Migration Issues When Moving From iTunes To Apple Music on Windows 11 (ratings and playlists missing)

Question

Level 1

13 points

Migration Issues When Moving From iTunes To Apple Music on Windows 11 (ratings and playlists missing)

I have 12,386 local songs on my Windows 11 PC. I've rated every stinking one of them. When I pulled up iTunes this morning (30Oct2024) to rip a new CD, all my songs were gone. So was c:\Users\username\Music\iTunes, where all my songs used to be. Fortunately, I survived the heart attack and later found the songs in C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Music\iTunes and added that library to Apple Music. Cool. But my ratings and playlist are missing from both iTunes and Apple Music and I don't know how to get them back. WTF?!

One of the missing playlists was created for my Dad's funeral. I'd kind of like to keep that and/or get it back. As of 29 Oct, the original iTunes Library.* files were backed up, but my latest backup shows they are missing. I'm guessing starting iTunes precipitated the move to OneDrive. The iTunes * Library *.* files are in OneDrive except for iTunes Music Library.xml. I loaded that from backup and tried to load that into Apple Music. No joy.

Pretty nasty thing to do to a guy. Some notification would have been nice.

Windows, Windows 11 (22631)

Posted on Nov 1, 2024 3:00 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

turingtest2

Level 10

274,464 points

Nov 1, 2024 6:16 PM in response to trb75252

If you install any of Apple Music, Apple TV, or Apple Devices, then iTunes is modified such that it only displays sections for audiobooks and podcasts. Typically installing Apple Music will convert the active iTunes library into the Apple Music library complete with ratings, play counts, playlists et., but I guess sometimes that doesn't work correctly. Apple Music lacks playlist import/export features at this time. I would recommend uninstalling whichever of the newer apps you have installed so you can revert to your original iTunes library.

tt2

Reply

Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

274,464 points

Nov 2, 2024 1:02 PM in response to trb75252

You're welcome. 🙂

FWIW the XML file is only generated if you use Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Share iTunes Library XML with other applications. iTunes doesn't normally use the file itself.

tt2

Reply

Answer 3

trb75252 Author

Level 1

13 points

Nov 2, 2024 10:27 AM in response to turingtest2

turingtest2 you are my hero! Thank you so much for your suggestions! I have my ratings and playlists back!

Here is what I did:

Removed iTunes, Apple Music, and Apple Devices
Rebooted
Restored from backup: iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml to the new folder for iTunes C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Music\iTunes
Installed iTunes from Microsoft Store
Started iTunes and life is good once more. Everything is as it should be.

Thanks again turingtest2!

FWIW, I now suspect that a recent Microsoft update may have caused the move of my iTunes files to OneDrive and the deletion of my iTunes Music Library.xml file.

Reply