Song shows as "Purchased" in iTunes and won't let me re-download it, but it doesn't show up in my Purchased list. I want the song back, don't mind re-downloading, but it won't let me

If you have a windows PC then I can help. Go into your libaries (outside of Itunes), where your documents,videos,pictures and music are kept (as shown in the second picture). Click on the music,then click on 'Music', then click on 'iTunes', then 'iTunes Media', then click on 'Music'. All of your previously downloaded music should be here. When you find the songs that you want; click on play, but make sure it is play in iTunes (as shown in the first image..

It is not working, which means it didn't help me.

I indeed did not ask for playing music without downloading it to my Mac in a previous post as I was hoping to make it work in the normal way.

The iTunes library file (.itl) is still there but the purchases are not

I'm using the same song as an example. I've purchased the song and can play it on my iPad and iPhone but not on my Macbook as it can't locate the song and I can't download it from my purchases either.

I also have iTunes in the cloud set up and iTunes match

I can download and/or play those songs on my iPad and iPhone without downloading them first, but I can't upload them to my iPod as iTunes on my Macbook tells me the file it is not in my library and it can't locate. It can't locate it because it is not on my Macbook and because I can't download it.

I should be able to upload files to my iPod though without downloading each song I want in my iPod to my Macbook first.

I am a bit stuck, I have tried signing out but no luck. The original file cannot be located on my computer. I most likely bought it with my old Apple Id - and i have NO DESIRE to turn on iTunes match.

Anyone know what I should do? I need to buy this silly song for the kids at a wedding 😟

Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou

About 1/3 of my albums had stopped playing months ago and I couldn't find a fix.

The album icon had an x in upper left corner and songs had little exclamation marks and couldn't be "located". No download option at account level.

Your advice gave the necessary clue. Delete and redownload.

Turned out even easier.

Deleted the album right from the mymusic-albums list and immediately a download icon appears on the album space, it initiated the download.

why is it the longer a fix takes the harder it gets in our minds?

and why when a solution appears is it so **** obvious?

again thanks

another point. this was another case where google was better help than the normal direct help systems.

your post was first on the google search.

i guess google will finally obsolete all other indexing systems, putting everything and everyone in a huge pile of information that looks like chaos, but can actually match things up. it's getting close!

2 thumbs up

This happened to me too. I purchased the entire album at some point, but then half of it greyed out. (Same thing happened to other songs too.) I tried the above suggestions and nothing worked. (The songs were not "hidden.") But this did:

Open iTunes

Under the menu choose Account --> Purchased
Choose "ALL" (rather than "not in my library")
At the bottom right is a button that says "Download All". Click it.

All my music showed up, with the songs in question having little clouds next to them. Eventually the clouds went away and I had the music solidly on my computer.

Hope this helps. 🙂

Here is a link that fixed the same problem I was having with not being able to download songs that I had purchased from another device.

iTunes 11 for Mac: Download previous purchases from the iTunes Store

JBoehm2 wrote:

Here is a link that fixed the same problem I was having with not being able to download songs that I had purchased from another device.

iTunes 11 for Mac: Download previous purchases from the iTunes Store

This was explained on the first page of this thread, 10 months ago...

I went to this web site: Download past purchases on the iTunes support site and used the instructions for i-Phones. Then when I synced my phone, all the purchases that I had lost went back into my music library.

This site also had the instructions for all the devices that play iTunes, PC and Mac etc. Not just music recovery either but instructions for recovering movies, apps, ringtones and all that other stuff.

I hope this helps you.

flemishgael wrote:

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply but that doesn't help at all.

Yes it does help.

There must be a way to play music bought on the itunes store without having every single file downloaded on my mac.

You did not ask for this in your previous post...

The problem is that these songs show up as in my library under Purchased but they are not actually on my Mac.

The iTunes library.itl file (which is the database file that manages everything) has them listed but the files are not on your computer because you inadvertently deleted the files when you were cleaning.

Do not mess with anything inside the /Music/iTunes/ folder. Let iTunes do it all.

There must be a way to play music bought on the itunes store without having every single file downloaded on my mac.

iTuness prefs > Store > tick Show iTunes in the cloud purchases.

Items you have purchased but are not on our computer will have a cloud icon.

You can stream them to play them or download them to you computer.

-> http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/in-the-cloud/

The exclamation mark in front of the song name means iTunes is looking for it on yoru hard drive but cannot locate it.

This is what happens when files are deleted manually from the iTunes folder and not using the iTunes program to delete files.

I'm using the same song as an example. I've purchased the song and can play it on my iPad and iPhone but not on my Macbook as it can't locate the song

Because it was previously sync'd from your MacBook to the iPad and iPhone. Or you donwloaded it to your iPad/iPhone with iTunes Match.

If the song is not on the iPad/iPhone, you will see a cloud icon

Then it was deleted from your MacBook.

Do you have iTunes Match actually enabled on the MacBook?

See this -> How to troubleshoot iTunes Match - Apple Support

I am going to ask the forum moderators to move this post to the iTunes Match forum in its own thread...

I indeed deleted that file on the mac and not via iTunes as I noticed that if I delete it via iTunes it takes up way more disk space.

I do not understand what the means. If it is deleted, it is deleted.

If you delete it in iTunes, it deletes the file from teh hard drive and it also deletes it from the iTunes database.

If you delete it from the iTunes folder yourself, iTunes folder, it is deleted from the hard drive but iTunes database is still lookng for it and you have the exclamation marks show up (this is your issue).

The iPod classic can hold 64Gb but it is kind of pointless if I can only sync the iPod with if I download 64Gb of music onto my Mac.

If you don't have the music on your computer to sync to the iPod, how do you think is it going to get onto the iPod?

There are plenty of other music players and other mp3 players that can organise my music better and play it better.

Then why are you using it?

I stuck with the iPod and Macbook andiTunes as it is supposed to all work together, but apparently it doesn't.

It does work fine together.

You want to magically sync something that is not on yoru computer to your iPod (that does not have wireless capability to stream from iCloud)

Even though I have music in the cloud turned on it still doesn't seem to be able to sync with music in the cloud unless I have it downloaded onto my Mac.

Correct. You cannot sync from iCloud to your iPod.

You want to download 64GB of music from iCloud thru your computer to the iPod?

and then later, if you want to listen to music on your computer, stream another 64GB again?

You can make suggestions to Apple here -> http://www.apple.com/feedback/

I'm having a similar issue with two iPhones, and I made a post about it. Some albums in "My Purchases" do not list all the tracks

I'm looking for answers so any advice would be helpful. (I have found more albums that are incomplete in My Purchases since I made the post...)

There we go...I forgot about this. Now I feel dumb. Yeah, apparently my Apple ID was made into 2 account names and the one I thought was correct based on my email address was the one without any purchases. The correct one ended in @aim.com. Thanks for the help.

For those that come across this, here's the link that I was given on my iPad: AOL Usernames can no longer be used with the iTunes Store - Apple Support

Dave

See Hide and unhide iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store purchases - Apple Support to unhide any currently hidden past purchases from the iTunes Store and Redownload music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books from the iTunes Store, iBooks Store, and App Store - Apple Support to download them.

tt2

If you already purchased music but can't redownload it:

1. go to the iTunes store
2. search what you are trying to download
3. (if price is listed for song) click the price
4. it should say, you've already purchased it, would you like to redownload it.
5. Hit yes (obviously)

You can download each song individually. The only thing i could not download was the "album only" content.

Apple please help with this!