All the content from my iTunes library has disappeared

Thank you, much appreciated

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

I had the same issue. I took my laptop to the Apple Store, and found out that one of the iTunes updates did not update all files correctly. It took him less than 2 minutes, and all was fine. The Genius Bar associates at the Apple store truly are awsome.

Hi Turingtest2, I am in the Republic of Panama and there's no genius bar available... When I open iTunes on my MBA, I no longer see my (over 5000) mp3s... but only my recent purchases from the Apple Store. I do not have AVG and neither did I install anything new. I might have done an upgrade, as I do when invited to do so. Today I upgraded to version 11.05 (5). My music was organized as Music/iTunes/iTunes Media. I found out that between August 13 and 15, 2013 something curious happened and a new folder called iTunes Laptop was created. It has 147 KB... I managed to locate a folder called iTunes Music (21.84 GB with 5720 items) in my computer. That would be it. Not organized as iTunes Library.itl... How would you suggest I connect iTunes with my real library?

See Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash...

tt2

I tried this, as well as another suggestion to import the library by moving the xml file to desktop then trashing the itl file. I have only 500 of thousands of songs that were in my library, also missing from ipod. please help!

Are the files still on the hard drive? Are you certain you've restored an older .itl file in the correct fashion? Don't add the .itl extension when renaming the file otherwise you're creating a file called iTunes Library.itl.itl.

tt2

yes, the first time it doubled up, but this time I was able to do it. How do I check the hard drive? certainly I made a mistake with the rename. There were several in the folder. Is there a way to fix it? I'm so sad to have lost all of my music. Even the ipod has only a portion of the music. Should I go back and make the corrupt file the itl and rename the most recent library? They appear empty anyway.

When I transfered all of my cd's i did it using a sony, do you think the music is still there somewhere on hard drive?

Quite possibley. The normal location for your media is <User>/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media and the folders below. Take a look inside using Finder.

tt2

what should I do when i get the itl.itl file on the older renamed library version?

I took off the itl extension altogether, hope that's right but neither does the corrupt version have itl. does the genius file help me? now I am trying disk aid to recover what i can from ipod (scared to death it will erase everything from ipod, but I've checked 'do not sync automatically'. 😟

Disk aid is copying most of my tracks to itunes media folder (it says i can change that in my advanced preferences--should I?--will they appear in my library again?) Last thing, should i always keep do not check automatically to prevent future erase of my ipod but still be able to transfer purchased to ipod manually from itunes?

Thank you from bottom of my heart! sorry for all of the messages...

c

ps-it seems disk aid has crashed or stopped working I am unable to do anything as it's frozen. Is there any way to manually transfer what's on the ipod back to itunes? Perhaps I should just forget about it at this point.

The user tip Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device has suggested tools for recovering content from devices.

Restoring files to the media folder won't put them back in the library if they're not listed in it now, but if the tracks are currently listed with "file not found" exclamation mark then restoring them should resolve things.

tt2

turingtest12, you seem to be on top of this.

On computer #1, all my content except 6 tunes I bought from the Store last Spring (my most recent purchases) disappeared--probably about 150 tunes altogether. Unlike so many other complaints about this, the missing tunes are 100% gone from my iTunes folder--no "dot-itl"--nothing.

My wife uses computer #2 to synch her iPad2--has been doing it for some time with no overlap with my own iTunes account. But on that computer, *none* of my iTunes are in the library any more and they have been replaced by her iPad content--mostly books she had downloaded. My iTunes folder on that computer are likewise completely empty--not even the 6 tunes I had on computer #1. And computer #1 also does not have the books that are now all shown in my itunes library on computer #2.

How was it possible to lose everything on computer #1? What possible thing happened during the most recent iPad2 synch to cause all my music on both computers to vanish from the iTunes folder (except for the six on computer #1)? Keep in mind my wife did her synch many times before this and there was no problem as far as my music folders or music library were concerned.

Is there any solution? Isn't all the iTunes music I bought (plus tunes that were added from other sources) kept in the cloud someplace? (I hope, I hope.) What recourse do I have? Can I at least get the tunes I bought (and for which Apple must have a record) replaced?

I can't think of any obvious reasons why the entire library including media should disappear, short of physically moving or deleting the iTunes folder, or starting iTunes with a different user profile. Depending on what you use the computer for and where stuff is stored I suppose you might not necessarily notice if a temporary profile is served up. A couple of days ago my daughter had an issue where Goggle Chrome had vanished from her computer. It was only when I looked more closely that I found it was in fact a profile issue but Windows 7 wasn't reporting a problem. I created a new user account and transferred the content folders (Desktop, Documents, Music etc.) over from the old one.

tt2