located with everything else. I have to manually go through each, click on it to get it back into Music, and then delete the file that has the exclamation point within the circle.

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Missing files in Music

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