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iTunes not recognizing songs

Fresh install on a new to me laptop. I tried to add my songs from external drive, iTunes only added ~18,000 out ~70,000 songs. This isn’t a corrupt iTunes library, fresh install from scratch. What older version would I need to start with and then update to new version to avoid this?

Windows, Windows 10

Posted on Jul 28, 2024 5:51 AM

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1 reply

Jul 29, 2024 1:39 PM in response to brianfromboone

brianfromboone wrote:

This isn’t a corrupt iTunes library, fresh install from scratch. What older version would I need to start with and then update to new version to avoid this?

I understand what you are saying, but none of that means that it is the cause of 52,000 songs not being added to your new library. If songs have not been added, perhaps you forgot to include them in the items to be added.


What procedure did you use to add the songs to your library?

    • did you use the .itl file (that's the crucial iTunes control file that tells iTunes where everything is located etc.) in an attempt to keep playlists, play counts etc.?
    • or did you simply create a new library and use the iTunes menu command File/Add Folder to Library to add the music? If so, did you specific a parent folder that contains all the music that you wanted to add (or did you miss some of the folders)?
    • some other method?


Actually, there's another point: when you talk about songs that have been added or not added, do you mean that the missing songs are not listed in your iTunes Library, or that they are listed but they don't play and you see a message telling you that the original file (for a song) cannot be found?

iTunes not recognizing songs

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