How to populate iTunes from My Music file

If you don't see your entire library after you update iTunes on your Mac or PC - Apple Support
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The "missing file" issue with exclamation marks 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, or you've moved a non-portable library to a different path (see Make a split library portable for details). 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, or when playing a track, 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, or the library has been moved from OS X to Windows, 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. It might need some tweaking if your media is in a non-standard layout.

If you want me to try to provide specific advice please post back the following details:

1. The location of the media folder under Edit > Preferences > Advanced
2. The location of a sample missing track shown under Get Info > File > Location that begins file://localhost/
3. The true path to the file whose details you gave in 2

Note the addition of file://localhost/ and the flipped direction of slashes (Windows only) is normal for a file that isn't quite where iTunes is expecting to find it.

tt2

more progress. i changed the name of the media folder location and it found most, but not all, of my music. perhaps i shouldn't have done that

- media folder location: c users username music iTunes

- location of sample missing track: localhost / c / users / username / music / iTunes / iTunes media / artist / album / song

- true path: here's the confusion. when doing a file explorer search, it says the song is in these locations (I can open each of the following with another media program and play the song):

...music artist album song AND

...music iTunes artist album song AND

...music iTunes subfolder artist album song

also, as of yet, iTunes doesn't display playlists, etc.

The correct path to the media folder should be C:\Users\<User>\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media

The active library file should be C:\Users\<User>\Music\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl

Artist folders should be inside C:\Users\<User>\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music

So a typical track is at C:\Users\<User>\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\<Artist>\<Album>\## <Name>.<Ext>

Other media types such as Podcasts get their own subfolders within iTunes Media.

You can enable the playlists sidebar with Ctrl+S.

tt2

thanks again. all items above have been moved/done.

iTunes doesn't see all my music, after moving a few files...is that a function of using the wrong library.itl file? neither does iTunes yet show my playlists (even by doing the Ctrl+S - it shows generic playlists, but not mine).

sure appreciate all your input on all of this!

Take a look at the sizes of the various library files again. Make sure the one that you want ends up in C:\Users\<User>\Music\iTunes , is called iTunes Library.itl (pay attention to whether or not the extension displays for you and don't add it if it doesn't) and then shift-start-iTunes to make sure that you're connecting to the correct file.

Do you still have the old computer if you need to redo the transfer? Or a device you could recover playlists from?

tt2

thanks. the Library in the correct iTunes folder is the largest Library file I have. there are a couple of other Library files i have that are of equal size, but smaller than the one in the iTunes folder. i've shift-started iTunes, found the largest Library file (in the correct folder) with the same result.

the Library files on an external drive, to which i'd backed up the music files before swapping in a new internal HD, are smaller library files as well.

i do have an iPod with all the music & playlists on it - an older unit (model #A1238).

I'm not sure why you're not seeing the playlists if you've picked up the original library database. 😕

There are methods for recovering playlists, play counts and ratings given in Recover media from an iPod, but first you need to fix any remaining broken links.

tt2

thanks again. i've fixed all the broken links that i could, but remain with 3 albums and a few songs that i cannot seem to find anywhere on the laptop. should i simply delete those songs from iTunes before attempting to recover from my iPod? or would the iPod potentially be able to restore that music?

thanks again for all your help. i'll try the iPod restore in a day or two.

If you sync with iTunes then anything on the device that isn't in the library is going to be removed. The recovery user tip isn't selective and extracts everything. If you only need to grab a few items from the iPod I'd try MediaMonkey.

tt2