Q: Transfer itunes playlists to new computer
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Mar 21, 2015 1:13 PMby jicaro,I've created the Found playlist and the Not Found smart playlist. The latter does not include exclamation marks today (as it did yesterday) and many songs in it actually do play, so I'm deleting those from the smart playlist. But it's taking forever going through the tracks one by one, or album by album. I do have all of my music folders on my external storage drive, separate from the iTunes folder, so eventually I can drag certain "missing" folders into the new iTunes media file. Is that right? Meanwhile, how can I get the exclamation points to appear in the smart playlist, so that I can distinguish the tracks from those that do play?
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Mar 21, 2015 2:07 PMby turingtest2,Select all the tracks in Not Found with CTRL+A.
Drag & drop this selection onto Found. You may get a delay as iTunes counts the tracks that will be added to the playlist. The number should appear inside a red blob as part of your cursor. There may also be a delay as the Found list is updated.
(My Lost playlist is the equivalent of hhgttg27's Not Found)
Not Found should now contain only those tracks that iTunes cannot locate.
Post the true location to one of the these tracks, and the location as shown in Get Info. that begins file://localhost
With both paths I may be able to suggest a quick remedy or explain further how to use my repair script.
tt2
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Mar 21, 2015 3:01 PMby jicaro,That worked, in that the Not Found smartlist now has exclamation marks. There were still some playable tracks in it but I was able to easily remove them from.
Here is a screenshot showing the location of a nonfound track in Get Info.
I'm not sure what you mean by posting the "true location".. since the track is unplayable, its location is ??
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Mar 21, 2015 3:22 PMby jicaro,The track is nowhere on the new computer. It is on the old computer, and also on the external drive, as is all my music, but the external drive won't be coming with me when I travel with this laptop (new computer). It stays with my desktop PC (old computer). So, I don't want the new laptop to find the track on the external drive, because after I unplug the external drive, the song will become unbroken again. Correct? So, I'm thinking I will have to transfer all the missing tracks and folders from the external drive to the iTunes media file on the new laptop, and then have iTunes locate them there. Do you know of a simpler and faster way? There are 4200 songs currently missing. Some entire artists are missing, sometimes just one album, or sometimes an album is there but missing one song from it. Very random.
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Mar 21, 2015 3:39 PMby hhgttg27,That sounds like an issue with the consolidation process that you should have run on your old computer before copying the library to the new one. However, if the links for those tracks were broken on the old computer then the consolidation process would not have restored them. Based on your screenshot, iTunes is expecting the missing track to be in the C:\Users\jimmac99\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Stephen Stills\Manassas; however, in a consolidated library using the standard folder locations and with both these options checked in Edit > Preferences > Advanced:
the folder should be C:\Users\jimmac99\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\Stephen Stills\Manassas. Can you go back to the old computer and check:
- can this song be located and played in iTunes
- where is the media file stored (right-click > Show in Windows Explorer will open the folder that it is in)
If the answer to the first question is "yes" then it suggests that something went awry during consolidating or copying the library - especially if the file on the old computer is located anywhere outside the iTunes Media folder hierarchy. If the file can't be found on the old computer, then you should go through tt2's recommendations to repair this and other broken links on the old computer, and then re-copy your library to the new one.
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Mar 21, 2015 3:47 PMby turingtest2,Perhaps Windows Explorer choked when it was copying your files. See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy. This is the tool I use to make sure that any two copies of my iTunes Library actually hold all the same files. Ideally you would have used it from the outset as it is able to continue copying even if there is an issue with a particular file somewhere. If you set it up to clone the copy of the library on the external to the iTunes folder on your laptop and preview the action you should see that it is mostly going to make new files that represent those that haven't copied over already plus some overwrites for the library files you've accessed more recently.
tt2
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Mar 21, 2015 4:00 PMby hhgttg27,I think you need to start again
- On the old computer, determine whether you have any broken links - if you do, repair them
- Still on the old computer, consolidate your library so that all media is contained within the iTunes Media folder. The resulting folder structure should look like this:
- Copy the iTunes folder from the old computer to your external drive - as tt2 suggests, SyncToy give far more reassurance that standard Windows copy that everything has been transferred correctly. You can verify that the library has been correctly transferred to the external drive as follows:
- with the external drive still connected to the old computer, hold down SHIFT as you start iTunes, and when you get this prompt:
click on Choose Library..., navigate to your external drive (if you've copied the library correctly you should be going to X:\iTunes, where X: is the external drive), select the iTunes Library.itl file that you'll find there, and click Open. If the library has been completely copied to the external drive, your complete library should be there and everything should be located and play correctly.
- with the external drive still connected to the old computer, hold down SHIFT as you start iTunes, and when you get this prompt:
- Exit iTunes, disconnect the external drive from the old computer, and connected it to the new one.
- Copy (again, preferably using SyncToy) the X:\iTunes folder on the external drive to C:\Users\jimmac99\Music\iTunes on the new computer
- When the copy process has finished disconnect the external drive. iTunes now should show your complete library, with no broken links.
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Mar 21, 2015 4:05 PMby jicaro,Regarding Consolidation, on the support page Back up your iTunes library by copying it to an external drive - Apple Support , the box saying "Keep iTunes media folder organized" is not checkmarked, so therefore I left it blank when going through these steps. I see in hhgttg's screenshot here, that box is checked. Could this be the problem? If so, I'll do it again and check both of those boxes. If it doesn't work, I'll proceed with turingtest's solution.
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Mar 21, 2015 4:09 PMby jicaro,We were typing at the same time. I will go through these steps. I've just realized that on my old computer, iTunes has been locating music on the external drive. I now remember doing this, to save space on that computer. The music lives on the external storage drive. Is this a problem?
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Mar 21, 2015 4:33 PMby hhgttg27,The Keep iTunes Media folder organized shouldn't make a difference - this doesn't control where media is stored (when the other option is checked, everything will still be in the iTunes Media folder). When the Keep iTunes Media folder organized option is checked, iTunes will rename files and folders as they are moved into the iTunes Media folder, where folders follow the pattern (for music) iTunes Media\Music\artist_name\album_title - the last two being derived from the Artist/Album Artist and Album values in iTunes, and files being named according to the disc number (if set), track number and song title.
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Mar 21, 2015 4:36 PMby hhgttg27,"I've just realized that on my old computer, iTunes has been locating music on the external drive. I now remember doing this, to save space on that computer. The music lives on the external storage drive. Is this a problem?"
Not necessarily a problem, but definitely an explanation ... tt2's Make a split library portable user tip will allow you to resolve this.
