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iTunes 12.12.1.16 update lost all music

I just turned on my laptop MacBook Pro to find that the latest iTunes update 12.12.1.16 wiped out all my songs and playlists.


I keep my music library on a USB stick in order to save precious disk drive while traveling. When the update happened the USB stick was not mounted, therefore when I launched this latest version of iTunes, all playlists and songs were gone, and only a few songs that are actually ON the boot drive showed up.


I redirected iTunes to the folder on the USB stick and relaunched iTunes, but the older list of songs (tens of thousands), and playlists still fail to show up.


What would be the proper and efficient way to restore all of this without having to rebuild the library and import all playlists?


I do have previous versions of the library, but not sure if they are the last updated ones.


This seems to be another instance where Apple engineers didn't take a situation like this into account. Is it really that rare that a library is stored on an external device??


any help would be appreciated.

Posted on Jul 27, 2015 1:35 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jul 28, 2015 10:27 AM

Lucien, here's something to try that would be safe because you can undo the results if you're not happy.


1. Quit iTunes.

2. In the folder [username] > Music > iTunes, locate the file called iTunes Library.itl and drag it to the desktop. If you find a file called either iTunes Library.xml or iTunes Music Library.xml, drag that to the desktop as well.

3. In the folder Previous iTunes Libraries, choose the file with the most recent date written into the file name. (It will look something like: iTunes Library 2015-17-01.itl) Make a copy of this (File > Duplicate) and rename the copy to iTunes Library.itl

4. Drag this file into the Music > iTunes folder.

5. Make sure the drive containing your music files is mounted.

6. Open iTunes.


Now you should be seeing your library as it looked before the tracks were lost.


There may be songs and playlists missing, if you added them between the time of the backup and today. If you have trouble remembering or finding them, there's an AppleScript utility for locating all the files in your media folder that are *not* listed in your iTunes library: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=musicfolderfilesnotadded2


If you use Time Machine, you may be able to find a more recent version of iTunes Library.itl -- a backup made just prior to updating iTunes. In this case, instead of following steps 3 and 4 above, you can select this file and restore it to the Music > iTunes folder.


If anything goes wrong, you can delete the new files, return the files from your desktop to the iTunes folder, and repost your query here. But I do hope this helps sort things out.

2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jul 28, 2015 10:27 AM in response to Lucien Samaha

Lucien, here's something to try that would be safe because you can undo the results if you're not happy.


1. Quit iTunes.

2. In the folder [username] > Music > iTunes, locate the file called iTunes Library.itl and drag it to the desktop. If you find a file called either iTunes Library.xml or iTunes Music Library.xml, drag that to the desktop as well.

3. In the folder Previous iTunes Libraries, choose the file with the most recent date written into the file name. (It will look something like: iTunes Library 2015-17-01.itl) Make a copy of this (File > Duplicate) and rename the copy to iTunes Library.itl

4. Drag this file into the Music > iTunes folder.

5. Make sure the drive containing your music files is mounted.

6. Open iTunes.


Now you should be seeing your library as it looked before the tracks were lost.


There may be songs and playlists missing, if you added them between the time of the backup and today. If you have trouble remembering or finding them, there's an AppleScript utility for locating all the files in your media folder that are *not* listed in your iTunes library: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=musicfolderfilesnotadded2


If you use Time Machine, you may be able to find a more recent version of iTunes Library.itl -- a backup made just prior to updating iTunes. In this case, instead of following steps 3 and 4 above, you can select this file and restore it to the Music > iTunes folder.


If anything goes wrong, you can delete the new files, return the files from your desktop to the iTunes folder, and repost your query here. But I do hope this helps sort things out.

iTunes 12.12.1.16 update lost all music

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