I recently upgraded from 10.7.5 to 10.12.4. I want to restore the music from iTunes using a Time Machine backup.
When I tried to do this I got a message that iTunes could not be modified. Does this mean I have to physically
load all the music again from original sources?
iMac, macOS Sierra (10.12.1)
~/ is the convention for your user folder on a Mac. Music will be inside it. iTunes inside that. If I select my current iTunes folder in Finder and launch Time Machine it opens to the corresponding folder in the backup. Looking at the path shown at the bottom it reads Sierra > Users > steve > Music > iTunes, since the drive is called Sierra and my username is steve.
tt2
As long as iTunes isn't running you ought to be able to restore your iTunes library from backup into ~/Music/iTunes or another folder of your choice. You shouldn't be trying to restore the application. See Locate and organize your iTunes media files - Apple Support for details of where the library ought to be located within the backup.
tt2
You're welcome. 🙂
tt2
Thanks, but I still do not understand the exact process.
If I open Time Machine, I see all the different backups (dates). However, I do not see an option to
open a backup of iTunes to find the library. The only option appears to be restoring iTunes, which does not work.
The link is helpful for other purposes but not the task I am attempting to do, or I am just too dumb to see it.
t
Assuming you want last Friday's version of your library you select last Friday's date, browse to ~/Music, select the folder iTunes and click Restore, or right-click on the folder and user Restore to... to restore to a different path. This will restore the selected folder and all subfolders of the same. Isn't this what you want to do? What happens when you try?
tt2
What I have is backup folders for various dates. When I look within they seem to have differing components one from another. I have no idea how to "browse to ~/Music". Within the Library folder in the backups, there is nothing which says "music". Where do I find that?
What I want to do is to restore all the music from the iTunes backup to the new iTunes on my HDD.
When I open any iTunes folder in the backup Library, they are empty. Does that mean I lost everything?
Within the Library folder in the backups, there is nothing which says "music". Where do I find that?
What I want to do is to restore all the music from the iTunes backup to the new iTunes on my HDD.
When I open any iTunes folder in the backup Library, they are empty. Does that mean I lost everything?
I may have deleted the data. I thought that each backup was a full backup, but it now seems like Time Machine only backs up new changes from one backup to another. I deleted the oldest backups, thinking that I did not need them anymore. It's not a big deal since I have copies of the music. Just means a lot of time to put it back into iTunes.
I suspect that you have deleted the content you wanted to recover. Time Machine starts with an initial snapshot onto which it adds incremental backups. If I drill down into my backups and right-click on any item one of the options I have is "Delete all backups of X" so if you've deleted anything in there you have no doubt deleted it all. 😟
tt2
OK, thanks. Not a big loss. Just means time to put back, but it's not a huge library.
And now I understand about Time Machine.
Thanks for your help
Restoring iTunes Library with Time Machine
