I recently installed a new Hard disc (HDD) and moved my iTunes music to that drive. Now, when I try to access the music in iTunes I get an error message that it can't be found and asks if I want to locate it. I choose one song from my thousand or so, locate it on the new HDD, and iTunes finds it and plays it.
How do I re-map my entire library without re-mapping each of the thousand or so songs individually?
Thanks
The "missing file" error happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, one of its parent folders, or the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to Get Info, then click No when asked to try to locate the track. Look on the file tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, a folder renamed, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. If the difference between the two paths is an additional Music folder in one path then this is a layout issue. I can explain further if that is the case. If everything is where it is supposed to be try Repair security permissions for iTunes for Windows.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps with Get Info but this time click Locate and browse to the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. Although it says something like "use the same location" I think it expects to find the tracks in the same artist & album layout they were in previously, with one systematic change to the path.
If another application like Windows Media Player has moved/renamed the files then the chances are that subtle differences in naming strategies will make it hard to restore the media to the precise path that iTunes is expecting. In such cases, as long as the missing files can be found somewhere, you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes. See this post for an explanation of how it works.
If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:
FindTracks ignores leading numbers in filenames so it should be able locate content as long as it can predict which folders it should be looking in.
For the long run see Make a split library portable.
tt2
If you renamed all your files it is no wonder iTunes can't find them. It is like your friends all changing their names and address and not telling you. If they absolutely must have those names then you have to learn enough about iTunes to be an intermediate level user because you will have to learn the tricks to manually managing media. The best way to do that is to regularly read these forums (iTunes for Windows, iTunes for Mac) so you learn how iTunes works as regards to media files.
You can create a new library by saving your media files somewhere safe, then hold down the shift key while starting iTunes and when prompted create a new library in a folder somewhere. If you do not want iTunes to rename and re-structure your files you will have to go into advanced preferences and disable it organizing and copying media. Doing that will leave files where they are when you add them and not rename them. So it is now up to you to be super organized about your media files. Also if you want/need to move files to another drive at some stage you will have to re-add them. There's a list of other drawbacks but I'll let you learn those gradually. Now you can add your files again.
Well, first off this is the iTunes for Mac forum but I think we can help you. 🙂
Did you have an entire iTunes folder on your E drive? If so, you need to move the entire iTunes folder to the F drive then start iTunes while holding down the shift key and guide it to the .itl file located on the F drive. The .itl file is key to everything. It contains the location of your media files. When you transferred them to the F drive and started iTunes using the .itl on the E drive it was still looking for them there. Right now it is looking for them "on the same drive as this, the .itl file".
If you really want to only relocate media to your F drive you have to let iTunes do it, not you. You do that by changing the location of the media drive in iTunes > Preferences > advanced and selecting to let iTunes "organize" your media to that location. Generally it is a better idea to keep the entire library intact in the iTunes folder and move the whole thing.
Okay. You're helping me a lot.
I've decided to keep everything iTunes wise on my E drive were they originally were located. This is where my .itl file is located and I've decided not to mess with it. However, I'm getting the ! file for most but not all the music that I haven't remapped.
Before we go further - can I simply get out of iTunes and start over by having iTunes find all my music and construct a new itl file? My problems may be the result of several activities:
I haven't been using iTunes to play my music and haven't looked at it until recently. That's when I got the missing files information. I'm thinking that it may be better to start a new iteration of iTunes rather than to try moving files and information around.
Will that work?
It depends upon what you actually put on the drive. A library is all the files and folders in the iTunes folder. This includes a .itl file which stores the information about all the music in your library and where those files are located. If it is kept as a package when moving you can start iTunes while holding down the option/alt key and show iTunes where the .itl with the information is kept. If you moved only media files to a new drive there are several options but I am not going to type in all this information until I know what you need. 🙂
Okay. First - Thank you for your quick reply.
My situation is somewhat complex and maybe I need to do things differently. First, I have my music in two different locations. Being a computer "hoarder" I was reluctant to erase my music library from it's original location E:/ drive until I was sure that it was safe on my F:/ drive. My C:/ boot drive is a small SSD that I reserve only for OS and programs. Data (which is what I consider my large music library) was stored on the E:/ drive until I purchased a second HDD.
After reading your post, I find that my 'iTunes Library.itl' file is still on the E:/ drive, which is likely part of my problem. I can leave it there if that is what will keep iTunes happy. That may be the best option. My original plan was to move everything to the F:/ drive. What I want to avoid is the hours necessary to remap every song. In fact, I'm finding that the remapping is also doing crazy things like sometimes all of the songs aren't found, and frequently the album artwork isn't found.
So what I really need is to know the simplest way to keep my music library intact following my failed effort to move things around.
In my impatience I have already remapped about 300 songs from the 3500 in my library (I underestimated in my first post). The 300+ songs are still on the E:/ drive. I only remapped their location to F:/. I did a search of the F:/ drive and there is no .itl file there.
So there you go. Do I need to re-remap the 300+ songs back to the E:/ drive? How should I proceed to get out of the mess I've got myself into? I'll be happy to try some suggestions or to provide additional information.
Thanks for your help.
Thanks to Limnos and Turingtest.
I decided a couple of days ago that I had spent too much time trying to repair my existing library. I decided to rebuild the library, ant that *mostly* works. Most of my music is MP3s that I ripped from CDs that I own. I placed the MP3s in a second HDD on my computer, then had iTunes build a music library from that. Then after purchasing a new computer with Windows 10 I moved the entire music folder to a third HDD. That's why iTunes couldn't find the files.
The reason that I'm still needing to work with my iTunes is that many - maybe 25% of my extensive library - the album artwork didn't transfer over. This likely is because I didn't import to iTunes from the original CD. I recall that I needed to find the album artwork online (usually Amazon -> "save image as"). luckily, I saved most of the JPEGS to a folder so I only need to associate the JPEG with the album using the iTunes *right click/get info/artwork/get artwork*.
The other and more perplexing issue is that many of the albums are compilations. Also, I have in some cases constructed my own compilation from various MP3s. Usually from a 2-disc set where I prefer to have a compilation of maybe 15 of the 40 songs. I know to check that box in the "get info" dialog but sometimes the individual songs in the compilation are not combined to one apparent album. Further, I tried holding the windows ctrl key and clicking many files thinking that clicking the "this is part of a compilation" box would combine them to one iTunes album. Not so. Worse yet, Now iTunes won't let me "un-click" or undo the attempt of un-combining the failed compilation. And the frustrating part of iTunes is that there is no "undo" command. It appears to me that I will need to delete the songs in the compilation and redo it to perform the desired effect.
Anyway - I appreciate your help. I've learned a lot. I'll continue to stumble through the process as time allows and hopefully will once again have a neatly organized .itl library together with album artwork.
Here are a couple of screenshots that may help. The first is a remapped album showing file info. The second is a un-remapped album showing ! and file infoinfo.
How do I re-map my iTunes library to a different HDD?
