How to restore date added

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How to restore date added

I was having issues with iTunes last winter and followed some advice on the internet somewhere to trash an iTunes file (I forget which one--it might've have been the .itl one) and have the database be rebuilt. Woe is me for that decision. I saved the file I was instructed to trash, so I could go back, but it was a while before I discovered things that didn't occur to me to check, and it was like my library had been vandalized. Aargh! Since then I have fixed most problems and added some 129 new things, so I don't want to just go back to a former state now. However, the date added field had been updated on my almost 5,000 songs, and I can't live with that. If I could access the actual database as a .csv, that would be wonderful. Does anyone know how to do that? Almost more importantly, how can I put it back together again so that iTunes will recognize it.

If putting it back together is too problematic, I'd be happy to take this opportunity to import the whole library into FileMaker Pro. But getting to the date added information is the most important thing right now. Thanks for any help.

David

iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, Late 2015), macOS Sierra (10.12.5), 16 GB 1867 MHz 3.1 GHz Core i5

Posted on May 26, 2017 7:24 PM

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Answer 1

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

May 28, 2017 2:41 PM in response to David Stafford1

iTunes doesn't provide a way to manipulate date added directly. You'd have to take each item in turn, backup any data that isn't captured in tags, which is typically ratings, play counts, and playlist membership, but can be almost everything for a .wav file, remove the item from the library, change the system clock to the value you want that track to have, import the item, restore all the saved data, reset the system clock and repeat. You also need to get access to an older version of your database in order to collect a list of file paths or other unique ids and the date values you want to restore, work out how to match the two together, and hope that playing with the system clock doesn't mess up any process such as Time Machine that runs on your computer.

See also Empty/corrupt iTunes library after upgrade/crash. You could go back to an older version of your database that has the old date added values, then add in any new media with today's date.

tt2

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