Restoring Music with Time Machine

Thank you very much for your quick response to my enquiry and for explaining that it depends on where the content has been stored.

There definitely still is content stored in the iTunes section, as for example, it is appears in the ‘reference string’ if I select ‘Get Info’ on the ‘File’ tab when I click on any song. Sadly it certainly is a pity I accidentally emptied the Trash at the point of removing duplicated songs (after the iOS update occurred) as by contrast the missing song files have the location as ‘Trash’!

As Apple iOS stores the songs alphabetically in separate artist folders, when I updated to Music, the reference location of a song string now typically reads:

‘User/my name/Music/iTunes(original)/iTunes Music/

before then stating artist name/album etc. So from this I do believe I need to restore both segments of the Music

I hadn’t realised that since having to use the Music App as opposed to iTunes, I now have two lots of Artist folders - those for items uploaded to iTunes and another for those uploading to Music. When it was all working perfectly it didn’t present any problems - the latest update is what seems to be the root of my having deleted the files accidentally. I think restoring to an earlier date would certainly help, but I don’t know if I need to restore the two ‘libraries’ in a particular order? Your advice on this would be appreciated.

Thank you so much for coming to my assistance.

Thank you very much for your reply.

May I please just clarify if you mean I only restore the ‘ Music’ Folder or both ITunes and Music?

I have chosen a date late Feb, when there was much more content in the Folder and therefore probably just before I did the latest update. (That does mean I’ll need to re- update but I’ll not make the mistake of deleting the individual tracks again!!)

I don’t know if I should request ‘Replace’ in the options - again could you please clarify if this is the best option?

Sorry to ask so many questions - I had understood how iTunes was working and had my Library just as I wanted but with moving to Music, I found it more complex!

Thank you so much for your patience.

Thank you very much for clarifying the ‘Restore’ advice but unfortunately the Restore did not resolve the issue. The Library could be corrupt, especially since at one point a message appeared saying: ‘Music’ cannot be saved’, although the App/folders are (still) there. It might be that with the Mac being old and I’m using Catalina, it’s not possible to restore deleted music files.

When I entered the date (25th Feb) into the Time Machine, it did seem to be working. It prepared/counted the files and the blue bar was gradually filling but it only took about 30 mins to do so. When I checked the library, nothing had changed - the missing files had not been restored. I then tried to restore to an earlier date (as the 25th was no longer available) and also then tried to Restore just the iTunes folder (as it contains the majority of the files) The ‘’Restore’ started to copy the files into Music …..which looked promising. However, quite soon after, a message appeared saying that there were ‘skips’ and to check those files, make sure they were not locked, then retry. I began checking but no files were ‘locked’ and realised the ‘skips’ were referring to all the missing files (over 4500 out of 7000 plus. So, another failed attempt.

This all stems from having deleted two thirds of the Tracks following the latest iOS update, that duplicated everything. I think the only thing I can do is to rebuild the Library by re-encoding the CDs still in my collection but a lot have been taken to the charity shop! (Music files I’ve bought from Apple are still in the cloud of course.) At least I have my iPod to listen to meanwhile. Thank you again for helping - sorry to have written such a long reply! Sincerely, Joy (Wilting Apple User)

Thank you, yes I had thought of that initially, but was hoping I could avoid involving the iPod as that is thankfully intact. I will take another look at that option. One of my sons, living outside the UK, might be able to help, via FT, but he had advised against doing that incase the iPod cannot cope with the very messy state of the Library i.e. a lot of albums with their missing tracks separated from the tracks that are there. It’s a pity Apple cannot give the option of Users being able to stay up to date Security-wise but to keep Apps at a certain point, especially for ‘oldies’ like me who during the past five years has spent far more time resolving problems after software changes (iPhotos to Photos and now iTunes to Music) than being able to use/ enjoy it.

I do appreciate your help, thus far, thank you. I’ll put a post on here when I’ve finally achieved success!